Sony’s next-gen affordable earbuds have leaked, and the difference is clear

When it comes to Sony's headphones and earbuds, you know what they're going to look like. Form often follows function and colours are solid and sober. So, the newly-leaked YY2986 earbuds, which appear to be the successor to the excellent WF-C700N in-ears, come as a bit of a surprise – one of the colour options seems to be a rather retro transparent blue.

The leak comes via The Walkman Blog, which spotted the headphones on the system used by Taiwan's product certification body, Audix. There are lots of photos, and the blog also has a few bits of information about the battery and Bluetooth.

What we know about Sony's next-gen earbuds

The buds look very like the Sony WF-700N in-ears, but this time there's no physical button. You get a proximity sensor instead, that is believed to be for the play/pause control. There's a small hole in the back, most likely for pressure equalisation, and the case is a slightly elongated version of the one you get with the predecessor. There's an LED on the front and a pairing button and USB-C port on the back.

The colour options revealed so far include the inevitable black and white, plus a pastel pink and a 90s-iMac-style transparent blue.

The Walkman Blog can't recall Sony ever offering transparent earbuds before now, and I'm not aware of any either. The transparency isn't just for the earbuds, the case is transparent too, and that makes it clear that there isn't a wireless charging coil there. So, the case is going to be charged the old-fashioned way with a USB cable.

Specifications are largely secret so far, but a previous filing with the US FCC did reveal some battery details. For now at least, the battery appears to be the same one as in Sony's WF-C700N and WF-C510 earbuds, with a larger battery in the case.

The blog suggests that could mean as much as 24 hours of battery life in total. And the same filed data with the FCC indicates Bluetooth LE with 2Mbps transfer speeds.

We don't yet know when these new buds will surface, but the FCC filing has a confidentiality expiry date of June 2025, so we'd expect to see the headphones launch well before then.