Anker announced an affordable AirPods rival and a bunch of new speakers

Anker's audio brand, Soundcore, is releasing more than a dozen new speakers and headphones to welcome the current hot weather of spring and summer. Soundcore, like its parent brand, manufactures solid products at affordable prices. Most of these speakers and headphones stand out for the battery life, which is the main advantage of Anker as a company known for its portable batteries and chargers.

First, there's the Space NC noise canceling headphones with ear pads. They have 40mm dynamic controllers and supposedly up to 20 hours of wireless battery life with activated noise cancellation. When I tested them and played a video of a plane roaring in the background, there was a small but noticeable difference between having the noise cancellation activated and having it deactivated; A percentage of the noise was attenuated, but I could still hear the jet from a certain point. The same applies to people's voices: the cancellation of noise is not absolute, but it is definitely enough for a tired plane trip home.

At the price of $ 99.99, what you get is decent, but my first impression is that there are better headphones with noise cancellation. The Space NC will go on sale at Brookstone and Walmart on May 14 and will be available on Amazon at the end of May.

In the domestic space, Anker is also adding another set of Bluetooth speakers with decent basses. The Flare and Flare + sound great compared to their small sizes and can be paired to fill a larger room. The Flare and Flare + speakers are IPX7 waterproof, so you can also take them to the beach or the pool. They light up at the bottom and you can alternate between different colors and patterns.

Image: Soundcore

At a glance, Flare and Flare + resemble a thinner version of the Amazon Echo although they are deployed at the bottom and do not have intelligent assistant capabilities. The Flare has a lower price too, at $ 59.99. The Flare speakers come to Amazon on May 7 and to Walmart on May 14. They come in black, gray, blue or red. The Flare + has a louder sound than the Flare and a claim of 20 hours of game time. It costs $ 99.99 and it leaves in August.

Photo by Shannon Liao / The Verge

Anker is also adding to its sports audio offer with new headphones that come with an extra coating that protects them from sweat. Anker says that this is necessary because the sweat contains salt, which corrodes the metal over time. (That has never happened to me, has your sweat broken?)

The result is the Spirit series, which are three pairs of headphones, each with different prices and battery life. The Spirit and the X-Spirit cost $ 39.99, but the Spirit is in the ear and the Spirit X has hooks. Finally, there is the Spirit Pro, which receives an increase in the sound of a Qualcomm chip, up to 10 hours of battery life, and costs $ 10 more.

Finally, Anker also launches Liberty Lite, which is expected to come out later this year, on June 18. Those will cost $ 69 and are another opportunity for Anker to face Apple's AirPods. They are based on the Anker $ 150 Zolo Liberty cordless headset we reviewed in February, but they are much, much cheaper. Supposedly they will have 3.5 hours of battery life per charge. Unfortunately, we could not test them at today's event because they are not ready yet. From afar, they look a bit like mini vacuum cleaners or gas masks.