Over the previous few years, I’ve spent a variety of time reviewing the newest true-wireless noise-canceling earbuds, with premium fashions like Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (second technology) that includes ever extra highly effective noise-muffling alongside spectacular sound high quality.
This is one thing I’ve seen: Whereas noise-isolating earbuds with silicone eartips aren’t going away, extra consideration proper now could be on open designs that do not seal your ear canal and allow you to hear the surface world for “situational consciousness.”
Market analysis corporations have been reporting that the marketplace for open earbuds and open headphones utilizing bone-conduction expertise is rising quickly. And the product bulletins from CES 2026 mirrored that development. Whereas there weren’t an entire lot of recent headphones or earbuds unveiled at the big tech show in Las Vegas, the bulk had been open-bud model, together with sporty ear-hook fashions from Shokz, Anker and JBL, in addition to some new clip-on designs. Extra open buds are on the best way, too (I’ve even been briefed on a number of I am unable to let you know about simply but).
Learn extra: Best Open Earbuds of 2026
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“In keeping with our analysis, open earbuds have change into the fastest-growing earbud model, signaling a rising shopper need for audio that matches into particular person life,” mentioned Carsten Olesen, president of shopper audio at Harman, the mother or father firm of JBL and owned by Samsung.
Baseus, which partnered with Bose late final 12 months on its flagship Inspire XC1 clip-on earbuds (and two different Inspire models), did not announce any new fashions at CES, however Jack Liu, Baseus’ head of worldwide PR, teased what was coming in an electronic mail to me earlier than the present.
“We predict the earphone enterprise could have a brand new wave of development because the mainstream will proceed to transition from regular kind issue to open-ear ones,” he wrote. “It can evolve from a listening system to an accompanying system that is going to be with you all day lengthy. Particularly these days, calling and AI assistant interplay have change into as essential as listening to music and podcasts.”
He went on to write down that the Encourage XC1 solved a significant concern with open-ear design: sound high quality. “We’re about to unravel one other concern with that kind issue: noise cancellation. In 2026, you are going to see increasingly good-sounding noise-canceling open earphones, with Baseus being one of many pioneering manufacturers.”
A Shokz illustration of its OpenEar Noise Discount.
Perhaps so, but it surely’s difficult to equip open earbuds with lively noise-canceling options, as Shokz discovered with its new OpenFit Pro buds ($250). As a substitute of touting them as a real noise-canceling mannequin, Shokz ended up dialing again expectations and calling the tech contained in the ear-hook style buds “OpenEar Noise Discount.”
That was the best transfer contemplating that in my checks the OpenFit Professional did not scale back ambient sound practically in addition to Apple’s flagship open earbuds, the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, that are due for an improve in September (whether or not that may really occur is anyone’s guess).
Including efficient noise canceling to open earbuds is kind of the holy grail. You get the advantage of a extra comfy match (many individuals discover it irritating to have eartips jammed of their ears), whereas having the choice to maintain your ears open to your environment or just about shut them off (to a level, anyway).
Whereas the AirPods 4’s noise cancellation is not practically as robust because the AirPods Pro 3’s, you possibly can actually inform when their noise canceling is engaged. And presumably the AirPods 5’s noise canceling could also be barely higher.
Noise-canceling hack?
With its Soundcore Aerofit 2 Pro ($180 checklist), Anker is trying to avoid the open buds noise-canceling problem by making a set of convertible semi-open ear-hook model buds that can help you shift the angle of the buds so their ideas sit deeper in your ear canal for an ANC mode, or extra outdoors of it for open listening.
These do not have the everyday silicone eartips that seal your ear canal, so I am unsure how effectively the noise canceling will work. However I think it might be just a little higher than what you get with the Shokz OpenFit Professional as a result of the bud at the very least sits partially inside your ear canal, prefer it does with the AirPods 4 (the OpenFit Professional sit over your ear, leaving extra of a spot).
The angle of the Soundcore AeroFit Professional 2’s buds could be shifted for a extra open or closed match.
I like the sooner Soundcore AeroFit 2 ($100), which sound good for open earbuds and match my ears effectively. The AeroFit 2 Professional ought to sound just a little higher, at the very least in ANC mode with the buds deeper in your ear canal.
I ought to level out that whereas the sound of open earbuds continues to enhance to the purpose the place it is now respectable, with higher bass efficiency, readability and fewer distortion, a superb set of noise-isolating earbuds with silicone eartips continues to be my desire for essential listening. However individuals have a tendency to purchase open earbuds for his or her design, whether or not it is as a result of they discover silicone eartips uncomfortable or as a result of they do not have to fret about clip-on buds or ear hook-style buds falling out of their ears throughout sporting actions like working and biking, whereas permitting you to listen to visitors or individuals round you for security causes.
It will likely be fascinating to see what Bose comes up with as an encore to its Ultra Open Earbuds, which helped popularize clip-on buds within the US. With its Sound by Bose program, it is spent the final 12 months efficiently licensing out its expertise and design chops to extra value-based firms like Baseus and Skullcandy. However within the meantime, Apple managed to tug off noise cancellation in open buds earlier than the noise-canceling pioneer did, so we’ll see how Bose responds.
Whereas we look ahead to that — and a bunch of different open earbuds arriving later this 12 months — this is a take a look at the newest fashions to be formally introduced. I will replace the checklist as I get phrase about different new, noteworthy open-ear buds.
The Shokz OpenFit Professional are available white or black for $250.
As I mentioned earlier, the OpenFit Professional did not scale back ambient sound practically in addition to the AirPods 4 with Lively Noise Cancellation, however they sound spectacular for open earbuds. They’re additionally comfy to put on and have the premium construct high quality you’d anticipate from a set of earbuds that value $250. The OpenFit Professional are available two shade choices (white or black), and can be found for preorder at Shokz and Best Buy. They ship Jan. 21.
Splashproof and dust-resistant with an IP55 ranking, the OpenFit Professional are outfitted with Bluetooth 6.1 and now have a spatial audio characteristic, supporting Dolby Audio with Dolby Head Monitoring (Shokz says they’re optimized for Dolby Atmos). You may flip head monitoring on or off within the Shokz companion app for iOS and Android, and tweak EQ settings as effectively.
Moreover, the buds have bodily buttons to regulate playback (which I like) and ear-detection sensors that pause your music if you take a bud off and resume playback if you put it again on. Battery life is rated at as much as 12 hours with noise discount off and 6 hours with it on, which is a reasonably large drop off. Read my full first take.
Anker’s advertising and marketing marketing campaign for the AeroFit 2 Pro touts their transformative nature with the slogan, “One swap, two worlds.” It is a fairly intelligent design, though I would not anticipate their noise-canceling efficiency to be practically pretty much as good as what you get with prime ANC buds just like the Bose QuietComfort Extremely Earbuds (Gen 2) and AirPods Professional 2.
Just like the Shokz, these are splashproof and dust-resistant with an IP55 ranking. The AeroFit Professional 2 are additionally outfitted with Bluetooth 6.1 and have bodily buttons to regulate playback. Battery life is rated at as much as 7 hours with noise canceling off and 5 hours with it on, which is OK however not nice. The charging case does provide a further 4 prices and helps wi-fi charging. They arrive in three shade choices (white, black or lilac) and can be found for preorder now for $150 with a $30-off early-bird low cost. I am trying ahead to testing these nearer to their ship date in early Could.
The JBL Sense Professional ship in March for $200.
The Sense Pro are JBL’s new flagship open-ear buds, that includes a extra premium design and improved sound and voice-calling efficiency, in accordance with JBL. “For the reason that launch of our first open sound mannequin in 2023, the JBL Soundgear Sense, we have refined our JBL OpenSound air-conduction expertise, developed the carrying kinds for each on a regular basis listening and health and included algorithms for clearer calls and bass enhancements,” mentioned Harman’s Olesen.
Accessible in March in black or grey for $200, the Sense Professional have 16.2-millimeter drivers, 4 microphones (two in every bud) and JBL’s Voice Pickup Sensor expertise. They’re outfitted with Bluetooth 6.0, are splashproof and dust-resistant with an IP54 ranking and may rise up to eight hours of playback on a single cost with a further 30 hours within the case, which helps wi-fi charging. The buds have contact controls that may be custom-made within the JBL Headphones app for iOS and Android.
The JBL Sense Lite are available three shade choices.
JBL did not have a lot to say in regards to the Sense Lite apart from the truth that they’re presupposed to be gentle and comfy (“crafted for all-day put on”), with a design that is “enhanced by a gentle silicone end.” Additionally they have dual-beamforming microphones and JBL’s adaptive bass increase algorithm, which gives “easy, frictionless sound with minimal leakage, making certain each readability and privateness.” Outfitted with Bluetooth 5.4, the Sense Lite are splashproof and dust-resistant with an IP54 ranking and may rise up to eight hours of playback on a single cost with a further 24 hours within the case, which does not assist wi-fi charging. Accessible for $150 in March, shade choices embrace black, white and purple.
The JBL Soundgear clips can be found in 4 shade choices in March.
The Soundgear Clips are JBL’s new clip-on buds, which stand out for his or her eye-catching translucent design and metallic tint (they arrive in 4 shade choices, together with white, blue, brown or purple). JBL says they characteristic an adaptive bass increase algorithm for optimized audio and have 4 mics (two in every bud) for “crisp calls, permitting the headphones to obviously determine a consumer’s voice, irrespective of the background noise.”
Outfitted with Bluetooth 5.4, the Soundgear Clips are splashproof and dust-resistant with an IP54 ranking and may rise up to eight hours of playback on a single cost, with a further 24 hours within the case. The case does not assist wi-fi charging. They’ve contact controls you possibly can customise within the JBL Headphones app and can be found for $150 in March.
The JBL Endurance Zone are absolutely waterproof and are available black or white.
JBL’s sports-oriented Endurance line options a number of new fashions for 2026, together with the Endurance Peak 4, which have silicone eartips, and this new open-ear mannequin, the Endurance Zone. Specs-wise, they appear much like the Sense Lite, however are extra sturdy with a totally waterproof and dust-proof design (IP68). Just like the Sense Lite, JBL says they characteristic an adaptive bass increase algorithm for optimized audio and have twin beamforming microphones (two in every bud). They’ll rise up to eight hours of playback on a single cost with a further 24 hours within the case, which does not assist wi-fi charging. They’ve contact controls you possibly can customise within the JBL Headphones app and are transport now for $180.
