How to watch The Traitors Ireland season 2

Season 1 of The Traitors Ireland was one of the more emotional and brutal iterations of the show, as Faithfuls Kelley Higgins, Oyin Adeyemi and Vanessa Ogbonna fought their way to the grand prize. It also made a star out of retired prison officer Paudie Moloney, more recently seen in Ireland’s version of Dancing with the Stars.

Now the iconic reality gameshow returns, with host Siobhán McSweeney welcoming a new class of Faithfuls and Traitors to Slane Castle, battling it out both physically and mentally in the hopes of bagging a potential €50,000 prize.

Season 2 promises to be just as explosive as the first outing, with RTÉ teasing: “With new twists, new gameplay and plenty of surprises in store, audiences can expect all the drama, intrigue, treachery and unforgettable moments that make The Traitors Ireland unmissable.”

The Traitors Ireland season 2 premieres on August 30 in Ireland, with international release dates yet to be confirmed.

From Ireland but abroad? Don't sweat – you can watch The Traitors Ireland online by using this VPN to access all episodes on RTÉ Player in a few moments. Here's how to do it....

• Release date: Sunday, August 30
• Ireland stream: RTÉ Player (free)
• UK stream: BBC iPlayer (free, release date TBC)
• ABROAD? Download NordVPN app to watch RTÉ Player anywhere

Where to watch The Traitors Ireland S2 in Ireland

Season 2 of Traitors Ireland will air on RTÉ One in its native country, starting Sunday, August 30. Episodes will also stream for FREE on RTÉ Player.

Remember: use a VPN to access the service when travelling outside of Ireland – otherwise you'll find yourself geo-blocked. Boo.

Watch The Traitors Ireland S2 from abroad with a VPN

If you're away from home you might find yourself geo-blocked from your usual account. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can help you to get around this obstacle. It creates a private connection between your device and the internet, enabling you to appear to be in your home country. There are lots of VPN options, but we think NordVPN is currently the very best VPN for streaming.

How to use a VPN to watch TV shows abroad

Using a VPN to watch The Traitors Ireland is incredibly simple:

1. Install the VPN of your choice. NordVPN is the one we recommend.

2. Open up the VPN app and choose the location that you signed up for the service in (e.g. UK).

3. Head to RTÉ Player on your browser or device and enjoy watching The Traitors Ireland online from anywhere in the world. Simple!

Where to watch The Traitors Ireland S2 in the UK

While a version of RTÉ Player is available to viewers across the Irish sea, the UK iteration of the platform doesn't host Traitors Ireland.

But, UK fans can still watch season 1 for FREE via BBC iPlayer, although season 2 isn't likely to drop for a little while yet.

Can I watch The Traitors Ireland S2 in the US?

Peacock is the home of all things Traitors in the US, however Traitors Ireland is yet to arrive on the streamer. With season 1 still banished, we wouldn't expect season 2 to arrive any time soon.

Where to watch The Traitors Ireland S2 in Canada

Traitors Ireland streams on Crave in Canada. Season 1 arrived pretty soon after its Irish debut, so while we wouldn't expect new episodes immediately, we can't imagine there will be too long of a delay for season 2.

Where to watch The Traitors Ireland S2 in Australia

The good news for Aussies is that Traitors Ireland season 2 will stream for FREE on 10Play. The bad news is that with the first season only arriving recently, viewers could be in for a bit of a wait.

• Love TV? Sign up to the weekly How To Watch newsletter

Watch The Traitors Ireland S2 trailer

• Upgrade the action: best TVs
• Apple TV+ free trial and all the ways you can get one
• Read our review of the Apple TV 4K box

If you think of earbuds as cutting you off from the outside world to isolate you in a bubble of music, prepare to have your preconceptions flipped on their head. The Shokz OpenFit Pro are part of a new breed of wireless headphones with an open design, that let your music mingle with your environment – but at the same time, they offer noise reduction technology that dampens down the most distracting sounds.

Add in the upgrades to sound performance and premium design, and you’ve got a whole new type of wireless headphones.

Open to new ideas

Open earbuds take the traditional approach to listening on the go and flip it completely. Instead of blocking your ear canals with intrusive earbuds, the earbuds sit on your ears and play music into them. Not only does this make the wearer more aware of their surroundings – like a colleague trying to talk to them or a car horn beeping – many people also find it a more comfortable way to listen.

Allowing the sound to mix with your environment also makes for a more natural-sounding performance, helped, in no small part, by Shokz’s upgraded sonics. The OpenFit Pro feature Shokz SuperBoost, a dual-diaphragm driver housed inside a reinforced acoustic structure. Not only does this go louder than traditional closed earbuds, but – crucially – it’s also more precise.

This enhanced precision improves stability, producing a cleaner and more consistent sound foundation, while also extending the frequency response up to 40 kHz for greater fine detail reproduction.

The result? Rich detail, smooth highs and deep lows. The premium silicone and aluminium dome caps minimise distortion so that bass remains smooth and punchy, adding real low-end heft to your playlists and work calls alike.

They’re also Optimised for Dolby Atmos spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, which makes the sound appear as if it’s coming from a fixed point in your environment, making for a more realistic, more immersive listening experience.

Devoid of distractions

But the enhanced sound quality is only one string to the OpenFit Pro’s bow. They also offer Open-Ear Noise-Reduction technology, which works in tandem with the Shokz SuperBoost to make for an even more impressive listening experience.

With SuperBoost creating a flatter, more predictable mid-to-high frequency response, the headphones are more accurately able to discern between music and other sounds coming from the environment around you, like the background chatter of an office or the pumping gym soundtrack. Because the frequency response is more stable, unwanted sounds stand out more clearly, allowing them to be targeted – and suppressed – with surgical precision.

The three-mic system is able to capture sounds from multiple angles, building a more complete picture of both voice and environment. This works hand-in-glove with an ear-adaptive algorithm that’s been trained on tens of thousands of tests using different ear shapes and sizes, wearing angles and real-world scenarios to help it adapt dynamically in real time. It’s constantly optimising the sound output whether the headphones sit slightly higher, lower, or the angle changes. They’ll also perform the same if you share them with a friend or loved one, no matter their ear shape, giving the same bravura performance for each and every listener.

Buds for work, rest and play

That’s the insides taken care of. But what about the outsides?

As befits a pair of flagship open-ear earbuds, the Shokz OpenFit Pro are crafted from premium materials for a marquee finish that‘s built to last. The soft silicone finish is hardwearing yet comfortable, while the ultra-thin titanium alloy ear hooks deliver outstanding comfort levels while remaining hardy.

All of which make the Shokz OpenFit Pro the perfect pair for work, travel, exercising and more. They’re open-ear earbuds without the distractions.

Buy the Shokz OpenFit Pro with a 10% discount using code WHATHIFI_10

You can’t always get what you want in the world of home entertainment. In an ideal world, we would all have a house with a bespoke home cinema, fully kitted out with in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, a serious 4K laser projector and some top-notch amplification.

Sometimes, though, you can get what you need as far as enjoying movies and sport at home goes. And that’s where this month's cover-star soundbar systems come in.

The summer is also a great time to invest in a premium Bluetooth speaker – especially if you want to do your music justice at home, while at the same time being able to take your tunes out and about with you in the fine weather.

Superb soundbar systems for serious home cinema sound

We have often wondered what it would be like to have your cake and eat it.

Of course, that phrase exists to describe the kind of best-of-both-worlds scenario that could never actually exist. Sometimes, though, it really is possible to get the best of both worlds, and in home cinema land, two sonic worlds coalesce beautifully in the shape of the soundbar system.

By supplying a ’bar together with a subwoofer and a pair of satellite speakers set behind your seating position, soundbar systems allow you to enjoy genuine surround sound without having to accommodate a collection of bulky boxes in your living room. Far from being a compromise, for many the impressive performance and neat convenience of such a set-up hits the home-cinema sweet spot.

The key to the neatness of this solution is that, in most examples, both the subwoofer and satellites are significantly smaller than those you would find in a conventional speaker package.

For this month's round-up, we have picked five models from a variety of price points to help you find the soundbar system that best suits your needs and budget.

So make yourself a cuppa, sit down and read on. And have some more cake.

The best Bluetooth speakers to take your tunes on the go

A Bluetooth speaker is one of the simplest and best ways to get your music playing wherever you roam. In fact, these wireless wonders can be stunningly versatile. Perhaps you want one in your office to help your working day along. Or as accompaniment to a sunbathing session in your back garden. Or maybe you’ll want to pop one in your backpack and take it further afield, to the park, the beach, or up a mountainside – or anywhere you want to take your tunes.

There are, of course, a huge number of capable Bluetooth speakers out there, of all shapes, sizes and prices. Here, though, we’re focusing on the upper echelons of this particular product category.

This month, we round up a quartet of our favourite premium wireless speakers from highly regarded audio brands Bose, Dali, Bang & Olufsen and JBL. All impressed our reviewers when we originally had them in for testing, and all remain at the top of their game for their spread of talents.

The models we have brought together for this Group Test add a hefty slice of style to their list of attributes too. Indeed, you may not even want to take them out for fear of getting them dirty – though all of them have been designed with rugged portability in mind. Either way, you’re sure to be the envy of everyone involved in your al fresco music party.

Can RGB Mini LED defeat the best OLED TV around?

There’s a war going on for your living room. The premium TV technology of choice of the last few years – OLED – is under attack from a new, stunningly bright and vibrant foe – RGB Mini LED.

Every major brand has either launched its first RGB Mini LED TVs or is about to. Hisense launched its first such models last year, but those were gigantic, 100-plus-inch sets. Now, though, it has become the first brand to submit to us a proper, mainstream RGB Mini LED TV, the UR9.

We’ve tested the Hisense UR9 and Sony Bravia 8 II side by side, feeding all of our favourite discs and streams into both simultaneously, and judging them on picture quality, sound quality, features, usability, design and price.

Find out which TV tech triumphs in August's What Hi-Fi?

Great prog rock albums that will give your system a work-out

Progressive rock is a staple in hi-fi circles, and for good reason. Explore it, and you’ll find everything from experimental, album-length tracks chronicling epic space wars to short and sweet, gentle ballads celebrating young love on a UK council estate. The only connecting factor between them is a progressive virtuosity focused on pushing sonic boundaries.

And, when done right, this means it’s a genre that can really stretch any hi-fi system, which is why it makes sense that our readers talk about it so much on our forums and social media pages. It’s also why more than a few of the What Hi-Fi? team have a soft spot for the genre and often listen to it for fun as well as work.

Here we offer our two cents on the top prog rock albums for hi-fi fans, based on those we frequently use for testing as well as some of our own personal favourites.

First with reviews

As always, our First Tests section is where you'll find What Hi-Fi?'s considered verdicts on the very latest hi-fi and AV gear.

We kick off this month with the return of an iconic hi-fi brand, with the aptly named Onkyo Icon A-50 streaming amplifier. Boasting expansive delivery and an organised sound, does the Icon indeed live up to its name? Find out in this month's What Hi-Fi?

TCL just keeps on reinventing the value rulebook with its TVs – and this month saw another of its crazy-good-value sets, the Q6C, pass through our test rooms. The Wharfedale Diamond name carries an impressive legacy, and the hi-fi firm's latest floorstanders, the Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i got the full review treatment from our team of experts this month.

In August's What Hi-Fi? we also take a thorough look at (and listen to) Sharp's RP-TT100 record player, Samsung's excellent S99H OLED TV, the JBL Go 5 portable speaker, Sony's 1000X The Collexion headphones, Apple AirPods Max 2 and more.

Find all these reviews in August's What Hi-Fi? – out now!

Now arriving at Temptation Station

Our Temptations section of the magazine is where you'll find the highest of the high-end of hi-fi and AV products.

This month, feast your envious eyes on the Esoteric N-05XE streaming preamplifier. At £13,000 it's not cheap, of course, but it mightily impressed our reviews team. "Stereo imaging is excellent," they reported, "with a broad and spacious soundstage populated by crisply focused instruments." Got that kind of money? Jump in!

Graham Audio has resurrected a classic, BBC-originated speaker with the LS5/9. Modern speaker design owes something of a debt to classic standmounts like these, and we were suitably awed.

Find out more in this month's What Hi-Fi?

Finally, don't forget to check out our Buyer’s Guide, featuring a definitive and freshly updated list of all the best home entertainment kit you can buy – including winners of 2025's What Hi-Fi? Awards. If you’re looking to purchase anything from a pair of the best wireless headphones to a home cinema speaker system, this section will tell you where to spend your money wisely.

Whatever you do, don't miss the August 2026 issue of What Hi-Fi?. Grab a copy today, or simply download it onto your tablet or smartphone. Enjoy!

You can subscribe or buy the latest issue here, or buy the digital edition on iPhone, iPad, Android devices or Kindle edition