“I could still hear my own voice in the drone,” said Devin, who tested the new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds in a subway car. The test was no accident; Anker had just launched the first Soundcore Liberty Pro with its new Thus AI audio chip.
That chip sits inside the earbuds and looks after two things most users wrestle with: cramping background noise and blue‑lipped calls that sound patchy. The design is simple, but the outcome feels different. The larger touchscreen on the earbuds gives you more buttons at once, and you can tap or swipe to lock the noise‑removal setting without pulling out your phone.
Noise reduction is less aggressive than it sounds. It peels away hiss from a coffee shop and the chatter of a conference, but it still lets you hear rustle of paper and faint snippets of conversation. That means you can record a meeting in a cluttered room and get a clean record in your headset, all from the earbuds alone. The speaker says you can push “record” and it will start saving the audio inside the charging case.
The Max version adds a twist: AI‑powered note‑taking that works from the charging case. When you stop talking, the earbuds pause themselves, waiting for you to pull the case open. That opening cues the earbuds to transcribe what you said, so you see a written record appear in the app on your phone. The idea loads the earbuds with an extra tool that usually costs a subscription to a separate service.
The price? $169.99. The same price for a rechargeable case that now shows a tiny screen, and an extra tier of AI. The market has been playing a game of catch‑up since the 2024 Liberty Pro, but this time Anker didn't just add new colors or a faster charging port. They added a human‑like ear that learns from your voice‑environment mapping.
The implications are thin and thick alike. On one hand, Anker is putting a significant level of AI into a mid‑range product that many people buy for routine listening. On the other, other brands puzzle over how to keep AI sensible in the same price bracket. The struggle is not so much about what the earbuds can do, but how much it costs to make the technology feel natural.
Will the next generation of earbuds see AI as the standard, or will cost hold them back? Imagine a world where your headphones can read your minds on traffic and your mind doesn’t have a chance to miss a beat.
