[Update: Apparently just for Employees] Google-branded Bluetooth Headphones appear in FCC documents

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Update (12:48PM CST): An anonymous tipster has reached out to Android Police claiming that these headphones are distributed only to Google employees. This particular model is simply an updated version of an older wired headset already in use by Googlers. The original article below will remain unaltered.

In order for electronic products with any potential for wireless interference to be sold within the United States, these devices must be certified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). All products receiving certification are made public by the FCC, so it is through this government service that we often learn much about unannounced products thanks to pictures and documents that companies send for FCC certification. This time, it appears that a pair of Google-branded Bluetooth headphones (model GID5D) with active noise cancellation (ANC) has passed through the FCC.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the look. These are fairly bland looking over-the-ear headphones that simply have Google’s color branding on the outside. The pads appear quick thick, which should provide some comfort, but we’ll have to see how long we can wear these before our ears start to hurt.

In the quick start page included in the FCC documents, we can see that there will be your typical multi-function button (MFB) for controlling phone calls, volume up/down buttons, and previous/next buttons for controlling your music. These buttons, along with the micro-USB charging port, will all be located next to each other on the outer ring of the right piece. On the left piece, the power button, ANC button, Bluetooth indicator, and 3.5mm headphone jack will be placed side-by-side.

The hardware specifications for these mysterious headphones are as follows:

Again, we’ll actually need to play around with one of these headphones to see if they provide a high quality listening experience. The battery life seems fairly decent on paper, but that’s a claim we’ll need to test to verify.

Earlier this month, we revealed the existence of a mysterious device type called “Bisto” in an APK teardown of the Google App. At the time, we speculated that these strings may have something to do with headphones, given what the preferences were stating:

<string name = "bisto_device_notifications_pref_summary" > Notifications will be read aloud inside your headphones </string> <string name = "bisto_device_notifications_pref_title" > Spoken notifications </string>

It’s possible that these headphones is “Bisto”, but we can’t verify this claim and think that these cheap-looking headphones probably don’t fit the bill. The passing of these headphones through the FCC and the APK teardown revealing “Bisto” could just be entirely coincidental, after all. Though we do hope it ends up being true (maybe not with these particular headphones), since having headphones that integrate with Google Assistant would be a pretty cool feature.