It was only a few months ago in January that we said the first Wi-Fi-connected earbuds would probably launch before the end of the year at the latest, but likely sooner.
Xiaomi announced its Buds 5 Pro alongside the Xiaomi 15 Ultra in China on Thursday, 27 February. Unsurprisingly, the latter stole the limelight with its impressive camera tech.
But since visiting Xiaomi’s rather large MWC booth this week in Barcelona, we know that the Buds 5 Pro are also launching in Europe, so there’s a small glimmer of hope they might make their way to South Africa, although we’re not holding our breath.
Xiaomi what it can do
While they’re available in two flavours: Bluetooth only, and Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, it’s the latter that is most interesting. They ship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S7+ Gen 1 sound platform which uses what the chipmaker calls XPAN (Expanded Personal Arena Network) technology.
This means that when they share a Wi-Fi connection with your smartphone, they can support a throughput of 4.2Mbps (megabits per second) to deliver 96kHz/24bit lossless audio – vastly superior to what Bluetooth can currently offer.
Unfortunately, in this case, there is another caveat that’s keeping us from getting too excited. These particular buds are only compatible with Xiaomi’s Snapdragon 8 Elite-equipped 15 Ultra for the moment. Xiaomi says that more devices will be supported later down the road via over-the-air updates, but it didn’t say which devices those would be or if other manufacturers’ devices would be supported.
Read More: The Xiaomi 15 Ultra crams a 200MP 100mm telephoto lens into a premium smartphone body
Either way, the tech Xiaomi has produced is still impressive – even if we ignore the new Wi-Fi capabilities. Both the Bluetooth-only and Wi-Fi versions incorporate three different drivers: an 11mm dual-magnet driver for the low-end, a ceramic tweeter for “delicate mids”, and a planar driver for “crystal-clear highs”. They also support active noise cancelling and a few interesting AI features.
All this means that, if the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro do end up heading to South Africa, they’ll likely tip the scales on the premium end. The Wi-Fi-enabled buds go for $240 in the US, or around R4,460 converted, while the Bluetooth-only buds fetch $200 (R3,720).
But whether the buds will be available in SA or not isn’t the point. The point is that there is now a solid, real-world example of Qualcomm’s new tech, so it’s only a matter of time before others come to the party.
