It’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing: LG’s been offering bacteria-killing cases bundled with its Tone earbuds since 2020 – and I for one really enjoyed the company’s newest T90 buds, but that had nothing to do with the bacteria blitzing and everything to do with the wild head-tracked Dolby Atmos. But it is the first time Audio-Technica has approached true wireless headphones in this way. Now, I’ll be the first to sit up and take notice since the company’s inaugural stab at the true wireless market, the ATH-SQ1TW were frankly excellent for their nominal asking fee and some of the best budget wireless earbuds I’ve ever heard, but do our earbuds really need a 70-second ‘sterilization process’ each time we pop them back in the case? And what does it… do? Audio-Technica explains that there’s a ‘unique deep-UV sterilization system within the charging case’, and that each time your earphones are placed back into it ‘a 70-second sterilization process starts which eliminates bacteria and viruses from the surface.
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