At Google’s second annual fall hardware gala, the company announced it’s first-ever set of headphones- Google Pixel Buds. They’re wireless earbuds, connected by a rope-like cable that goes behind your head or around your neck. They’ll cost $159 (Approx. Rs 10000) when they go on sale in November. Something travelers would love to own.
Using a touch-sensitive control on the right bud, you can tap to play or pause your music, swipe forward and back to change volume, or long-press to talk to Google Assistant. Their battery lasts five hours, and the charging case holds four charges. And yet even with all those electronics, the Pixel Buds sit remarkably light in my ears. They stick out a bit, but no more than your average wireless earbud.
The Google Pixel Buds can read your notifications aloud, check and send messages, and the like. But since these are Google-made headphones, they’re more integrated with Android than anything else on the market. These are Google-made headphones; they’re more integrated with Android than anything else on the market.
If you get a Google Pixel Buds, the integration goes even further. You can say “help me speak French,” and start speaking and listening through Google Translate- making interaction possible for the travelers with natives of other countries (but the catch is that both the person should use Pixel 2 smartphones- hope Google sort this out and make Pixel Buds available for all Android smartphones). The Pixel Buds will use Google Translate to comprehend conversations in 40 different languages. This is a unique feature that only a company like Google could integrate into wireless earbuds, thanks to the existing Google Translate data and infrastructure.
Google’s wireless headphones are at once a validation of the idea—headphones you can wear all day, connect easily, and offer constant access to virtual assistants.
