Soundcore rolled out its new flagship Liberty 4 wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC) on Friday with some upgrades.
And one of those upgrades might get under Apple’s skin a little bit. That would be heart rate monitoring via an in-ear sensor, which has so far failed to materialize in Apple’s AirPods line despite persistent rumors.
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Soundcore Liberty 4 wireless ANC earbuds
Soundcore Liberty 4 earbuds feature a robust list of features. They come with ANC, which should be strong if the recently released Soundcore Space A40 earbuds are any example.
Liberty 4 also has spatial audio with head tracking and support for SBC and higher-res AAC and LDAC audio codecs, but not for the high-res aptX codec.
Soundcore promises high-quality sound through its ACAA 3.0 Coaxial Acoustic System issuing crisp audio through dual dynamic drivers.
And support for multiple connection switching should mean easy pairing among devices.
Like AirPods Pro 2, but with HR monitoring
Spatial audio and a stemmed design with ear tips make the new buds similar to AirPods Pro and AirPods Pro 2. But with Soundcore’s new buds, a sensor in the right earbud can track heart rate all the time or just during workouts if you prefer. The data goes to the Soundcore Wellness app to help you with exercise planning.
Heart rate monitoring was long-rumored to be coming in AirPods Pro 2, but those rumors cooled down prior to launch and failed to show up in the new earbuds. The feature is still expected, just not this year.
Battery life
Soundcore said Liberty 4’s battery gets 9 hours of use on a charge, but that goes down when you use premium features. Add ANC, and it’s 7 hours. Use LDAC and it’s six hours, even without ANC. And spatial audio brings it down to 5 hours.
The fully charged wireless charging case adds 28 hours of battery life, Soundcore said. It added that 15 minutes in the charged case gives buds 3 hours of playback.
The new buds come in black or white colors and include four sets of “CloudComfort” ear tips in different sizes.
Right now you can order Liberty 4 earbuds for $149.99 from Soundcore, an Anker subsidiary, or from Amazon.
