Better than Apple AirPods? Mobvoi’s TicPods 2 Pro are cheaper, have the same features and respond to head movements
The AirPods may have set the trend, but now there’s a plethora of competitors serving up stylish earbuds with similar features – and cheaper price tags
In the years since Apple's AirPods debuted in 2016, dozens of competitors have surfaced – some made by tech giants like Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft, and others developed by lesser-known accessory makers.
CES, the massive technology conference that happens every year in Las Vegas, is full of headphones like these. Mobvoi's US$99 TicPods 2 and US$140 TicPods 2 Pro, which were announced at the show and launched on January 15, are yet another such example. The new TicPods and other AirPods alternatives that dominated the showroom floor at CES further suggests that a growing number of companies are hoping to challenge Apple's dominance in the wireless earbuds industry.
But the new TicPods 2 Pro do have one feature that sets them apart from AirPods and many other alternatives: you can control them just by shaking or nodding your head. If you receive an incoming call when wearing the earbuds, for example, you can nod to answer to shake your head to decline it.
Both earbuds also have two of the features that make Apple's AirPods feel so convenient: a case that easily pairs the buds with your mobile device when opened and sensors that can detect when the headphones are in your ears. That means they can also play and pause audio accordingly when the earbuds are removed or inserted into the ear, just like AirPods.
The TicPods 2 Pro are compatible with whichever smart assistant you typically use on your phone, but they can also respond to some basic voice commands even without uttering a wake word. I tried this during my brief time checking out the TicPods 2 Pro at CES, and they responded to my request to pause music without saying the “Hey Tico” trigger word even on the crowded show floor.
While it’s impressive that the earbuds were able to react to my voice commands so quickly with so much interfering noise, it's unclear how comfortable most people would be with this capability given the growing concerns about privacy.
Many of the TicPods 2 more unique features are reserved for the Pro model, such as the head gesture detection, compatibility with voice assistants, and voice recognition, while the standard model has touch controls.
A booming category