Open earbuds may sound a little counter-intuitive. Don’t you want to hear your music as well as you can? Believe it or not, life and music are both all about balance, and open earbuds do just that.
What Are Open Earbuds?
Put simply, open earbuds are earbuds that sit outside the ear canal. Most earbuds have silicone ear tips that you place inside the ear canal to keep them stable in your ear and seal the ear for the best sound quality possible.
Open earbuds are instead designed to let your ear be exposed to your surroundings while also allowing you to hear your audio. For this reason, they’re less efficient at transmitting sound than traditional in-ear earbuds.
But with that in mind, you do get the benefit of being more aware of your surroundings, and they can be more comfortable for people who don’t like putting silicone in their ears. Instead, open earbuds can clip on to your ear, like the recently announced Anker AeroClip, hook around your ear like the 1MORE S70, and so on.
Not everybody wants to be closed off from the world when they’re listening to music or a podcast, and everyone’s use cases for earbuds are going to differ. While open earbuds may not appeal to everyone, enough people find them useful for it to be a specific corner of the market.
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It’s Not as Bad a Concept as It Sounds
My first experience with open earbuds was with those classic wired Apple earbuds that came with every iPod. They didn’t seal in the ear, they just sat on the outside of the canal, the hard plastic slowly becoming more and more uncomfortable as time went on.
Classic AirPods kept with this design too, keeping listeners attuned to the outside world around them, whether they liked it or not, while still enjoying the stylish Bluetooth earbuds.
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But believe it or not, there are people who actively seek out open earbuds, not simply because it was all they had on hand. There are many situations in which you might want to be actively aware of your surroundings while listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks, like if you’re out for a run and want to make sure you don’t get hit by a car when crossing the street, or if you need to be able to easily hear someone if they start talking to you.
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Who Would Like Open Earbuds?
Open earbuds could actually suit numerous people. People who like to exercise outdoors, people who wear headphones at work, and people with sensory sensitivities could all potentially benefit from using open earbuds. Here are some of the most notable use cases where they’d be helpful.
When you’re exercising outdoors, especially near busy streets or out in nature, staying aware of your surroundings is paramount. The last thing you want to have happened is an accident when you’re just trying to get in a run or a hike.
Open earbuds ensure you get a solid balance of audio to environmental sounds. If you’ve ever used transparency mode on a pair of noise-canceling earbuds and found the very artificial-sounding environmental sounds unnerving, open earbuds are a much more natural feeling alternative.
If you work in an office and want to be able to hear if someone comes up to you to talk to you, or you want to be aware of any office banter going on, open earbuds also provide an easy balance. Open earbuds could also be useful if you work in retail, or any other workplace where you may have some downtime but still need to be alert if someone needs you.
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Last but not least, people with sensory sensitivities may prefer open earbuds over traditional in-ear earbuds. The feeling of silicone in your ear canal can be quite bothersome even for those without sensory issues, so a less intrusive alternative can be a relief.
It is important to consider that while you may not be placing silicone in your ear, the earbuds still have to stay stable and secure in another way, be it with a clip-on design, an ear-hook design, or anything else that you may find. So you may still find yourself a bit bothered by some designs of open earbuds, but there should be something that can accommodate your needs if you’re sensitive.
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Who Might Not Love Them?
If you want to be able to hear your audio with ideal clarity and quality, open earbuds aren’t a great option. The seal that silicone ear tips provide ensures that you hear every frequency as intended, without environmental noise or leakage reducing the quality or volume of the audio. Audiophiles who want to listen to music deeply will especially not enjoy open earbuds.
People who need noise-canceling for any reason will also not benefit from open earbuds. Since noise-cancelling relies on a seal to work effectively, it won’t even be a possibility with open earbuds, no matter how hard Apple wants you to think it will be. The whole point of open earbuds is to let sound in, not to keep it out.
As such, people that work in noisier environments probably won’t like open earbuds. Excessive noise in your surroundings will render the earbuds practically useless, because you will likely have a very hard time hearing anything coming from them.
How Do Open Earbuds Compare to Open-Back Headphones?
Since both open earbuds and open-back headphones have the word “open” in them, it follows that you may think they’re similar. While they do both allow for airflow and have an inherent openness to their design, they’re actually quite different.
Open earbuds are marketed primarily for exercise, and serve the purpose of being used in a more casual setting for a good balance of awareness and music-listening. On the flip side, open-back headphones are more so for audiophiles to do deep listening in a very quiet, stationary environment. Most people wouldn’t wear open-back headphones for a run or a hike, but the wide soundstage that the open design allows for is really enjoyable for a lot of music lovers.
Open earbuds may not be for everybody, but they certainly do stand to appeal to a lot of people in the market for earbuds. Try a pair out, see if you like how they sound and feel, and you just might be a convert.
