JBL has made the touch screen on its charging case more useful by increasing the size.

JBL has announced an upgraded version of its first truly wireless earbuds with a touch-sensitive charging case. The new JBL Tour Pro 3 case features a larger display and now acts as a transmitter, streaming audio to the earbuds from a wired source like an in-flight entertainment system. However, that larger display also comes with a higher price tag. It will retail for $299, which is about $50 more than the JBL Tour Pro 2.

The 1.57-inch touchscreen on the JBL Tour Pro 3 charging case is 30 percent larger than the one on the Tour Pro 2, giving it enough room to hold additional information like the name of the currently playing song. This should make it more useful as an alternative to reaching for your smartphone if you want to skip tracks, set alarms, or even check text messages or incoming call notifications.

The case display is arguably unnecessary for those who already wear a smartwatch that offers similar functionality. But the Tour Pro 3’s charging case also provides easier access to the earbuds’ settings, including noise cancellation modes and EQ profiles, that are otherwise only accessible through the JBL smartphone app or by customizing the earbuds’ gesture controls.

A less obvious but more interesting upgrade to the Tour Pro 3 is the audio streaming capabilities of the charging case. It can be connected to any analog or USB audio source and isn’t limited to just older devices with a headphone jack. And with the newly added support for Auracast, that audio can be streamed to multiple nearby Bluetooth devices that also support Auracast — like Samsung’s earbuds.

The Tour Pro 3 earbuds now feature larger 11mm drivers — up from 10mm in the Tour Pro 2. Despite the driver upgrades and larger touchscreen, JBL still claims up to 10 hours of music playback for the earbuds with ANC turned off, or up to 40 hours total when paired with the charging case. If the buds die at some unfortunate moment, a 10-minute charge will provide three hours of listening time.

Spatial audio is included with built-in head tracking, and while JBL claims it works with “stereo audio from any source or device,” what the company essentially does is keep the left and right audio signals locked in a three-dimensional space so that, when you turn your head, they always sound like they’re coming from the same place. For comparison, Apple’s spatial audio is designed to simulate a more expansive surround sound experience through a pair of headphones, with audio that sounds like it’s coming from all around you.

The JBL Tour Pro 3 is expected to be available from September 22, 2024, in black or latte.