Bang & Olufsen Announces Its Own Wireless Earbuds, The Beoplay E8

Bang & Olufsen has announced its own pair wireless earbuds called the Beoplay E8. The new wireless earbuds will be available on Oct. 12 for $299.

B&O’s Beoplay E8 looks very similar to the Bragi Dash and Samsung’s Gear Icon X, and it also comes with its own leather charging case. However, with the device’s price point, it appears as though B&O is trying to compete with Apple’s AirPods, which sells for $159.

The Beoplay E8 can offer up to four hours of music playback on a single charge, while its leather charging case will be able to provide two full charges. Like the Apple AirPods, the Beoplay E8 also features touch controls, accoridng to MacRumors.

Each earbud supports touch controls, and users can assign different commands for each, accoridng to Slash Gear. For example, single tap on the right Beoplay E8 earbud could play a song, while a single tap on the left be for pause. Users can also tap and hold, or perform double or triple taps for other functions. The Beoplay E8 is also supports voice commands for digital assistant like Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant.

“In most everyday situations, using the intuitive touch control on E8 earphones is both safer and easier than taking your phone out of your pocket,” B&O said on its website. “And because you can use a combination of gestures on both sides, you’ll be amazed how many features you have at your fingertips.”

Users can also enable the new transparency mode with the touch controls. The transparency mode lets users adjust how much ambient sound they can hear while listening to their music. This could be quite useful when users want to hear what’s going around them or simply want to drown out any noise besides the music their listening to.

There’s actually three levels available with the transparency mode, which can be selected by tapping on the Beoplay E8. The wireless earbuds also have a companion Beoplay smartphone app, where the transparency mode can also be activated.

The companion app, which is available for iOS and Android devices, also comes with Bang & Olufsen's ToneTouch system, which allows users to fine tune their audio with an equalizer. The ToneTouch System also comes with a list of different audio presets, so users can simply just select one of those instead of adjusting the audio themselves.

“E8 is a breakthrough in size and performance from a technical point of view, but is also tuned with unprecedented precision and love for how music should be experienced,” the company said. “E8 is tuned by the same audio engineers that tune all other B&O PLAY and Bang & Olufsen products - and we’re sure you’ll feel (and hear) our love for music instantly.”

The Beoplay E8 comes with a 5.7mm electro-dynamic speaker with 16 Ohm impedance and a 20-10,000 Hz frequency range, according to Engadget. B&O already has a reputation on delivering fantastic audio quality, so perhaps the Beoplay E8 won’t disappoint.

The problem now is the Beoplay E8’s $199 price tag, which is way more than Apple’s $159 AirPods. That said, the AirPods also offer a longer battery life of up to five hours of listening time, and can be paired with Apple’s MacBooks.

It’s possible that B&O is targeting more serious audiophiles that may be looking more at better sound quality. Still, the $199 price tag might not seem so attractive to majority of consumers.