Beats has been out of the speaker business for a long time. Its last speaker, the Pill Plus, was discontinued in 2022 after being introduced years earlier. Since then, Beats’ parent company Apple has focused on home speakers like the HomePod and HomePod Mini, ceding the portable market to brands like Bose, Sony, JBL, Anker, and countless others. But now, after a less-than-subtle celebrity teaser campaign, the Beats Pill is making a comeback.
The 2024 reissue, on sale today for $149.99, has a familiar design. But inside, everything’s changed, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much the new Pill can do. At its core, you get a mono Bluetooth speaker. And while there are always compromises in sound quality at this compact size—it’s just physics—it’s the extras and bonus features that really set the refreshed Beats Pill apart from previous models.
This time, the Pill supports lossless audio playback over USB-C. You can use the same USB-C port to charge external devices, a convenience offered by many competitors. There’s a detachable lanyard that makes the Pill easy to carry, and the device is IP67 dust and water resistant. Battery life has doubled to a maximum of 24 hours, and Beats still offers hands-free calling.
Like all of the brand’s current headphones and earbuds, the Pill is designed to natively support both Android and iOS: on both platforms, you can use one-tap setup and Find My Device/Find My Device. There are no hands-free “Hey Siri” voice commands, and don’t expect AirPlay integration, either, but Beats has ticked off virtually every other feature I could want. As a result, the Pill feels like the most focused product in a long time.
The Pill comes in three colors – red, black or gold – with a metal grille and silicone encasing the rest of the speaker for added durability. The top controls are neatly laid out, with a power button on the left, a center button for track control and a volume control on the right. All of the buttons are easy to feel even when not looking at the Pill and have a very satisfying click. Inside the cabinet are a redesigned woofer and tweeter.
Beats’ marketing materials say that the racetrack-style woofer can displace 90 percent more air volume and has a more powerful motor compared to the Pill Plus, and that low-frequency distortion has been reduced. Both the woofer and tweeter are tilted upward by 20 percent, so sound reaches your ears more naturally when you place the Pill on a desk or table. While the Pill can’t output stereo like the Pill Plus, the actual components have been improved. If you want true stereo playback, you can wirelessly connect two Pills together. (Two can also be paired in regular mono listening mode if you want to use them in different rooms during a party.)
Typically, people use speakers like this for very casual, uncritical listening—whether it’s at home, traveling, or weekend trips to the beach. And in most of those scenarios, the Beats Pill sounds perfectly fine. Not all tracks handle the mono mixdown well, so occasionally you’ll come across a song that leaves you wanting more. It’s just not as immersive. But mono is the norm for many speakers of this size. And for the most part, I was happy with the Pill’s sound performance. It’s clear, can crank it up pretty loud, and is well-matched to today’s chart-toppers.
If you want the best audio fidelity this speaker can offer, you always have the option of connecting it via USB-C. I like the choice, even if it may seem overkill for this class of speaker. Whenever a USB-C cable is plugged in, the Pill determines whether to charge from that device (say, from a laptop) or power it (if it’s your phone). You can manually decide which way the charge goes by triple-tapping the power button. Double-pressing the button activates your phone’s selected voice assistant, giving you access to either Siri or Google Assistant; it’s just not hands-free like a HomePod or Nest Audio. I was happy with the Pill’s speakerphone functionality. Beats’ noise-canceling algorithm did an impressively good job of isolating my voice from background noise during calls.
There’s really not much to fault the revamped Beats Pill if you can overlook the mono output – and I think many people will have no problem with that. It works well and will hold up to any outdoor adventures you take it on. The battery lasts a long time and you get plenty of bonus features in addition to Bluetooth playback. If Beats were charging more than the $150 it asks for, I’d probably be less effusive in recommending it. But as it stands, there hardly seems to be any Apple/Beats tax at play here. The Pill is more than competitive for what you pay.
Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge