Microsoft’s Surface Earbuds will work with Siri, Cortana and Google Assistants

Microsoft launches Surface Earbuds that works with any virtual assistant, not just Cortana

Microsoft on Wednesday announced its wireless earbuds, the Surface Earbuds, that can work with any virtual digital assistant. This means that the Surface Earbuds can be paired and used with Cortana, Alexa, Bixby, Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri via Bluetooth 5.0’s connection with Windows 10, Android and iOS devices.

Surface Earbuds provide an ultra-comfortable and stable fit that offers intuitive touch and voice controls for music, calls and more with omnisonic sound. It comes with support for listening to music with Android/Spotify integration and allows access to playlists without touching the phone (for Android users).

Gesture controls allows users to play, pause, skip, swipe to return to a song or change the volume. “On Android, with a few simple taps, you can open Spotify, and it will start to play the right music for you at that moment. There’s no screen required,” said Microsoft’s Robin Seiler.

Microsoft claims the Surface Earbuds have “all-day comfort”, offer up to 24 hours of battery life and come with a charging case. Further, they offer up to eight hours of continuous playback on a single charge out of the case. The headphones can process both aptX and the SBC audio codecs.

The Surface Earbuds are compatible with Office 365 that allows Outlook calendar and email access with your voice. Further, the headphones allow for features like real-time captions during the presentation and even translate your speech into documents and PowerPoint presentations into one of more than 60 languages. You can also tap to advance a PowerPoint slide.

Surface Earbuds will be available later this year in a white and grey color variant for $249. Microsoft has also applied a trademark filing for Surface Audio, the companion app to the earbuds.