The original Beats Pill, launched in 2012 before Beats was acquired by Apple, shook up the portable Bluetooth speaker category with fun colors and well-regarded sound quality. The speaker got an upgrade in 2015 with the launch of the Pill+ under Apple ownership, but over time it seemed to become an afterthought for Beats compared to headphones and earbuds, and the Pill+ was ultimately discontinued in early 2022.
After months of teasing, Beats is today officially announcing the return of the Beats Pill, packing a host of upgrades and a lower price of $149.99. The new Pill features a completely redesigned speaker system consisting of a single tweeter and a single racetrack woofer, a detachable lanyard, USB-C and Bluetooth connectivity, a 24-hour battery life, and IP67 water and sweat resistance.
Available in matte black, champagne gold and statement red, the new Beats Pill features a soft-touch silicone casing with a metal speaker grille and a Beats ‘b’ logo, with several subtle physical buttons on the top for operating on-device controls. The new removable cord slips easily around the wrist to secure it while wearing or even let the speaker dangle, although it cannot be tightened for added security.
Compared to the previous Pill+, the redesigned single racetrack woofer in the Beats Pill uses stronger neodymium magnets to drive 28% more motor force, allowing the woofer to displace 90% more air volume, while radial ribbing around the edges minimizes low-end distortion . The new Pill also moves from dual tweeters to a redesigned single tweeter in its own housing for added stability and to similarly reduce distortion. Both speakers are aligned to give the Pill a 20-degree tilt, providing better sound projection with less reflected sound.
If you have two Beats Pill speakers, you can pair them in Amplify mode, which gives you a bigger overall sound for larger rooms, or in Stereo mode, which separates the sound output into left and right channels that go to the different speakers are sent.
The Beats Pill can serve as a speakerphone for your connected devices, with a noise-learning algorithm that cancels ambient noise to focus on the user’s voice, and full-duplex support ensures your conversations are mutually intelligible. Voice assistant support for connected devices is also included, allowing you to activate Siri or Google Assistant with a single button press.
USB-C is available for the first time in the Beats Pill, allowing lossless audio over a wired connection, easy charging, and the ability to charge other devices via the Pill’s internal battery. The pill itself has a battery life of up to 24 hours, and a 10-minute Fast Fuel provides up to two hours of playback time. A black USB-C to USB-C cable is included in the box.
The new Pill has four buttons along its top edge, a power button, a center button, and volume up/down buttons. Each of the buttons has multiple functions, so you can control a fair number of functions without having to dig into your iPhone. Pressing the power button toggles the speaker on and off, while a short tap lights up an adjacent LED for battery status, a double-tap activates Siri and a triple-tap reverses the charging direction when connected via USB-C. Holding the power button while connecting the Pill via USB-C will activate wired audio input.
The Center button is for your usual media controls, one press lets you play or pause your audio, two presses skip forward and three presses skip backwards. The Center button is also used in combination with the Volume Up/Down buttons to configure the associated speaker modes. Holding down the Center buttons on two speakers activates Amplify mode, and holding down Center and Volume Up on either speaker activates Stereo mode, with that speaker becoming the left channel. The same combination returns to Amplify mode or by pressing and holding Center and Volume Down you can disconnect the speaker group completely.
A proprietary Beats chip platform provides seamless access across both Apple and Android platforms, with one-touch pairing, automatic installation on all devices connected to an iCloud or Google account, and support for Find My and Find My device based on the speaker’s latest data. connected location.
The new Pill is a bit hefty, tipping the scales at just 24 ounces (~680 grams), though that’s 10% lighter than the Pill+. It’s just over 8.6 inches long and 2.8 inches deep and tall, just a fraction larger than the Pill+. It’s certainly portable, and you can easily throw it in a bag, but you won’t want to carry it around in your hand everywhere you go.
The updated Beats Pill retails for $149.99 and can be ordered today in all three colors, with shipping starting Thursday, June 27.