The beans, we sort of liked them. The bean-like form of The Galaxy Buds Live made sense! But though it originally seemed like Samsung was on the joke, the company internally named them beans, and even printed the word on the circuitry, the next Samsung earbuds may take a different tack.
Today, Indonesia’s telecommunications certification authority has revealed that the company has a new “Galaxy Buds Pro” set of earbuds waiting in the wings (via MySmartPrice), and SamMobile may already have revealed what to expect: a source says they will be a set of sealed in-ear buds with the same design as the previous Galaxy Buds+, only now with “active noise cancellation and an improved Ambient mode” to let you hear more of your surroundings.
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Here’s where the Galaxy Buds Pro appear in Indonesia’s SDPPI database. Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
That makes a lot of sense because, to begin with, the bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live was an attempt to give a comfortable open-air fit, and they only suffered primarily because without providing an in-ear seal, Samsung could only offer so much audio quality (and noise cancellation). Theoretically, the Galaxy Buds Pro could be more effective at both, with an enhanced ambient mode enabling you to still get one of the advantages of open-air audio.
We’ll expect them to go head to head with Apple’s AirPods Pro, potentially alongside an upcoming Samsung Galaxy S21 slate of smartphones. We expect these to be revealed in January, so the buds are likely to arrive then as well. As MySmartPrice points out several separate regulatory bodies now seem to have been cleared, so they probably aren’t far off.