Open-ear earbuds sit on the exterior of the ear, but they also come in many shapes and sizes, from clip models to ear hook models. Some are specifically designed for working out, while others are better for everyday use. The Bose Ultra Open earbuds are an especially popular pick, thanks to their sound quality and color options, but at $299, they’re hardly the most affordable option.
Plus, since the Bose Ultra Open came out in 2024, big audio brands like Sony have released open earbuds of their own, while Shokz has introduced noise reduction into the category for the first time. To help you find the best open earbud models available in 2026, we tested the latest options from Soundcore, Sony, Shokz, Bose, and more.
What are open earbuds?
Open earbuds let you get as close as possible to the feeling of not wearing earbuds at all. Unlike in-ear earbuds, which sit in your ear canal, open earbuds sit just outside your ears (as the name would suggest). Some models hold the speaker component in place with an ear hook, while others opt for an ear cuff.
People generally opt for open earbuds for three main reasons:
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They provide a private listening experience while leaving you almost completely aware of your surroundings. It’s like the best transparency mode you’ve ever used.
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For some people, not having an earbud physically in their ear is generally more comfortable.
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The hooks and cuffs (along with general awareness of your surroundings) make them a great option for keeping you in place and alert while you’re working out, working, or simply existing in the world.
What are the drawbacks of open earbuds?
As you may have gathered from the section above, open earbuds don’t come with active noise cancellation. That’s mostly thanks to how much sound they let in (by design) and the difficulty of cancelling out sound without having the device covering your actual ear canal.
Also, thanks to the whole open ear-canal situation, these aren’t going to be the earbuds for audiophiles. That’s not to say open earbuds sound bad — if you’ve never tried them, we promise they sound much better than you’re imagining — but you will lose out on some of the nuance of a song without having the earbud actually in your ear.
That said, many pairs still have equalizers on their companion apps to help you make them sound their best. Our best picks for sound, the Bose Ultra Open earbuds and Shokz OpenFit Pro earbuds, even have spatial audio features that work surprisingly well.
Most open earbuds will also boast some form of special technology that keeps them from leaking too much sound. While these pairs do pretty well in keeping the sound just to you, most pairs (including our picks) will be prone to some leakage, especially at higher volumes.
Finally, some open earbuds — mainly those with ear hooks — tend to have slightly bulkier cases. If you like to travel especially light, it’s something to keep in mind.
How to wear open-ear earbuds
Open-ear earbuds come in three major styles: cuff, ear hook, and bone conduction. How you wear them depends entirely on which style you have. Cuff earbuds “clip” onto the ear, not unlike a piece of jewelry, generally around the area right above the earlobe. Ear hook earbuds have a hook situated around the back of your ear and a speaker component situated right over your ear canal. Finally, bone conduction earbuds sit right behind the ears, with a band that goes around the back of the head to hold them in place.
Regardless of the style, its important to adjust the exact positioning of your open earbuds to see which offers the best sound, especially as the wrong positioning can deteriorate the quality.
For a visual representation of what wearing a cuff-style earbud looks like, you can check out our open earbuds explainer.
What about bone conduction headphones?
Bone conduction earbuds work exactly like the name implies they do — they use your skull to conduct sound waves, instead of projecting the sound into your ear, like most of the picks are on list. Typically, a band runs from either side of the users head to help hold the headphones in place.
Shokz, the brand behind our top pick, is a popular maker of these kinds of headphones. While we do consider them open earbuds, we have yet to test any bone conduction earbuds — look out in the future for that update. On that note:
What’s next in our testing pipeline
The open earbuds market is rapidly expanding, so we’ll be testing more as we can get our hands on them. We recently added the Sony LinkBuds Clip and Soundcore AeroFit 2 Pro to this guide.
In addition to the earbuds that made our initial guide in May 2025, we tested out the Nothing Ear (Open) earbuds ($149), the Sony Linkbuds Open ($199.99), the Anker Soundcore AeroClip earbuds ($169.99), and the Shokz OpenFit Air ($119.95). While none of the above were bad earbuds by any means, we found our picks to outshine them in their comfort and sound quality, especially when considering their respective prices.
