Apple Drops Cryptic Teaser for Powerbeats Fit Earbuds
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After several years of silence for its highest-end workout earbuds, Apple’s Beats division came out running earlier this year when it released the Powerbeats Pro 2. Now, it appears that a successor to the standard Powerbeats is just around the corner.
While Beats released several new products in the intervening years, it seemingly left behind the iconic 2019 Powerbeats Pro and 2020 Powerbeats. In fact, the Powerbeats, released in March 2024 as an H1-powered refresh to the venerable Powerbeats3, were discontinued in November 2021 alongside the similarly short-lived Beats Solo on-ear headphones, which had debuted in October 2019, shortly before the original AirPods Pro arrived.
In retrospect, it appears that some of this may have stemmed from Beats’ decision to pivot away from Apple’s H-series chips in favor of its own in-house chip. The Powerbeats Pro, Beats Solo Pro, and 2020 Powerbeats were the first products to use Apple’s H1 chips, and it speaks volumes that two of these were rapidly discontinued, while the third was left to languish.
Beats released only two more sets of earbuds with Apple chips after that: the ultra-affordable Beats Flex, which arrived in late 2020 with the W1 chip used in the original 2016 AirPods, and the 2021 Beats Fit Pro, which would be the last Beats product to use an Apple chip until the Powerbeats Pro 2 surprised us earlier this year by packing in Apple’s latest H2 chip.
Now, Beats is teasing a new set of earbuds under the “Powerbeats” brand, but by the looks of things, the name may be all they have in common with their long-discontinued 2020 predecessors.
The video is quite literally the biggest tease we’ve seen in a while, as it tells us absolutely nothing about the new earbuds. It provides a general release window of “fall 2025,” and gives us a peek at the design, which has far more in common with the Beats Fit Pro than the Powerbeats3 or the 2020 Powerbeats, which were connected by a wire and featured ear hooks to hold them in place during vigorous workouts.
We’re well past the era of using a wire, but the ear hooks have long been a trademark of the Powerbeats line. Even the smaller Powerbeats Pro 2 still include them, so it seems odd to see a set of earbuds bearing the name “Powerbeats” that break this tradition.
Nevertheless, there may be a silver lining here. There must be some logic behind Beats’ choice of the name for this new set of earbuds, and the visual resemblance to the 2021 Beats Fit Pro suggests that it may be using the “Powerbeats” brand to properly separate its product lineup.
The Beats Fit Pro were released around the same time that Beats discontinued the 2020 Powerbeats, and were packed with the same H1 chip, making them arguably a direct replacement for those in all but the visual design. Beats replaced the ear hooks with a flexible wing-tip to hold them in your ears, which the company says was designed to ensure they stay in place during even the most strenuous workouts.
It’s also telling that the Beats Fit Pro were the last Beats earbuds to use the Apple H1 chip. The Beats Studio Buds, which had arrived a few months prior, utilized a new custom Beats chip that enabled broader compatibility with both Apple and Android devices. This became the norm for nearly every product from that point on — the Beats Studio Buds+, Beats Studio Pro, Beats Solo 4, and Beats Solo Buds — until the Powerbeats Pro 2 embraced the H2 chip.
This suggests the new Powerbeats Fit will continue the trend of using an Apple chip — at least an H1, but more likely an H2 — and effectively replace the 2021 Beats Fit Pro. Even the name suggests a nice melding of the classic product with the newer “Fit” variant, and the “Powerbeats” name may set itself apart as the earphones that are equipped with Apple H-series silicon and therefore designed to work best with the Apple ecosystem, while the other “Beats” headphones provide more universal compatibility with their custom-designed chips.
Although the teaser doesn’t tell us much, we can safely assume the Powerbeats Fit will include improved active noise cancellation (ANC), since not only was that a core feature of the Beats Fit Pro, but it’s even available on Apple’s AirPods 4. Along the same lines, we can expect Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, improved sound quality, and possibly even longer battery life.
The bigger question is what features Beats may add to the new earbuds. The Powerbeats Pro 2 beat Apple’s own AirPods to offer heart-rate tracking, and made it all but certain that we’ll see this feature on the AirPods Pro 3, which could launch alongside the iPhone 17 family during next month’s “Awe Dropping” Apple event. That makes it conceivably possible that Apple could also bring this feature to the Powerbeats Fit. It’s a long shot, but if that’s in the cards, it makes it even more likely that we’ll see the AirPods Pro 3 sooner rather than later.
