Anker Debuts Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Earbuds With Its Thus AI Chip

After the initial presentation of its Thus AI chip, Anker announced the first headphones featuring the component during its Anker Day event. The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max both use the chip for what the company calls Whisper Clear voice performance. Sure, the usual earbud features are here – active noise cancellation (ANC), voice controls, and personalized sound – but unique tools are also available on these models. These include an AI Note-Taker on the Liberty 5 Pro Max and touchscreen charging cases for both.

Let’s start with what the chip does So on both sets of Liberty 5 Pro earbuds. Silicon is used alongside eight microphones and two bone conduction sensors to ensure optimal voice performance in noisy locations. Also using an AI model, the system separates the speaker’s voice from the background noise so that it is clearly heard on the other end of the line. Anker claims that bone conduction sensors allow the setup to capture the user’s voice at lower volumes, provided they are in “moderately quieter settings.” The Thus chip also powers voice commands, offering 20 options for various commands and tasks, with Anker claiming a response time of less than a second.

Both the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max feature Soundcore’s Adaptive ANC 4.0 which uses these eight mics to process audio data up to 384,000 times per second. This action continuously monitors both external noise and any sound that may enter the ear canal before adjusting the ANC in real time. Anker claims its noise cancellation algorithm can combat a wide range of noises, including human voices. Additionally, the company claims that the ANC performance of its new headphones is up to 2x better than that of the Liberty 4 Pro.

Anker

To personalize the sound to suit your ears, both sets of earbuds offer HearID 5.0. This feature creates a custom equalizer based on a brief hearing test. With AI sound enhancement, the headphones provide audio restoration that can recover up to 65% of the “quality” typically lost due to Bluetooth compression.

In terms of battery life, the Liberty 5 Pro and Pro Max will last up to 6.5 hours on a charge with ANC enabled. Taking load cases into account, the total usage time is 28 hours for each model. Multipoint Bluetooth connectivity is also built in, as is Bluetooth 6.1, Apple Find My, and Google Fast Pair compatibility. Additionally, both sets of earbuds are IP55 rated for dust and water resistance.

There is one main area where the two new models differ: their smart cases. The Liberty 5 Pro case has a 0.96-inch TFT touchscreen on its front edge while the Liberty 5 Pro Max case has a much larger 1.78-inch AMOLED display. The Pro Max is also equipped with an AI Note-Taker capable of generating transcriptions, including speaker and action identification, after meetings in the Soundcore app. This feature isn’t available on the Liberty 5 Pro, but Anker offers AI-based translation on both models. Translation is available on the earbuds with the Liberty 5 Pro, and it’s available on both the earbuds and the case with the Liberty 5 Pro Max.

The Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max are available today for $170 and $230 respectively. The Liberty 5 Pro is available in black, blue, pink and white while the Pro Max will be available in black or gold.