These open ear buds actually have good noise reduction ability

My biggest pet peeve about open ear buds is that they get spoiled by noisy city commutes. Point to one pedantic audiophile pointing out that the whole premise of open ear buds is just that no Sound blocking. Yes yes. But the unfortunate truth is that it often means that if you want open earbuds for a situation, they will He owns To buy a second pair when the train is chugging along the subway tracks while the local mariachi band starts playing in your car.

So I was intrigued when Shokz reached out to say at CES 2026, its new $249.95 OpenFit Pro headphones would have “noise-cancelling.”

Technically, the correct term is noise reduction. Active noise cancellation requires a closed ear canal, while the OpenFit Pro does not. Instead, the headphones have a triple microphone array, a modified speaker design, and an adaptive algorithm to dampen unwanted environmental noise. Two microphones monitor environmental sounds, while a third microphone next to your ear tracks what’s up the canal.

I was very skeptical when Shokz first showed me the product. I’ve tested several Shokz open-ear buds (not to be confused with bone conduction headphones). Although they’re great for staying alert at home or in quiet areas, they’re not so great for moving around. Often times I can’t hear my music – even at maximum volume – and I forget about audiobooks or podcasts!

To my surprise, whatever black magic Shokz used on these buds worked fine. The difference is very noticeable, especially if you adjust the entire reduction setting in the Shokz app.

Don’t get me wrong. Real ANC is still better. It will always be difficult to listen to audiobooks if there is a live mariachi band in the train car. (To be fair, the ANC headphones also struggle against the power of Mariachi.) But during less annoying commutes, I didn’t have as much trouble listening to music and was able to listen to my audiobooks in more scenarios. I would say these are best suited for fairly noisy environments. Think coffee shops, not so much bars.

At home, I was surprised at how well the buds masked the ambient buzz of my air purifier and refrigerator. Of course, it’s not suitable for TV if you have a show playing in the background, but that’s not really the point. These are the kind of earbuds that let you focus on your content, but still hear when your husband screams and asks from another room if you’ve seen his keys.

In addition, the bass quality has also improved – another weak point for open-ear headphones. This iteration of OpenFit Pro now supports up to 40kHz range and reduces distortion to less than 100Hz. There’s also Dolby Atmos support for head tracking, but it sounded a little weird when I turned it on. Nice if that’s your thing, but not all that necessary with open ear buds.

Once again, the main issues I had in the last few weeks of testing were fit and design. The hooks still look bulky behind the ear, especially when I wear them with glasses. Often times, I don’t feel like they sit on my ears as securely as I would like. The case is also large, although I appreciate the extra 50 hours it provides. (The buds last for 12 hours on their own, which drops to six hours with noise turned down.)

Admittedly, this is a specialized type of earphone. It’s the rare person who will be able to completely replace their AirPods Pro (or any other pair of ANC-enabled headphones) with them. However, as someone who likes to keep my wits about me while walking, commuting, or getting around the house, it’s more useful than previous iterations of the device.