Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker Makes a Comeback With Improved Sound, Water Resistance, and a Lower Price Tag

Launched in 2012 before Beats was acquired by Apple, the original Beats Pill shook up the portable Bluetooth speaker category with fun colors and well-regarded sound quality. The speaker got an upgrade in 2015 with the launch of the Pill+ under Apple's ownership, but over time it appeared to become an afterthought for Beats compared to headphones and earphones, and the Pill+ was eventually discontinued in early 2022.


After several months of teasing, Beats is officially announcing the return of the Beats Pill today with a host of upgrades and a lower price point of $149.99. The new Pill features a completely redesigned speaker system consisting of a single tweeter and a single racetrack woofer, a removable lanyard, USB-C and Bluetooth connectivity, 24 hours of battery life, and IP67 water and sweat resistance.

Available in Matte Black, Champagne Gold, and Statement Red color options, the new Beats Pill features a soft-touch silicone housing with a metal speaker grille and a Beats "b" logo, with several subtle physical buttons along the top for on-device controls. The new removable lanyard slips easily around the wrist to help secure it while being carried or even to let the speaker dangle from, although it can't be tightened up for additional security.

beats pill 1
Compared to the previous Pill+, the reengineered single racetrack woofer in the Beats Pill uses stronger neodymium magnets to drive 28% more motor force, allowing the woofer to displace 90% more air volume, while radial ribbing around the edges minimizes low-end distortion. The new Pill also moves from dual tweeters to a redesigned single tweeter in its own housing for extra stability and to similarly reduce distortion. Both speakers are aligned to give the Pill a 20º inclined tilt, which provides better sound projection with less reflected sound.

If you have two Beats Pill speakers, you can pair them up in either Amplify Mode, which gives you bigger overall sound for larger spaces, or Stereo Mode, which separates the sound output into left and right channels sent to the different speakers.

beats pill 2
The Beats Pill can serve as a speakerphone for your connected devices, with a noise-learning algorithm that suppresses ambient sound to target the user's voice, and full duplex support helps ensure your conversations are intelligible to both sides. Voice assistant support for connected devices is also include, so you can activate Siri or Google Assistant with the press of a button.

USB-C comes to the Beats Pill for the first time, allowing for lossless audio over a wired connection, easy recharging, and the ability to charge other devices from the Pill's internal battery. The Pill itself has up to 24 hours of battery life, and a 10-minute Fast Fuel delivers up to two hours of playback. A black USB-C to USB-C cable is included in the box.

beats pill 3
The new Pill has four buttons along the top edge, a Power button, a Center button, and Volume Up/Down buttons. Each of the buttons serves multiple purposes, so you can control a fair amount of features without needing to dig into your iPhone. A press of the Power button turns the speaker on or off, while a brief tap lights up an adjacent LED for battery status, a double tap activates ‌Siri‌, and a triple tap reverses the charging direction when connected via USB-C. Pressing and holding the Power button while plugging the Pill in via USB-C activates wired audio input.

The Center button is for your usual media controls, with a single press playing or pausing your audio, a double press skipping forward, and a triple press skipping backward. The Center button is also used in combination with the Volume Up/Down buttons to configure the paired speaker modes. Holding the Center buttons on two speakers activates Amplify Mode, and holding Center and Volume Up on one of them then activates Stereo Mode with that speaker becoming the left channel. The same combination returns to Amplify Mode or holding Center and Volume Down can be used to break the speaker group entirely.

A proprietary chip platform from Beats offers seamless access across both Apple and Android platforms, with one-touch pairing, automatic setup across all devices connected to an iCloud or Google account, and support for Find My and ‌Find My‌ Device tracking based on the speaker's last connected location.

beats pill 4
The new Pill does have some heft, weighing in at 24 ounces (~680 grams), although that is 10% lighter than the Pill+. It measures a little over 8.5 inches (~22 cm) long by 2.8 inches (~7 cm) deep and high, just fractionally larger than the Pill+. It's certainly portable and you can easily toss it in a bag, but you're not going to want to carry it in your hand wherever you go.

The revamped Beats Pill is priced at $149.99 and is available to order today in all three colors, with shipping beginning this Thursday, June 27.

Tag: Beats

Popular Stories

iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

M5 Chip Achieves Impressive Feat in 14-Inch MacBook Pro Speed Test

Friday October 17, 2025 7:10 am PDT by
The first alleged benchmark result for the M5 chip in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro has surfaced, allowing for some performance comparisons. Based on a single unconfirmed result uploaded to the Geekbench 6 database today, the M5 chip has pulled off an impressive feat. Specifically, the chip achieved a score of 4,263 for single-core CPU performance, which is the highest single-core score that...

Top Rated Comments

AdonisSMU Avatar
17 months ago
JBL won that battle. Apple needs to redesign Beats and improve it to make it competitive. Right now it's dead weight.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JapanApple Avatar
17 months ago
No ty, I don't want. for that much LAUGHS
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mlrproducts Avatar
17 months ago
I bought a JBL flip 2 at garage sale the other day for $5. While not USB C, I just don’t see the value in these expensive BT speakers. They’ve become a commodity.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oneMadRssn Avatar
17 months ago
Decent price if the quality is there. But I find Bluetooth to be super annoying for speakers. Whenever you walk out of the room, you have to decide whether to leave your phone or take the speaker with you, so the audio doesn't cut out.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Fuzzball84 Avatar
17 months ago
Wasn’t really several months of teasing… it was more like several months of nonsense then getting certain celebrities to carry the device in public. Celebrities that most people, on this forum anyhow, weren’t impressed with. I’d wait for reviews instead of an endorsement from a celebrity with unknown expertise in portable audio. Let’s see what the reviewers have to say.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
machpost Avatar
17 months ago

Decent price if the quality is there. But I find Bluetooth to be super annoying for speakers. Whenever you walk out of the room, you have to decide whether to leave your phone or take the speaker with you, so the audio doesn't cut out.
My thoughts exactly! Sonos makes a really nice portable speaker with AirPlay 2, so I don't know why Apple doesn't do it too. I use an Airplay speaker on my balcony and it's so nice to be able to roam around the house without the audio dropping out. I suspect the sound quality is better as well.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)