Power Pick: Powerbeats Pro Earpods Power My Day

Welcome to Power Picks, a monthly series on the things that help us navigate our lives, step into our personal power, or simply get us through our day-to-day. Our hope is that by sharing what makes us feel great, we can help you feel great, too. 

At pretty much any given moment during the day, you can find me listening to music. My apartment looks like a small record store; Spotify is always pulled up on my computer; and I gain my inspiration for just about every one of my creative pursuits—whether it's writing, drawing, or film—from music. The idea of leaving home without my headphones, a.k.a. my link to creativity and passion and sanity, is inconceivable, so you can imagine that the long-gone days of wired headphones were a challenge. The wires took forever to detangle, were often severed by inanimate objects or my reckless arms, and were too short for me to be able to keep my phone in my bag while I was plugged in. Thus, my life became infinitely simpler when I received the best Christmas gift ever: My Powerbeats Pro earbuds. 

When earbuds became popular a few years ago, I resisted the trend in spite of my frustration with wires, because I hated the shape of the buds themselves. Their rigidity hurts my ears (which are on the smaller side, evidently), and their lack of wraparound support means they constantly pop out of my tiny ears, getting caught in my hair or falling onto dirty city streets. 

The Powerbeats Pro earbuds, on the other hand, are soft and flexible, and they come with four plush eartip size options so my tiny ears aren't aching after an hour of listening. Plus, the lightweight ear hooks bend easily, so it's never a painful challenge to get them on. Even when I got a new cartilage piercing a few months ago, my Powerbeats were able to bend back enough to avoid hitting the painful area entirely.

I'm always impressed by these earbuds' ease of use. I own so many Bluetooth speakers, and every single one has given me a hard time, at some point, when I've tried to connect or disconnect a device from it. The Powerbeats have not only connected to my phone or computer with ease every single time, but they're also built to sense when you take them out of your ears. Which means that, if I'm listening to music at work and take the pods out for a moment to talk to someone, the music pauses and, when I put the pods back in, the song picks up right where it left off. The Powerbeats also boast a long battery life (nine hours!), which is ideal for someone like me, who forgets to regularly charge their phone (it's at 13 percent as we speak).

Another thing I love about these earpods: Their suitability for athletes. I took up running over the course of the pandemic (cliché, I know), and my Powerbeats never budge in the slightest during my run. The soft, lightweight build is also perfect for physical activity—if it weren't for the music playing, I'd forget that I have them in. To top it off, they're waterproof, which really comes in handy for longer, sweatier runs in the summer or for sudden rainstorms in the spring. 

Finally, my Powerbeats are meaningful to me because they allow me to take one of the things most precious to me in the world—music—and bring it with me wherever I go. They give me the agency to turn my mood or my entire day around by letting me immerse myself in something that makes me feel happy, powerful, and creative. I have synesthesia, which means that I can "see" music as colors (it's hard to explain), so the psychological and sensory impact of being able able to play my favorite songs when I want to is tremendous.

It's not particularly novel of me to say that I love music or that I listen to it when I'm running, but the love I have for my Powerbeats runs deep. This singular pair of earpods has solved every issue I've ever had with portable listening devices. They function so easily, so seamlessly that they feel like an extension of my psyche, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I could not get through my day without them.