Samsung may have just spilled the beans on how its next earbuds won’t be beans

We kind of loved the beans. The Galaxy Buds Live’s bean-like shape made sense! But though it originally seemed like Samsung was in on the joke — the company called them beans internally, and even printed the word on the circuitry — Samsung’s next earbuds may take a take a different tack.

Today, Indonesia’s telecommunications certification authority has revealed the company has a new “Galaxy Buds Pro” set of earbuds waiting in the wings (via MySmartPrice), and SamMobile may have already revealed what to expect: a source says they’ll be a set of sealed in-ear buds with the same design as the earlier Galaxy Buds+, only now with active noise cancellation and “an improved Ambient mode” to let you hear more of your surroundings.

That makes a lot of sense, since the bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live was an attempt to offer a comfortable open-air fit to begin with, and they only primarily suffered because Samsung could only offer so much audio quality (and noise cancellation) without having an in-ear seal. The Galaxy Buds Pro could theoretically be more effective at both, with an improved ambient mode letting you still get one of the benefits of open-air audio.

We’ll expect them to go head to head with Apple’s AirPods Pro, probably alongside an upcoming Samsung Galaxy S21 slate of phones. We’re expecting those to be announced in January, so the buds will probably arrive then as well. As MySmartPrice points out, they appear to have cleared several different regulatory authorities now, so they probably aren’t far off.