Apple’s AirPods Pro cleverly remedy one of many trickiest components of earbud design with a novel button — even when it’s not technically a button in any respect.

Officially known as the “force sensor” (a title that makes the button sound much more attention-grabbing than it truly is), it’s technically nothing greater than an indented portion of the AirPods Pro’s stems, with some fancy {hardware} that measures not simply capacitive contact but additionally stress. But the faux-buttons remedy one of the vital annoying issues about earbuds: how you can management them.

The concern of controlling really wi-fi earbuds is a comparatively new one. Older in-ear headphones usually included a row of buttons on their wires, which allowed for quantity and playback controls to be positioned in a spot that’s straightforward to succeed in and discover. But in-ear wi-fi earbuds don’t go away plenty of area for buttons, joysticks, or management wheels to govern playback, forcing producers to provide you with alternate options.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Touch controls, employed by headphones just like the Galaxy Buds or the regular AirPods, have emerged as the commonest reply. Tap, double faucet, or triple faucet your earbuds, and also you’ll be capable to play, pause, and skip round your tracks.

The downside, although, is that in-ear headphones — because the title suggests — are already nestled fairly firmly into your ear. And faucet controls imply that you simply’re both shoving these earbuds additional into your ear (painfully so, typically) or dislodging them totally, at which level you’re risking loss or injury when your costly buds plummet to the bottom.

Apple avoids each of these issues with the drive sensor. Instead of placing stress in your ear, Apple has customers squeeze the stem of the AirPod. It’s a far gentler motion that doesn’t transfer the earbud as a lot, decreasing each the chance of discomfort and dislodging.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Its controls are fairly just like the opposite strategies of headphone management: one squeeze to toggle play / pause, two to skip ahead a monitor, and three to skip again. There’s additionally a fourth lengthy press, which toggles the varied noise cancellation modes.

The complete design guides you thru how you can use them, too. The indented pad makes it clear the place to press to activate the “button,” whereas the requirement for some slight drive makes it exhausting to set off unintentionally.

And whereas there’s no bodily haptic suggestions from the drive sensor, Apple does some masterful work in tricking your mind that there’s, by intelligent clicking sound results relayed by the earbuds to make it really feel such as you’re urgent a button.

The controls might not be long for this world — Apple is rumored to be testing a new version of the AirPods Pro that will take away the stem (and the drive sensor) totally. It’d be a disappointing change, on condition that the drive sensor isn’t only a nice management technique; the AirPod stems are one of many extra recognizable components of the product, a lot in order that it’s the primary factor copycat designs have a tendency to copy.

Is it plenty of engineering work for a comparatively easy operate? Undoubtedly. But it makes an important a part of working the AirPods a seamless, aesthetically pleasing, and cozy course of. And what extra are you able to ask than that?