Dell enters the earbud market with kit you can control from the cloud
- Reference: 1758862157
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/26/dell_cloud_manageable_earbuds/
- Source link:
The new Dell Pro Plus Earbuds cost $229 – $20 more than Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3 and $50 more than Cupertino’s AirPods 4.
We mention those models because, like Dell’s offering, they include active noise cancellation, transparency mode, and adaptive audio that filters out just the right amount of noise so you’re not cut off from whatever’s going on in your environment. Dell’s buds also offer touch controls, come nestled into a charging case, and ship with four ear tips of different sizes. The buds connect over Bluetooth, and a USB-C “audio receiver” that nestles into the case and presumably into a PC, too. A companion app lets users set a personal sound profile.
[1]
But overall, these buds have a very familiar set of features that your correspondent – who regularly manages to lose earbuds – has all-too-often acquired from reputable brands for between $50 and $100. The buds are also physically unremarkable, as the image below illustrates.
[2]
Dell Pro Plus Earbuds - Click to enlarge
At this point, readers may wonder how Dell thinks it can get away with selling what look like deeply average earbuds at quite a high price.
The company has two aces up its sleeve.
[3]
[4]
One is the claim that the buds are the first to win the Microsoft Teams Open Office Certification, which the software giant awards to those who make audio devices that isolate users’ voices so that utterances made by others around an office don’t leak into a Teams call. The devices have also won Zoom’s seal of approval.
[5]Semiconductor industry could short out as copper runs dry
[6]Patch now: Millions of Dell PCs with Broadcom chips vulnerable to attack
[7]Dell scoffs at breach, says miscreants only stole ‘fake data’
[8]NTT claims it can stop the noise leaking from annoying people's headphones
The other is that buyers can use Dell’s cloud-based Device Management Console (DDMC) tool to configure the devices, update their firmware, and do what Dell calls “fleet oversight”.
Dell [9]says DDMC “revolutionizes peripheral management for IT Administrators.”
Which makes the Dell Pro Plus Earbuds more than just a high-priced alternative to letting your staff connect their own earbuds to their work PCs, but a cloud-manageable high-priced alternative. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aNZkKAvOs6IAlaXsZCc_fwAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/09/26/supplied_dell_pro_plus_earbuds_eb525.jpg
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aNZkKAvOs6IAlaXsZCc_fwAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aNZkKAvOs6IAlaXsZCc_fwAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/copper_supplies_climate_change/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/05/millions_of_dell_pc_with/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/21/dell_scoffs_at_breach/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/10/ntt_anti_noise_leak_headphones/
[9] https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-au/000315595/dell-device-management-console
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Yeah, sure
Why would they need to be cloud managed in the first place if everyone sets up their own volume, equaliser profile, and noise cancelling which suits them?
Sounds like something the corporate IT department from hell would use.
Re: Yeah, sure
> corporate IT department from hell
Are you prepared for your [1]daily download ?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbGpcAAIn7Y
How else
Can a hacker render thousands, or maybe even millions (if this product is successful) people deaf at once by commanding them to send the loudest possible sound it can generate bypassing any safety measure or volume limits users have configured?
Such a hack is pretty much inevitable (the loud sound part, though deafness is unlikely unless people are so shocked by the sound they won't immediately grab them out of their ears and toss them to the ground)
A tip for Dell
HP knew the kids would never find their brand cool so they made up the [1]HyperX brand for gaming accessories and the like. It also sounds very uncool, so perhaps the mission wasn't accomplished.
[1] https://hyperx.com/
Re: A tip for Dell
HP didn't even come up with the brand themselves, but bought it off Kingston a few years back.
Not sure about their products since the purchase but under Kingston the headsets were half decent and sounded pretty good.
As for this Dell offering, I'd be surprised if they weren't just something else with their logo slapped on and a significant markup because "cloud" (that selling point is soooo 2015).
I've had plenty of luck with a set of £25 Anker Soundcores that sound perfectly good.
Someone bought me a set of Raycons (yes, I know) as a present, and for what are more or less knockoffs they also work well enough.
Cloud services
It would not be the first. Sony also has settings saved to the cloud via the iPhone app for their earpods. Dell, however, has gone a step further, possibly with enterprise usage in mind. But still.
$229??
You can get a perfectly good set of earphones for 1% of that including shipping, and the manufacturer still makes a profit.
Some people really do have more far money than sense.
Dunno, the feature that filters out the voice of your colleagues in your office when they are talking at the same time as you makes sense. This is so bloody annoying! It's even worde if two of you are in teh same office, because you then first hear your colleague "live" and then with some time deay the same thing over the headphones. Or you hear people twice, because the automatic gain rips open the mic when that person is not talking to pick up the other one in the room talking.
Yes, the company I work for has pretty shite headsets, though the have indeed been much worse in the past.
Is this worth 229 USD? Like, without tax, so we are talking about more like 250 USD, which is a helluvalotta pints you can buy with that...
Shorted
Whenever I hear the name "Dell" the first thing that springs to mind is "Capacitor 27". That was the capacitor on the disk controller board that had to be shorted so that it would reboot correctly after a power down, otherwise it would just sit there blinking insolently.
Re: Shorted
When I hear "Dell" and "capacitors" I think of Optiplexes and capacitors quite capable of shorting themselves ...
Yeah, sure
Earbuds need The Cloud TM .