Released in 2012, before Beats was acquired by Apple, the original Beats Pill shook up the portable Bluetooth speaker category with fun colors and well-regarded sound quality. The speaker received an upgrade in 2015 with the launch of the Apple-owned Pill+, but over time it seems to have become an afterthought for Beats compared to headphones, and the Pill+ was eventually discontinued in early 2022.
After several months of teasing, Beats is officially announcing the return of the Beats Pill today with a slew of upgrades and a lower price of $149.99. The new Pill features a completely redesigned speaker system, consisting of one tweeter and one race track speaker, detachable connection, USB-C and Bluetooth connectivity, 24 hours of battery life and IP67 water and sweat resistance.
Available in Matte Black, Champagne Gold and Statement Red color options, the new Beats Pill features a soft-touch silicone casing with a metal speaker grill and the Beats “b” logo, with a few subtle physical buttons at the top for on-device controls. The new removable cord slides easily around the wrist to secure it while wearing or even let the speaker hang from it, although it can’t be tightened for added security.
Compared to the previous Pill+, the updated single racetrack speaker in the Beats Pill uses stronger neodymium magnets to drive 28% more motor power, allowing the speaker to displace 90% more air volume, while radial fins around the edges minimize distortion in the low class. The new Pill also goes from dual tweeters to a redesigned single tweeter in its own enclosure for added stability and a similar reduction in distortion. Both speakers are aligned to give the Pill a 20º tilt, which provides better sound projection with less reflected sound.
If you have two Beats Pill speakers, you can pair them either in boost mode, which gives you a louder overall sound for larger spaces, or in stereo mode, which splits the output sound into left and right channels sent to the different speakers .
Beats Pill can serve as a speakerphone for your connected devices with a noise-learning algorithm that suppresses ambient sound to target the user’s voice, and full duplex support helps ensure your conversations are intelligible to both parties. Voice assistant support for connected devices is also included, so you can activate Siri or Google Assistant with the push of a button.
USB-C comes to the Beats Pill for the first time, enabling lossless audio over a wired connection, easy recharging, and the ability to charge other devices from the Pill’s internal battery. The pill itself has up to 24 hours of battery life, and a 10-minute Fast Fuel provides up to two hours of playback. A black USB-C to USB-C cable is included in the box.
The new pill has four buttons along the top edge, a power button, a center button and volume up/down buttons. Each of the buttons serves multiple purposes, so you can control quite a few functions without having to dig into your iPhone. Pressing the power button turns the speaker on or off, while a short tap lights up an adjacent battery status LED, a double tap activates Siri, and a triple tap reverses the charging direction when connected via USB-C. Pressing and holding the power button while plugging in the Pill via USB-C activates a wired audio input.
The center button is for your usual multimedia controls, with a single press to play or pause your audio, a double press to skip forward, and a triple press to skip back. The center button is also used in combination with the volume up/down buttons to configure the paired speaker modes. Holding the center buttons on two speakers activates gain mode, and holding the center button and increasing the volume on one of them then activates stereo mode, with that speaker becoming the left channel. The same combination returns to boost or center hold mode, and volume down can be used to cut the speaker group completely.
A proprietary chip platform from Beats offers seamless access across both Apple and Android platforms, with one-touch pairing, automatic setup on all devices connected to an iCloud or Google account, and support for Find My and Find My tracking Device based on the speaker’s last connected location.
The new pill has some heft to it, weighing in at 24 ounces (~680 grams), though that’s 10% lighter than the Pill+. It measures just over 8.5 inches (~22 cm) long and 2.8 inches (~7 cm) deep and tall, slightly 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 in your hand wherever you go.
The updated Beats Pill is priced at $149.99 and is available to order today in all three colors, with shipping beginning this Thursday, June 27.
