Powerbeats Pro 'Unleashed' spot highlights sporting potential of wireless earphones

Apple is promoting the Beats by Dre Powerbeats Pro with a new commercial on YouTube, using an array of celebrity athletes to show how the wireless earphones can be used without fear of being lost while working out or performing intensive activities.

Launched on April 3, the Powerbeats Pro are $249 wireless earphones under the Beats brand that offer practically everything that Apple's AirPods provide, but in a more fitness-friendly packaging. In its latest YouTube video for the Beats by Dre channel, Apple takes time to highlight just how suited to activity the audio accessories really are, due to how they hook around the ear.

Accompanied by Beck's "Saw Lightning," the minute-long video features a number of famous sports stars and athletes wearing Powerbeats Pro while working out. The video starts off with gymnastics, before moving through other sports including skateboarding, soccer, rock climbing, sprinting, and boxing, with the earphones staying in the center of the frame throughout most of the high-speed action.

The list of stars, as spelled out by Beats, and in order of appearance includes Simone Biles, Antony Joshua, Serena Williams, Lebron James, Eden Hazard, Owen Farrell, Ramla Ali, Zoe Smith, Ben Simmons, Odell Beckham Jr., Kevin Rolland, Leticia Bufoni, Miho Nonaka, Shaun White, Alex Morgan, Ruddy Trobillant, and Jasmine Perry.

Using the same H1 chip used in the AirPods, the Powerbeats Pro are claimed to offer superior cross-body Bluetooth connectivity and support for "Hey Siri" vocal prompts. Wearers can enjoy up to nine hours of usage per earbud, with more than 24 hours of combined playback using the built-in battery of the magnetic closure case, and a "Fast Fuel" facility can allow up to an hour and a half of charge to be accumulated in the earbuds after just five minutes of charging. .

Beats will be shipping Powerbeats Pro in the United States and 20 other countries in May for $249.95 in a choice of Black, Ivory, Moss, and Navy color options.

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13 Comments

tht 5592 comments · 23 Years

About 5 years ago

Some nice image stabilization, artifact centering and focusing in the video. Some of the videos may have been radially blurred on purpose?

Didn’t see anybody wear glasses and the PowerBeats Pros though. ;) I may get a pair for the spouse though.

bonobob 394 comments · 13 Years

tht said:

Some nice image stabilization, artifact centering and focusing in the video. Some of the videos may have been radially blurred on purpose?

Didn’t even anybody wear glasses and the PowerBeats Pros though. ;) I may get a pair for the spouse though.

Wearing glasses with Powerbeats3 is a non-issue. I assume it will be the same with these.

bonobob said:

tht said:

Some nice image stabilization, artifact centering and focusing in the video. Some of the videos may have been radially blurred on purpose?

Didn’t [see] anybody wear glasses and the PowerBeats Pros though. ;) I may get a pair for the spouse though.

Wearing glasses with Powerbeats3 is a non-issue. I assume it will be the same with these.

It’s a non-issue for you or perhaps someone you know. It’s an issue for me. All the headphones have their pluses and minuses in terms of comfort for me. The ear hooks going around my ears can become intolerable versus in-ear or ear bud models. On-ear models heat my ears up too much. Around-the-ear can get pretty sweaty too.

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

tht said:

Some nice image stabilization, artifact centering and focusing in the video. Some of the videos may have been radially blurred on purpose?

Didn’t see anybody wear glasses and the PowerBeats Pros though. ;) I may get a pair for the spouse though.

The blurring is a by-product of footage shot at a normal speed (likely 29.97 or 30 FPS) instead of high-speed footage (such as 60 or 120 FPS). They should’ve shot it at a higher speed to rid the images of excess blurring. Also, it’s not image stabilization, it’s tracking. If they had tracked the Beats product AND had sufficiently high-speed imagery, there would be almost no blurring.

SpamSandwich said:

tht said:

Some nice image stabilization, artifact centering and focusing in the video. Some of the videos may have been radially blurred on purpose?

Didn’t see anybody wear glasses and the PowerBeats Pros though. ;) I may get a pair for the spouse though.

The blurring is a by-product of footage shot at a normal speed (likely 29.97 or 30 FPS) instead of high-speed footage (such as 60 or 120 FPS). They should’ve shot it at a higher speed to rid the images of excess blurring. Also, it’s not image stabilization, it’s tracking. If they had tracked the Beats product AND had sufficiently high-speed imagery, there would be almost no blurring.

I almost asked if they used iPhones to film all the video, but probably not.