Microsoft Surface Earbuds will let you talk to Office and control Spotify

Microsoft has used its big fall product event to announce new Surface Earbuds, keeping stride with Apple’s AirPods and Amazon’s Echo Buds.

The wireless earbuds bring dictation software to the table, with Microsoft showing off integrations with its Office suite.

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The earbuds have a distinctive design, with a circular outward face and in-ear buds which Microsoft says should be comfortable to wear for long periods. The buds will come in a white model, though Microsoft didn’t reveal whether there will be other colors available.

Like Apple’s AirPods and other competitors, they come with a charging case that can help them deliver 24 hours of battery life, although it’s not yet clear how long they’ll last on a single charge.

The Surface Earbuds also have two microphones per earbud to allow for voice recognition, and Microsoft demonstrated how this can work with its Office programs to let you be productive with your voice. It used the Surface Earbuds to create real-time captions for a presentation on PowerPoint, and also claimed that these captions can be translated between any of 60 languages on the fly.

The earbuds apparently have filters to help with noise reduction and isolation, while their in-ear design should anyway put them ahead of the AirPods on that side of things.

Microsoft also detailed a system that should let you open Spotify and get listening to music exclusively through touch controls, without needing to access your phone. This will only work on Android, though, with no mention made of iOS functionality.

The Surface Earbuds will be priced at $249 and will release later this year.