Apple AirPods face cheap rival in Skullcandy's new noise-canceling earbuds

Skullcandy revs up for the UK launch of its Indy noise-canceling earbuds

Skullcandy Indy ANC
(Image credit: Skullcandy)

Skullcandy gets in on the noise-canceling action with news that it’s expanding the Indy True Wireless range to include the noise-stopping technology that blots out life’s background chatter. 

Skullcandy's Indy Active Noise Canceling (ANC) earbuds land as the brand’s first true wireless earbuds to harness the silence-seeking technology. It looks to make a mark in a deeply saturated sector, where various brands are vying to adorn your ear and pack-in those crisp sounds.

The buds look to be the perfect companion for your daily exercise and eschew the most premium features to price competitively. Gone are the days of Skullcandy being synonymous with cheaper earbuds that sacrifice features to keep things under budget, as the brand looks to cement its place as a serious audio option for audiophiles worldwide. 

Skullcandy Indy ANC: price and availability

Skullcandy's Indy ANC earbuds will launch on 28 January 2021. Dropping in a True Black colorway, and comfortably priced at $129.99 / £99.99, you'll be able to nab a pair directly from Skullcandy UK or Skullcandy US.

Australian release date and price TBC.

Skullcandy Indy ANC price release date

(Image credit: Skullcandy)

Skullcandy Indy ANC: features

As expected, the Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds will integrate with the Skullcandy mobile app; as with many earbuds, you can then tinker with the settings to suit your environment. The Indy ANC claims an enhanced fit; interestingly, you can use each bud on its own, giving the listener more awareness of their environment.

The model claims 19 hours of battery life, alongside IPX4 sweat and water resistance – all features that are important to the day-to-day functionality of the earbuds. Better still, using the Skullcandy App, users can set up a 'personal sound profile', tailoring the sound of the buds to their hearing, which makes listening to music on the Indy ANC a truly personalised experience. This is the same feature found in the Skullcandy Crusher Evo and Crusher ANC. 

If you'd rather something different, T3 has a best noise-canceling headphones guide that will help you pick something special to block out those pesky commuter sounds when things get back to normal.

One of the Skullcandy Indy ANC's niftiest features is its Tile integration to help you keep on top of your headphone's whereabouts. Personal inventory tracking is a burgeoning sector heading into 2021, as the likes of Oppo get in on the tracker action, as T3 recently covered. Here, we looked at the blossoming tracking sector, as Apple guns for dominance through its Apple AirTags. Apple's AirTags could be imminently released, as T3 recently reported on news of a hidden Safari function that sheds light on how the AirTags might integrate with Apple's iOS.

The product is already available in the US, alongside Skullcandy's Hesh ANC, and Skullcandy's Hesh Evo. All the models offer the ANC experience apart from Hesh Evo, which forgoes the full noise-canceling experience, for what’s billed as a ‘more refined sound’. Even the Skullcandy Indy Fuel, which didn't have noise-canceling, boasts three EQ modes and a 'find my headphones' feature that T3 was a huge fan of on review.

Amid an abundance of options, we think Skullcandy's new model would suit someone in the market for an audio upgrade, but not looking to stretch to the somewhat astronomical prices of similar noise-canceling earbuds. 

Luke Wilson

Luke is a former news writer at T3 who covered all things tech at T3. Disc golf enthusiast, keen jogger, and fond of all things outdoors (when not indoors messing around with gadgets), Luke wrote about a wide-array of subjects for T3.com, including Android Auto, WhatsApp, Sky, Virgin Media, Amazon Kindle, Windows 11, Chromebooks, iPhones and much more, too.