Sennheiser has announced a new set of wireless earbuds known as the Sennheiser TV Clear. They’re designed for folks who want to listen to their TV using headphones, but don’t want to have to buy a separate set for when they’re listening to music or taking calls on their phone. The TV Clear can do both, jumping back-and-forth with relative ease. They’ll sell for $400 when they’re released later this summer.
There are plenty of times when you might want to listen to your TV’s audio privately, so that you don’t disturb others, or perhaps so you can finally hear dialogue clearly without ramping up the volume to movie theater-like levels. But, as Digital Trends’ own Andy Boxall recently discovered, there are not plenty of good options for doing so.
The TV Clear attempt to solve this problem by shipping with their own dedicated wireless transmitter. You connect the transmitter to your TV’s audio output, and it creates a very low-latency wireless link with the earbuds. That solves a big problem that folks commonly run into when connecting regular Bluetooth headphones and their TVs: Lip-sync issues caused by wireless lag.
There are five speech clarity levels, providing up to 20 decisbels of high-frequency amplification, which should help with dialoueg. You can also set your own volume level on the earbuds independently from that of the television or other audio source when using them with the included transmitter. A companion app lets you adjust the touch controls and, if an earbud should become lost between the couch cushions, a Find My Earbuds feature should help you locate them.
The TV Clear can also maintain a simultaneous Bluetooth connection to your phone, tablet, or PC, which means you won’t have to switch headphones just to take or place a call, or watch a quick YouTube video while in the kitchen. To help you stay connected to the outside world, you can activate a transparency mode to let sounds in.
The TV Clear buds will last up to a claimed 15 hours of listening time on a single charge when used with the transmitter. The earbuds come with their own charging case, which Sennheiser says will add another 22 hours, for a total of 37 hours of TV listening. The company hasn’t said how long the buds will last when used with a phone.
