Beats and The Pokémon Company International have teamed up on a special-edition Beats Pill, with Pikachu and Mimikyu printed across the grill. The second pick made me grin. Mimikyu spends its whole life hiding under a homemade Pikachu costume, and Beats parked the original right beside its most devoted impersonator.
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It goes on sale through Apple’s store and a few big retailers. Beats pitches the speaker as a gift to Pokémon Trainers. I see a clever way to resell an existing speaker in electric yellow, and I’m mostly fine with that.
The collaboration opens for orders at 8 AM PT on October 15. Primary inventory is going to Apple.com, but you can also check Target in the US, Argos in the UK, and Douyin in China.
Right now Beats is only collecting notify-me sign-ups. No preorders yet. I’d expect a Pikachu collab to sell out in no time. I’d set an alarm.
Charms are new territory, since no Pill before this one has shipped with them, and the little set is my favorite part of the whole package. A color-matched gray lanyard carries a Poké Ball charm, and the press release adds a Beats “b” and Pikachu’s lightning bolts. Even the box joins in, with a piece you can move around. I’m a sucker for packaging that does something, and Beats tosses in Pokémon stickers too.
Beats didn’t modify the interior, so performance remains identical to the original Pill—right down to the 24-hour runtime and IP67 water/dust seal. The update is pure visual flair, with electric Pikachu yellow on the front, matched with a dark, muted Mimikyu graphic on the back. Keep that gray side turned outward for the best look.
Reverse USB-C charging is the Pill’s low-key killer feature. Sure, it supports lossless playback and dual-speaker stereo pairing, but who actually uses those after week one?
Pokémon’s own announcement jokes that Pikachu looks a bit worried on the grill. Fair. Toxtricity, a yellow-and-purple Pokémon built around sound, would’ve been my pick for an audio product. Still, I’m relieved Beats skipped Charizard.
As a kid, I found Pokémon game caps while playing at the park near my house. That’s why a nervous Pikachu on a speaker still gets my attention. Whether $149.99 is worth it depends on how much you love Mimikyu.