Anker’s Soundcore Liberty 4 earbuds can monitor your heart rate

Anker’s Soundcore audio brand has revealed yet more products. Among them are the Liberty 4 earbuds, which can track your heart rate. The heart rate sensor is in the right earbud, so you’ll need to wear that one to use the feature. When it’s measuring your blood oxygen levels, the earbud will emit a red light. Soundcore hasn’t disclosed the waterproof rating, which is odd given that heart-rate tracking functions are closely linked to workouts.

Soundcore says an algorithm can tune the spatial audio function depending on whether you’re watching a movie or listening to music. The earbuds offer dynamic head tracking too. Soundcore is using a gyroscope to ensure sound always surrounds you. In addition, Liberty 4 offers adaptive noise canceling (which automatically adjusts noise cancellation levels based on environmental audio) and personalized sound.

You’ll get up to nine hours of use on a single charge, Soundcore claims, and 28 hours in total before you need to top up the charging case’s battery. These figures drop to five and 15 hours with spatial audio on, and seven and 24 hours when ANC is enabled. That said, Soundcore says you’ll get up to three hours of use after charging for 15 minutes.

In addition, there’s multipoint connectivity, so you can pair Liberty 4 to your computer and phone at the same time over Bluetooth. The $150 earbuds come in white or black colorways. You can buy Liberty 4 direct from Soundcore now and other retailers in October.

Anker Sleep A10 earbuds
Soundcore

Soundcore has also unveiled new sleep earbuds. It says the Sleep A10 buds can block out up to 35dB of noise thanks to a four-point noise masking system.

Unlike Bose Sleepbuds 2, which only allow you to listen to sleep sounds from a certain app, you can play any audio through Sleep A10 via Bluetooth. Soundcore says its earbuds have dynamic drivers designed to deliver low-frequency sound that induces sleep. Crucially, the earbuds are seemingly comfortable for folks who sleep on their side. They have ear wings and twin seal ear tips to help keep them snug in your ears during the night.

Other features include sleep monitoring and a personal alarm clock. Anker claims the buds have a battery life of up to 10 hours, so they should be able to help wake you up in addition to lulling you to sleep. The Sleep A10 buds, which cost $69 less than Bose’s Sleepbuds 2, are available from Soundcore’s website for $180.

Anker Sleep A10 earbuds
Soundcore

Amazon announces Echo Studio and Echo Dot speakers with improved audio

Amazon has revealed new Echo speakers, although they don’t look much different on the outside. Once the centerpiece of the company’s Alexa lineup, Amazon didn’t debut a new “regular” model last year. In 2020, it unveiled a completely redesigned Echo with a spherical shape instead of its previous cylindrical construction. The “regular” Echo isn’t getting a tune-up this time around either. Instead, the company says it has improved the audio performance of both the high-end Echo Studio and the compact Echo Dot while keeping the same overall design for both.

The retooled Echo Studio comes with new spatial audio processing that improves on Amazon’s previous 3D sound technology. The company says we can expect better stereo sound with “greater, width, clarity and presence.” The frequency range also got an update with increased mid-range clarity and deeper bass. The company’s high-end speaker now comes in a white color option and the updated version will ship October 20th for $200. 

Echo Dot
Amazon

For the Echo Dot, which Amazon says is the world’s bestselling smart speaker, the company has improved the audio as well. Amazon explains that it redesigned the interior to fit a larger speaker while keeping the device the same size as the previous model. The new driver offers twice the bass and clearer vocals over the last Echo Dot, according to the company. Amazon has also updated the Echo Dot with Clock so that the display can show information like artists, song titles and snooze timers. New accelerometers and sensors should improve touch controls as well — on both models. The Echo Dot will be available for $50 while the clock version is $60, and both are available for pre-order today and shipping October 20th. There are also two new options for Echo Dot Kids — dragon and owl — that will be available for $60 when they ship October 20th. 

Amazon also announced today that it has packed Eero mesh WiFi tech in its speakers. This means that compatible Echo models can serve as range extenders, adding up to 1,000 square feet of internet coverage per device.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Skullcandy’s first gaming headsets in years include Tile tracking and a wireless model

Skullcandy hasn’t offered gaming headsets for the better part of a decade, but it’s willing to give them another go — and it’s eager to catch up in some respects. The brand has introduced revamped PLYR, SLYR and SLYR Pro headsets that promise budget-fr…

Major Audacity update makes it a much better audio production tool

Audacity is best known as a free app to do quick audio edits and record audio, but the latest update makes it more viable as a full on production tool, parent Muse Group has announced. Version 3.2 now supports non-destructive editing, real-time effects and enhanced VST3 support, along with user interface improvements and faster audio sharing via a new service, audio.com.

The most welcome addition is non-destructive audio capabilities that allow creators to adjust effects without the changes being permanently baked into the audio file. It also supports real-time playback of effects and crossfades as you adjust them, allowing for more accurate edits while listening to audio. That compares to previous versions, which required that you render the effect before you could hear it.

The company has completely rewritten the code base for VST plugins to improve stability and reliability, while adding improved support for VST3. It also addressed concerns about what we’ve called its “ugly and a bit archaic” user interface. And it now offers a “clearer and more consistent set of visuals” in the top bar for editing, with a new “Audio Setup” option that makes it easier to change input, mic and output settings. 

Finally, the new audio.com site lets you easily share audio files by sending a link rather than the entire file. You can share files either publicly or privately, or use your account for cloud storage. (Muse Group recently updated its privacy policy, promising it wouldn’t sell any of the “very limited” data it collects from users.) The new version of the app is now available as a free download. 

Apple AirPods Pro review (2nd-gen): Big improvements, all on the inside

Three years ago, Apple finally gave the people what they wanted: active noise cancellation (ANC) in a set of AirPods. That first-generation model retained the overall look of the company’s classic earbuds, but added an ear tip for noise isolation along…

SteelSeries Arena 9 review: Bringing 5.1 surround sound back to gaming PCs

Once upon a time, desktop computer speakers actually mattered. That was more than a decade ago, long before gaming headsets filled the land and wireless Bluetooth headphones were any good. In the early 2000’s, more people also had actual desktops compu…

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II review: Blocking out the world

Bose is no stranger to true wireless earbuds. The company’s first model debuted in 2017 and it has refined its take on the product segment multiple times in the years since. Bose made a big leap in 2020 with the QuietComfort Earbuds, bringing its activ…

The Sub Mini is a much smaller and cheaper way to add bass to your Sonos system

Sonos has long offered a wireless subwoofer as part of its home theater, a large and powerful product that also costs a whopping $749. For anyone with a smaller room, or a smaller budget, it was a bit of a stretch. Sonos is giving bass-lovers a new option today: the rumored Sub Mini is real — and at $429, it costs a lot less than its bigger sibling. 

The Sub Mini is a cylindrical speaker with a “center tunnel” cutout to move air around. It’s a foot tall and about 9 inches in diameter; at 14 pounds, it’s not exactly light, but that’s more than 20 pounds lighter than the Sonos Sub. It’s compatible with any amplified Sonos speaker aside from portable products like the Move and Roam, which means you can pair it with audio speakers like the Sonos One or Five as well as home theater soundbar like the Beam and Ray. (Sonos recommends pairing its high-end Arc soundbar with the full-sized Sub, but there’s no technical reason you can’t use it alongside the Sub Mini.)

Along with that center tunnel, the Sub Mini includes two 6-inch, force-cancelling woofers and two class-D digital amplifiers, along with a 5GHz wireless connection and a 10/100 ethernet port if you prefer to hardwire your speakers. As with all Sonos products, you set up the Sub Mini through the Sonos mobile app — from there, you’ll tell it which room the sub is in and pair it to a soundbar or speaker set. 

As with other Sonos speakers, you can tune the Sub Mini once it’s set up to properly balance your system’s sound using Trueplay. You’ll need a compatible iOS device to use Trueplay, as it uses the device’s microphone to listen to the room and optimize audio quality based on the acoustics of your room. My experience with Trueplay has always been positive, so this is a step worth taking if you have an iPhone or iPad. 

The Sonos Sub comes in black or white and is up for preorder today and will be widely available on October 6th. As with any speaker, we’ll need to hear this one before we can recommend it, but it’s good that Sonos finally has a more affordable option for improving bass from its products. It should also be appreciated by anyone with a smaller room or setup — I’ve long wanted a little more bass from my pair of Sonos One speakers, for example, but the bigger Sub would be massive overkill. The Sub Mini, on the other hand, could be just right.