Google might have accidentally leaked a new product in a marketing email this week. As spotted by 9to5Google, a seemingly innocuous email that was sent out to members of the Google Nest mailing list featured advertisements for a number of products, from the Pixel line to the Nest Hub to the accessories and subscriptions available from the Google Store. All in all, a standard email from a company looking to sell its wares, but if you look closer at the image Google used to highlight its accessories, you’ll notice that those aren’t the original Pixel Buds.
According to 9to5Google, the headphones pictured in the email are actually the upcoming Pixel Buds A, which have yet to be announced by Google. Much like the Pixel 3a and Pixel 4a before them, the Pixel Buds A are expected to be more affordable than the flagship counterparts and will be available in a new dark green color.
It’s a tiny image, and all it gives us is an obscured view of the Pixel Buds A hidden inside the charging case, but 9to5Google shared a number of additional details about the unannounced product last week as well. Their sources claim that the Pixel Buds A will look nearly identical to the standard Pixel Buds, but as you can see in the image, the color palette will be somewhat more pronounced on the new model, with the color of the earbuds extending down to the ear tips and appearing inside the charging case as well to match the accessory.
In addition to the forest green color variant shown above, sources say that there will also be an all-white model with white buds, white ear tips, and a white interior to the charging case. Giving the accessory a more cohesive color scheme will help to differentiate the options, and opens the door to more colors in the future. The Pixel Buds A are also said to feature the same touch controls for interacting with media playing on whatever device you’re connected to and accessing Google Assistant. These should be unchanged from the Pixel Buds.
Furthermore, as 9to5Google notes, there’s a chance that Google will match the colors of the Pixel Buds A with those of the upcoming Pixel 5a, which was the case for the “Clearly White” and “Oh So Orange” Pixel 4a and Pixel Buds 2. Google undoubtedly has plenty of new products in the pipeline — it’s only a matter of time before they slowly start trickling out or Google announces a hardware event to reveal them all at once.
Finally, as for the price, the latest model of the Pixel Buds retail for $179 on the Google Store, so we should probably expect a lower price point for Pixel Buds A. That said, it’s unclear what Google would be cutting from the standard model in order to bring the price down any lower than it already is.
