What multipoint is and how to use earbuds on two devices
What it means
Multipoint means the same earbuds stay connected over Bluetooth to two devices at once, say your laptop and your phone. You no longer disconnect and reconnect every time you switch.
What it looks like in practice
You are listening to music or in a meeting on your laptop. The phone rings: you answer from the earbuds without touching the settings. After the call, you go back to the laptop.
Who it helps
People who work on a laptop and take calls on a phone, people who switch often between a tablet and a phone, and anyone who uses the same earbuds at home and at work.
Multipoint, step by step
First, connect the buds to the first device, say the laptop, as usual from the Bluetooth menu. Then put the buds back into pairing mode and connect them to the phone as well. From then on, the buds remember both devices and stay connected to them at the same time.
When you take a call on the phone, the sound moves to the phone by itself; when you press play on the laptop, it moves to the laptop. No more disconnecting and reconnecting.
If a third device wants to connect, you usually have to disconnect one of the first two: multipoint means two active connections at once, not any number.
At the office and at home
The classic example: you work on the laptop, you are in a Teams or Zoom meeting, and someone calls your mobile. With multipoint the phone call comes straight into the buds, and when you hang up the sound goes back to the laptop.
At home the same works between a tablet and a phone: you watch a film on the tablet and do not miss a call. For anyone working hybrid or from home, it is one of the features you notice every day.
What multipoint does not do
Multipoint does not mix the sound of two devices: you hear one device at a time. If both play something at once, the buds pick one, usually the one that started last or the one with a call.
Nor is it the same as connecting two pairs of buds to one phone; that is a different feature and depends on the phone.
And a tip: if the sound jumps from one device to the other when you do not want it to, turn off autoplay on the device you are not using, or disconnect it for a while.
ANC and battery on the Pro2
On top of multipoint, the Pro2 adds hybrid noise cancelling up to 42 dB, useful in an open-plan office or a café. It lasts 7 hours with ANC on plus 28 with the case, enough for a working week of daily meetings.
It weighs 4.9 g a bud and is rated IPX4, so it handles sweat and splashes. It connects to iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac and uses the SBC and AAC codecs.
The TESNA Pro2
The TESNA Pro2 have multipoint, hybrid ANC up to 42 dB and last 7 hours with ANC on, plus 28 from the case. If you lose a bud, make it ring from the TESNA app and follow the sound.
Multipoint and calls
The biggest gain is with calls. If you are in a meeting on the laptop and a call comes in on the phone, the buds signal the call, and if you answer, the meeting goes quiet in your ears. When you hang up, the sound goes back to the laptop.
With some meeting apps the sound does not come back to the laptop by itself: press play or reconnect the audio in the app. That is down to the app, not the buds.
For anyone who talks to clients on the phone and colleagues on the laptop, multipoint means fewer missed calls and less time lost in the Bluetooth menu.
When you do not need multipoint
If you use your buds only with your phone, multipoint adds nothing. The same if you rarely switch devices, say only at home in the evening: reconnecting by hand takes a few seconds.
Multipoint matters when you jump from one device to another several times a day, as you do at the office, working from home or studying, with the laptop and the phone on the same desk.
Every model is in the shop, under noise cancelling earbuds.