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Top 10 earbuds designs of 2022 that are even better than the Apple AirPods 3

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I love a good pair of earbuds! In fact, I really can’t function without my personal earbuds. Once my earbuds are in, the rest of the world is out! I deep dive into the world of my favorite tunes, away from real-world problems, happy in my own little audio bubble! Hence, owning a pair of innovative and perfect earbuds is an absolute necessity for me, and I’m sure that’s the case for most of the music lovers out there as well! Quite a few of us are Team AirPods all the way. But hey! Let’s remember that great earbuds go beyond Apple as well. And this nifty list includes all of them! This collection of exciting designs has a pair of earbuds for everyone! From earbuds that magnetically hang like a necklace to the world’s first TWS earbuds that actually protect your hearing – these earbuds provide unique design solutions and are a must-have for audiophiles!

1. Koishi

Named Koishi, after the Japanese word for Pebble, the TWS Earphones come with a soft, pebble-inspired form that’s beautiful to look at, comfortable to store in pockets, and can even be stacked one above another as Zen Stones. They come in three stone-inspired colors and even sport a slightly mottled stone texture. Running right through the case is a light strip that helps let you know when the earbuds are charging, or when they’re low on charge. However, it also visually guides you to instinctively know where the earphones are, so you can glance at the case and pull the earbuds out without fiddling to find them.

2. The Porsche Design PDT60 TWS Earphones

With a sleek aluminum exterior that offers a stunning visual upgrade to most plastic-body earbuds, the Porsche Design PDT60 TWS Earphones aim at creating an experience that’s as good in the visual department as it is at handling audio. Porsche Design’s repertoire features a whole host of hi-end audio gear, although the PDT60 is easily the smallest in that bunch, fitting snugly into your ear to deliver immersive, balanced audio directly into your head. The earphones come with the Porsche Design logo emblazoned on their front and sit in a case that’s partly matte metal too, with the same PD monogram embossed on the case’s sliding leather lid.

3. The dBuds U

Coming from the folks at EarLabs, the dBud U builds on their catalog of products designed to protect hearing. Its mission is a pretty strong and unique one – to give you the TWS experience while focusing on ear health – something I’ve personally been quite passionate about since I developed tinnitus. Sure, they’re like most TWS earbuds in the way they work, but they also provide an extra blanket of features that ensure that you can block out unwanted sounds that may affect your focus, your listening experience, or your hearing abilities in the long run. Additionally, they’re also designed to augment certain sounds like voices of those around you – perhaps a coworker informing you of a meeting, a barista calling your name, or your partner asking you where to order takeout from.

4. The Hakii Ice

Meet the Hakii Ice. You’ve probably never heard of them, although once you see them, chances are you won’t ever forget them. With perhaps the most memorable design in the earbuds category, the Hakii Ice sport a double shot molded case design that looks almost like the earphones are preserved in a block of ice. The outer transparent layer and the textured inner layer create an interplay of light and shade, with a touch of refraction, that makes the Ice earphones look incredibly awe-striking. In a world filled with TWS earbud cases that look like floss cases, the Hakii Ice looks like an ornament.

5. The Logitech Zone Truly Wireless

Meet the Logitech Zone Truly Wireless – earbuds designed and calibrated for work and business. The earbuds can be paired with your laptop as well as your smartphone so you can go about your day from either device, whether it’s watching training videos or listening to music while you work, answering calls, or even attending online meetings. They’re designed to work seamlessly with common calling applications across most platforms and operating systems and are certified by Microsoft for Teams and Skype for Business, by Google for Meet, and by Zoom.

6. The Edifier NeoBuds Pro

What’s really ironic is that the Edifier NeoBuds Pro are the first TWS earphones to come Hi-Res certified, a standard developed by Sony itself – a brand that’s very much in the TWS earbud race! Edifier’s own TWS earphones really push the boundaries with the adoption of the LHDC codec (to rival Sony’s LDAC codec), offering higher-quality streaming over a Bluetooth connection, even compared to Apple’s own AAC. Simply put, the NeoBuds Pro makes a pretty remarkable claim, although the LHDC codec is currently adopted by a number of brands in Asia, but isn’t entirely widespread.

7. The Timekettle M2

There are two main components to any conversation – talking to a person, and listening to the person talk to you. It’s only natural that earphones designed to facilitate conversation would embrace those two parts, right? The Timekettle M2, in that regard, isn’t your standard pair of TWS earbuds. Sure, they’re meant for listening to music and podcasts or giving commands to your phone’s voice AI, but their prime feature is the ability to foster a multi-lingual two-way conversation by allowing two people to wear one earphone each as the M2’s onboard translation engine seamlessly fills in the gaps. The earphone case’s design revolves around that very aspect, with a design that splits right in two, so you can hand one half over to someone you’re talking to, almost like you’re breaking bread with them.

8. Klipur

Designing an earbuds concept that eliminates the need for a charging carry case, Chris Thursfield conceptualized Klipur, a pair of earbuds that attach to one another when not in use. Conceptualized with an overnight charging method, Klipur can recharge during the night alongside our smartphones. When ready to leave, users can detach the earbuds from their charging case and attach them to one another for a compact carrying method, or throw them in their ears without worrying about where they left the charging case.

9. The Sirius Pro

The fact that these earbuds are designed to look like a prop out of Ghost in the Shell or Fallout isn’t entirely accidental… GravaStar’s known to make some absurdly futuristic products – you should check out their Mars and Venus Bluetooth speakers! The Sirius Pro follows that brand ethos by being unconventionally sci-fi while serving as pretty great earbuds too. They come with enhanced bass response, boast Environmental Noise Canceling, and actually have an incredibly low latency of 65ms that’s perfect for gaming. When not in use, they sit inside a rather unconventionally designed case, with a cutout running right through the middle and a bare-basics cage-like lid that secures the earbuds in place without concealing them.

10. Jade Culture Earphone Jue 20

Designed by Yibai Science & Technology from Shenzen, these are called the “Jade Culture Earphone Jue 20.” That’s a bit odd name but everything else about these conceptual wireless earbuds listed on iF Design Award 2020 is super cool. When not in use, the earbuds magnetically lock together to take the form of a necklace pendant that’s suspended by the tethering wire. Then again, when you want to listen to your favorite tunes, simply separate the pendant and get groovy. Picture this scenario – your buddy compliments, “This pendant looks so cool, bud”, and you’ll detach them and plug into your ears to their amazement, “It’s my pair of earbuds, mate!” Added bonus – you surely won’t lose one of the earbuds as there is no accidentally falling down- speaking to you AirPods!

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These “invisible headphones” sit on your desktop and beam sound directly (and only) to your ears

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Private audio, but without placing headphones/earphones against your ears – that’s the claim the Noveto N1 makes. Think back to the time when you had your headphones on at home and someone rang the doorbell or called out your name, and you had no idea because, well, you had headphones on. Unveiled at CES 2022, the N1’s technology aims at circumventing that problem, although its underlying tech is capable of doing a lot more. If you were lured into this article by the words “invisible headphones”, let’s cover that bit first.

Purely technically speaking, headphones are just small speakers that sit near your ear, only allowing YOU to hear the audio. They ‘physically’ block outside sound (or sometimes even cancel it using inverse frequencies), so you can hear this audio better. What the Noveto N1 does is different. Rather than pressing speakers against each ear, the N1 sits on your desk and ‘beams’ audio towards your ear just like a regular Bluetooth speaker… but what it also does is make sure the audio doesn’t go anywhere beyond your ear. It doesn’t travel sideways to someone sitting beside you, doesn’t travel behind your ear either to your partner standing right behind you. It just travels exactly to both your ears, creating ‘invisible pockets of sound’, or invisible headphones. Someone standing 3 feet away from you can barely hear what you’re listening to; but you can hear everything else, including your doorbell, your phone, or a family member yelling to let you know lunch is ready. The N1 is a speaker system, but a private one… and that’s a pretty remarkable technological feat.

If you’re a bit of an audio junkie like I am (or even if you’re not), what the N1 really nails is ‘acoustic attenuation’. Now that’s a fancy term for making audio soft, but here’s what it means – The N1 can project sound waves at a certain amplitude or loudness, but it can also decide how loud the audio remains over a certain distance. By doing this, it can make the sound waves traveling to your ear loud, but make them soft the minute they cross your ear. Mounted on the top of the N1 are two cameras that track your face, locating the placement of your ears. It doesn’t matter if you have long hair, a thick beard, glasses, or even a face mask… the device can beam audio to your ears in real-time. This is vastly different from a set of headphones, because you’re not really wearing any headphones on your head, and you can still hear the world around you… and it’s vastly different from a speaker because A. It provides a private audio experience and B. It still delivers stereo sound, ensuring the left and right audio channels reach your left and right ears.

Does it really mean that people around you can’t listen to your audio? Well, it’s difficult to say, but at certain volumes, you can practically ensure complete privacy. For example, if you’re listening to a TED Talk at a regular volume, chances are nobody around you will hear a single thing. However, if you’re blasting Adele’s latest chart-topper at max volume, people around you may be able to get a general sense that there’s music being heard, but with not much clarity. Noveto claims the N1 can reduce audio by up to 90% for someone who’s located just 1 meter (3.3 feet) away from the listener. Frankly, headphones work the same way too, as audio can sometimes leak out of them during playback. Especially if they’re what are called ‘open back headphones’.

The secret sauce lies in a bunch of clever hardware and software integrations. The Noveto N1 uses a proprietary array of transducers that are capable of this acoustic attenuation, along with a facial tracking camera module, and a powerful chip that does the heavy-lifting, allowing the sound to move with your head as you move around. The technology is incredibly new, and has tonnes of applications, from allowing you to listen to the TV or play a game without disturbing others, you could even video-conference privately, without having headphones resting against your head or worrying about your AirPods batteries dying out. The N1 could be used in cars too, or even at museums/art galleries, playing specific sounds near exhibits just for the people standing in front of it. There’s even potential for it to be used in airports or railway stations, providing announcements and updates just to specific seating areas or passengers.

This isn’t Noveto’s first rodeo, however. The company debuted the Soundbeamer 1.0 on Kickstarter last year, with units shipping to backers practically any day now. While the Soundbeamer 1.0 was just a primer on what the technology is capable of, Noveto’s perfected the art of headphone-building with the N1, which now comes with built-in Alexa and AirPlay for a smarter, more useful experience, and a nifty little LED ring around the front that brings all your N1 and Alexa interactions to life. Noveto also mentions that the N1 has built-in face ID, although whether it just detects faces or can recognize different people and control functionality accordingly is still unclear. Ideally, you don’t want your kids or partner snooping in on your confidential work meetings, right?! The N1 was just announced at CES 2022 and as of writing this, Noveto hasn’t really provided any information on its release date or price yet… but if history is any indication, it probably won’t come cheap, given that the Soundbeamer 1.0 went for roughly $800 on Kickstarter.

Designer: Noveto Systems Ltd.

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Porsche Design ‘drifts’ into the TWS market with its sleek noise-canceling PDT60 Truly Wireless Earbuds

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With a sleek aluminum exterior that offers a stunning visual upgrade to most plastic-body earbuds, the Porsche Design PDT60 TWS Earphones aim at creating an experience that’s as good in the visual department as it is at handling audio. Porsche Design’s repertoire features a whole host of hi-end audio gear, although the PDT60 is easily the smallest in that bunch, fitting snugly into your ear to deliver immersive, balanced audio directly into your head.

Sure, one could make the case that Porsche Design is a little too late in the TWS department (with practically everyone making TWS earphones nowadays), although the earbuds are clearly designed to make a style statement more than anything. The earphones champion a minimalist design, featuring a matte aluminum body that has the same premium appeal as the matte metal finish on most high-end laptops and computers. The earphones come with the Porsche Design logo emblazoned on their front, and sit in a case that’s partly matte metal too, with the same PD monogram embossed on the case’s sliding leather lid.

On the feature front, the PDT60 performs just as well as other TWS earphones in its class. It comes with hybrid noise-canceling – combining active noise-canceling for removing background and ambient noise while listening, and electronic noise-canceling that allows for crystal clear conversations during calls and video chats. On the inside, the PDT60 is outfitted with 8mm neodymium drivers (considerably smaller than the 11mm drivers on the AirPods Pro which are within the same price range), and connects to devices via Bluetooth 5.0, pretty standard for TWS earphones nowadays. The PDT60 accommodate for touch-based input, letting you tap, hold, and slide your finger on the earphones to answer/reject calls, control music playback + volume, and summon your phone’s virtual assistant. The earphones even have a battery life of 5 hours, with an additional 15 hours when placed back in the charging case. They also support fast-charging and have the ability to charge wirelessly, allowing you to use any Qi-compatible wireless charging mat to juice the buds when they’re low on battery. The TWS earbuds ship in the charging case along with a USB-C charging cable and 3 earbud-tips for different ear sizes, although even though they provide a snug fit, with an IPX5 water-resistance rating, they’re just about good for exercising and I’d caution against wearing them in heavy rain or near a pool.

At $299, Porsche Design’s PDT60 easily falls in the ‘premium’ spectrum of the TWS market. They aren’t strictly for audiophiles (whether they sound great too is still yet to be determined), although for people who want earphones that rank higher on the style quotient, the metal-bodied PDT60 makes for a pretty compelling purchase! They look significantly more premium than Nothing’s earbuds too.

Designer: Porsche Design

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Top 10 AirPods Accessories of 2021

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My AirPods are one of my prized Apple possessions! I use them multiple times in a day, whether’s it’s for calls, to watch videos during work breaks, or to listen to some pumped-up tunes during my evening jogs. You’ll find them around me almost all the time. I’m sure there are other AirPods addicts in the house, and for those individuals, here’s a collection of AirPods accessories that we swear by! From a sleek AirPods Max charger that doubles up as a magnetic stand to an AirPods Pro case shaped like a camera – these nifty product designs will completely elevate and enhance your AirPods experience. They serve as the perfect sidekick to your AirPods, either by taking the best care of them, boosting their functionality, or making sure you never lose them again. These are a must-have for all AirPods fanatics!

1. Power1

Power1 takes portability and functionality to a new level giving you a system that’s doubly useful because it doesn’t just charge and protect for your iPhone… it charges and protects your Airpods too and ensures they are always with you and ready for use. Designed as an evolution of traditional battery cases, Power1 not only holds an extra battery but also manages your Airpods like no other system. Armed with a proprietary design, Power1 comes with two modes. One, where it charges your Airpods only (up to 30 times on a full battery), and a second mode that charges your Airpods as well as your phone, giving both gadgets full advantage of Power1’s 3000mAh internal battery. Power1 uses its intelligent power monitoring system to see which device is running low on charge, supplying power to them accordingly. Using its USB-C port, when you plug Power1 into an outlet, its priority charging feature kicks in, routing power to your phone and Airpods first before charging its own internal battery.

2. The Max Stand

The Max Stand has a simplistic elegance that you’d almost expect from Apple before you realize that Apple’s solution for storing the headphones when not in use is a weird handbag-esque object that most people wouldn’t really want to carry around on display. The Max Stand, on the other hand, is simple, nondescript, and highlights the product it’s charging – making the AirPods Max look like an ornament on your desk that you can easily pick up and wear when you need it.

3. The Snapshot Case

Elago Snapshot Apple AirPods Case with AirTag

The Snapshot case for the AirPods Pro comes with a camera-shaped design that neatly houses an AirTag inside the faux camera lens. Aside from looking like a tiny little point-and-shoot, the Snapshot protects your AirPods Pro from physical damage as well as theft. The all-silicone design helps absorb shock, while still enabling wireless charging… and the fact that you’ve now got an AirTag strapped to your AirPods Pro makes it really easy to use the Find My feature to track the exact location of your earphones.

4. The Chargepuck

The Chargepuck acts as a replacement for the wireless charging dock or mat you’ve probably got lying on your desk or somewhere at your bedside. Instead of being a static device that sits plugged into an outlet forever, the little puck sits attached to your iPhone and comes with its own retractable cable that lets you plug it in anywhere. The Chargepuck isn’t a battery pack (it doesn’t have its own battery inside it), but rather, it’s a charging apparatus that sits attached to your phone and lets you charge three devices at the same time.

5. Antón’s redesigned AirPods Pro Case

Antón’s redesign turns the Apple AirPods Pro case from something that looks like a ‘box of floss’ to a really classy-looking ‘chewing-gum-stick dispenser’. The rounded-box shape gets ditched for a taller and sleeker capsule shape, with lids on both ends, allowing individual earpieces to fit into each end of the case. Sure, the redesign presents some structural issues – like where would one place the Qi charging coil or the battery, but what Antón’s concept really provides is a sense of variety, while sticking to Apple’s design philosophy of building sleek products. The redesigned AirPods Pro case also fundamentally changes the UX of the AirPods. The two separate openings house the left and right earphones, and while they do that, they also hint at behavior that’s common within the AirPods user community of using just one AirPod at a time to maximize battery life.

6. The Air Omni

The Air Omni’s biggest defining feature is that it comes built to dock the iPad too, which should honestly be given the same status as the iPhone, Watch, and AirPods… after all, the iPad is a mobile device too. Designed for not just charging but docking too, the Air Omni comes with a dedicated pop-up wireless charging hub for your Watch, specified wireless charging zones for your phone and AirPods, and a stand that lets you dock the iPad vertically and charge it via a cable – all while complying with Apple’s MFi charging standards. The docking zone’s unique design is truly innovative as it shapeshifts to let you alternate between docking your iPad as well as your iPhone.

7. iPhone 13 Pro-esque triple camera module

This idea presents a flip iPhone with iPhone 13 Pro-esque triple camera module comprising an 8K capable pro-action camera. The flipping device has a curved touchscreen Retina display and the discussed camera module on the outside – split over the two halves separated by a durable hinge. The cute box-like design – when it’s folded – actually hides a pair of newly designed AirPods Pro mini in a cozy housing for each earbud.

8. The Genki Audio Lite

Designed as a sleeker upgrade to Genki’s Bluetooth adapter from 2018, the Genki Audio Lite is a tiny, plug-and-play Bluetooth module that fits right into your Nintendo Switch Lite, allowing you to connect Bluetooth earphones and speakers to your gaming console. The Genki Audio Lite’s tiny size adds a great deal of functionality to the already capable device. You can now use your TWS earphones, AirPods, or even the AirPods Max with it, allowing for a portable, private gaming session. The Genki Audio Lite comes with Bluetooth 5.0 and is equipped with aptX™ high fidelity low latency codecs that provide lag-free audio while you game.

9. Zens’ Magnetic Dual Powerbank

Zens’ Magnetic Dual Powerbank comes with an internal 4,000 mAh battery that’s good for 1.5 full smartphone charges. The power bank is MagSafe compatible on one side too, allowing you to easily snap your iPhone to it without worrying about alignment. The other non-magnetic side is good for your AirPods, or potentially even a second smartphone (if you’re that kind of person). The power bank is perfect for all your on-the-go charging needs, although it comes with its own flip-out kickstand for when you’re working at a desk and want your phone angled towards you.

10. AirFly Pro

Twelve South has come up with their AirFly Pro. A wireless headphone adaptor, AirFly Pro is “the missing link between wireless headphones and wired headphone jacks.” It lets you connect your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or wireless headphones of any brand to devices (lacking Bluetooth connectivity) with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The dongle allows two people to listen to music or watch a movie, making it a splitter! You can finally share/watch things wirelessly with your friends if you’ll share the same taste in entertainment that is. The AirFly Pro also connects with the Nintendo Switch, enabling you to listen to the audio using your favorite wireless headphones while playing your favorite game!

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Sleek AirPods Max charger doubles as a magnetic stand that puts your Apple headphones on display

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Designed to highlight your Apple AirPods Max while it’s charging without stealing any attention from it, the Max Stand is a sleek little third-party charger that sits on your desk like a flat rectangular coaster when not in use. However, pop your headphones onto it and they stand vertically almost like magic, while conveniently charging too!

The Max Stand has a simplistic elegance that you’d almost expect from Apple, before you realize that Apple’s solution for storing the headphones when not in use is a weird handbag-esque object that most people wouldn’t really want to carry around on display. The Max Stand, on the other hand, is simple, nondescript, and highlights the product it’s charging – making the AirPods Max look like an ornament on your desk that you can easily pick up and wear when you need.

Although the AirPods Max traditionally charge via a lightning port on the base of the headphones, the Max Stand replaces that with a MagSafe-style charging solution using a tiny magnetic charging pin that fits inside the AirPods Max’s lightning port. Once fitted in place, the headphones magnetically dock within the Max Stand and instantly begin charging when the magnets align to create the connection. It’s not different from the MagSafe found on MacBooks, albeit in a smaller version that interfaces with the lightning connector.

The AirPods Max pair instantly with the Max Stand once they dock in place for the first time. The pairing is permanent too, and doesn’t need to be configured over and over again. The process is about as elegant as the stand is – the magnets are strong enough to keep the headphones standing vertically every time, and they also ensure the connector pins line up every single time, so you don’t need to fiddle with chargers, cables, ports, and the like. Pop the AirPods Max on the stand and that’s about it. The headphones charge as long as they’re on the stand, and as a result, are always at 100% battery when you need them. (The Max Stand obviously regulates the charge to make sure the headphones don’t get overcharged or the battery doesn’t deplete)

A closer look at the charging pin that sits inside the AirPods Max’s lightning port. The tiny accessory practically blends into the headphones’ large form, becoming invisible once plugged in, and giving your AirPods Max some neat MagSafe-style charging powers. The Max Stand even comes with a separate magnetic-style charging cable that you can carry around when you’re traveling with your AirPods Max. On the off chance that you DO end up using Apple’s weird handbag-case, the separate magnetic charging cable lets you connect your headphones to any USB port to charge it, whether it’s on your laptop or a power bank.

The Max Stand sports a metal-meets-soft-plastic aesthetic that complements the AirPods Max’s design almost perfectly. The upper half of the stand uses a soft plastic that comes in 5 different colors to perfectly match the color on your AirPods Max’s headband, while the stand’s base uses stainless steel for weight and durability. The ground plate alone weighs in at around 240g or 8 ounces, giving your Max Stand a bit of weight so your headphones don’t ever topple over. The overall build feels stable, robust, and reliable while championing a design that’s sleek and downright ingenious in a way that one can occasionally expect from great third-party brands like Satechi and Twelve South, if not Apple itself!

Designer: floating pixels GmbH

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Yamaha’s wireless noise canceling headphones let you listen to 3D spatial audio, like the AirPods Max

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Audio giant Yamaha is throwing its hat into the wireless headphone ring with the YH L700A, the company’s flagship headset, slated for an August launch. While that name isn’t particularly catchy, what Yamaha is promising with these cans seems to be quite enticing – the L700A boasts of a wireless design, active noise canceling, and a revolutionary 3D audio feature that works universally with any audio. This nifty little upgrade can allegedly turn stereo tracks on Spotify or audio from Netflix and YouTube into immersive 3D soundscapes that change positions as your head moves… and if all that wasn’t enough, the Yamaha YH L700A manages to also pack a 34-hour battery.

Coming from a company that has a reputation for making ‘serious’ audio equipment for serious musicians and audio professionals, the Yamaha L700A looks to treat a balance between being pro-gear and consumer-worthy. It sports a gray design, finished with fabric trims on the headband as well as on the earpieces themselves, making them look like condenser microphones from afar. The wireless headphones fold flat like the AirPods Max, for easy traveling, and instead of touch-sensitive panels or rotary knobs, the earphones actually come with buttons on the right earpiece for that reliable tactile experience.

The wireless headphone’s robust, reliable, professional-looking design is simply a benchwarmer for what’s underneath the surface. Yamaha claims that, with just a push of a button, the L700A can effectively turn regular stereo audio into 3D sound. The headphones create a 3D sound field and perform complex head tracking to detect how you move and turn your head, mapping the audio accordingly, relative to your head’s position. In short, it’s a lot like what Apple claims its Spatial Audio feature on the AirPods Max does, and even something Dolby debuted with its Dimension headphones… but while Apple and Dolby’s efforts are restricted and limited to their platform (Spatial Audio only works within Apple’s Music and TV ecosystem, while Dolby’s features are limited to its own Atmos platform too), the Yamaha YH L700A can turn ANY audio into a 3D soundscape. This secret sauce lies within Yamaha’s software chops when it comes to interpreting regular audio signals and being able to separate the channels and map them out accordingly to create an immersive 360° audio field, with sounds coming from the front, the sides, and the back. Yamaha offers 7 different 3D listening modes to choose from based on what you’re listening to. There’s a ‘Cinema’ mode for movies, an ‘Audio Room’ mode for music and podcasts, a ‘Concert Live’ for more elaborate performances like plays and musicals, and even an ‘Outdoor Live’ that I assume would absolutely shine while watching a concert or something like Billy On The Street.

If the headphones can deliver what they promise to, this is a game-changing moment for audio headsets. The competition, be it Apple, Sony, Dolby, etc. are all limited by their own specific platforms, but the L700A is platform-agnostic and claims to be able to basically upscale ‘flat’ stereo audio into immersive 3D audio. This would essentially make music sound like you’re inside the recording studio, or make a movie feel like you’re in a cinema hall. How Yamaha plans to seamlessly pull this off is a pretty big question, because as T3 points out, stereo or even 5.1 audio starts out in a “3D format, then will compress when it goes over Bluetooth, and then will be processed for 3D by the L700A.”

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Here’s how to clean your AirPods, earphones, and hearing aids safely without damaging them

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No, it doesn’t require Apple’s $20 cleaning cloth or any special skills.

Instagram and TikTok will have you believe that cleaning AirPods requires 3 different tools and 4 solvents to easily dissolve the earwax, loosen the dirt, and leave the AirPods’ ridiculously small inner grill looking as good as new. There is, however, a solution that’s easier, faster, and so ingeniously simple, it requires absolutely no learning curve. Meet AirSquares, a set of earphone-cleaning putty squares that let you effectively get all the dirt and wax out of those dadgum tiny earphone holes. Working as easily as the putties/doughs you get to clean your laptop and wireless keyboards, the AirSquares are the perfect size and stickiness to help you safely clean out your AirPods, earphones, and hearing aids. It takes mere seconds and doesn’t require complicated equipment or technical expertise.

Designer: AirSquares

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Available in a pack of 12 semi-reusable putty squares, the AirSquares are the perfect size for cleaning tiny crevasses, namely the grilles/buds of earphones, headphones, hearing aids, as well as the earpieces or charging ports of smartphones and the gaps between keys/wheels on keyboards/mice. I say semi-reusable because the putty can be mushed, molded, and reused again… although eventually, it needs to be chucked out in the trash. The white color of the putty acts as the perfect visual indicator for letting you know when it’s dirty and needs replacing.

The cleaning process is as easy as pressing the putty into the AirPods and removing them gently. The putty’s sticky surface instantly catches any dust, debris, or earwax, leaving you with a clean AirPod or earphone as you remove the putty. It’s a whole lot easier than using those fancy tools, picks, and solvents that most technicians would use, and is much safer too… especially considering how fragile those small earphones can be.

The AirSquares help you maintain your AirPods, allowing them to remain hygienic while lasting longer too. Cleaning your earphones periodically is great for maintaining their audio quality, and it also helps prevent dust and debris from getting into the device, which may interfere with its functionality or ability to pair up with the phone. Side tip from a personal experience of buying a vintage iPod and EarPods on eBay – it’s also great for restoring older earphones to their original glory, so you can sell or resell them while having them look as good as new!

Click Here to Buy Now

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The Hakii Ice TWS Earbuds look so incredibly ornamental, they make the AirPods cases feel boring

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Instead of creating a sleek design that requires an ugly case, the Hakii Ice cleverly takes care of both aspects by creating a beautifully textured design encased in a protective clear resin outer layer. This seemingly ‘frozen’ design becomes an aesthetic as well as a utilitarian feature that protects the case from damage.

Meet the Hakii Ice. You’ve probably never heard of them, although once you see them, chances are you won’t ever forget them. With perhaps the most memorable design in the earbuds category, the Hakii Ice sport a double shot molded case design that looks almost like the earphones are preserved in a block of ice. The outer transparent layer, and the textured inner layer create an interplay of light and shade, with a touch of refraction, that makes the Ice earphones look incredibly awe-striking. In a world filled with TWS earbud cases that look like floss cases, the Hakii Ice looks like an ornament.

The problem with most TWS earphone cases is the fact that the earbuds, their performance, and the underlying technology get all the focus, making the outer case an afterthought. That, in retrospect, has created the perfect stage for companies like Hakii to put actual design efforts into their case designs (Gravastar went all-out with their Sirius Pro TWS earphone cases too). As its name suggests, the Ice earbuds look like they’re trapped in a block of ice. Designed for active wearers (sportspeople, fitness freaks, etc.), the Ice takes inspiration from ice-based sports, and focuses on creating an impression of being quite literally ‘cool’.

On the technical front, the Hakii Ice are a pair of Bluetooth 5.2 TWS earphones with a semi-in-ear design and a 7-hour battery life. Like any good pair of TWS earphones, they come with minimal latency, pair up quickly, and are intuitive to use, with touch-sensitive panels that let you trigger smart features and control volume and playback. Where they stand apart are in the fact that the earphones have massive 13mm drivers (that’s 2mm larger than the ones found on the AirPods Pro), and the fact that they run DNN (deep neural network) noise-canceling, relying on machine learning to help the earphones get better at isolating and canceling noise with use. They’re great for music, workouts, calls, podcasts, and Hakii’s even made sure the low-latency feature is perfectly tuned for gamers, who like absolutely tight response times.

However, the case remains the Hakii Ice’s magnum opus. Created through as many as 6 different material tests (with 21 separate iterations) for an optimal balance between strength, lightness, heat-resistance, and transparency, the case uses a manufacturing method called double-shot injection molding, which allows you to create a product with two different materials right within one mold in one process. There’s obviously a case (no pun intended) to be made for the fact that websites tend to lean on the side of creating dramatic photogenic product shots, although images of the product circulating on Twitter and the rest of the internet show a earphone case that definitely looks eye-catching to the extent of feeling ornamental. Hakii’s even won a fair bunch of design awards for its previous products (including the Red Dot, IDEA, iF Design, Good Design, and the Design Intelligence Awards). I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ice ended up snagging a bunch of awards too… after all, it blows a breath of fresh air into a category where most TWS Earbud cases look like glossy, spray-painted floss-containers…

Designer: Hakii

The post The Hakii Ice TWS Earbuds look so incredibly ornamental, they make the AirPods cases feel boring first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Top 10 Earbuds designs to perfectly replace your old AirPods, in case Apple doesn’t launch the AirPods 3 today!

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I love a good pair of earbuds! In fact, I really can’t function without my personal earbuds. Once my earbuds are in, the rest of the world is out! I deep dive into the world of my favorite tunes, away from real-world problems, happy in my own little audio bubble! Hence, owning a pair of innovative and perfect earbuds is an absolute necessity for me, and I’m sure that’s the case for other music lovers out there as well! Quite a few of us are Team AirPods all the way. And, we’re hoping we get to see the AirPods 3 at the Apple event today. Fingers crossed! And in case we do not, let’s remember that great earbuds go beyond Apple as well. And this nifty list includes all of them! This collection of exciting designs has a pair of earbuds for everyone! From earbuds that magnetically hang like a necklace to the first TWS earbuds designed specifically for your work from home needs – these earbuds provide unique design solutions and are a must-have for audiophiles!


Named Koishi, after the Japanese word for Pebble, the TWS Earphones come with a soft, pebble-inspired form that’s beautiful to look at, comfortable to store in pockets, and can even be stacked one above another as Zen Stones. They come in three stone-inspired colors and even sport a slightly mottled stone texture. Running right through the case is a light strip that helps let you know when the earbuds are charging, or when they’re low on charge. However, it also visually guides you to instinctively know where the earphones are, so you can glance at the case and pull the earbuds out without fiddling to find them.

Meet the Logitech Zone Truly Wireless – earbuds designed and calibrated for work and business. The earbuds can be paired with your laptop as well as your smartphone so you can go about your day from either device, whether it’s watching training videos or listening to music while you work, answering calls, or even attending online meetings. They’re designed to work seamlessly with common calling applications across most platforms and operating systems and are certified by Microsoft for Teams and Skype for Business, by Google for Meet, and by Zoom.

What’s really ironic is that the Edifier NeoBuds Pro are the first TWS earphones to come Hi-Res certified, a standard developed by Sony itself – a brand that’s very much in the TWS earbud race! Edifier’s own TWS earphones really push the boundaries with the adoption of the LHDC codec (to rival Sony’s LDAC codec), offering higher-quality streaming over a Bluetooth connection, even compared to Apple’s own AAC. Simply put, the NeoBuds Pro makes a pretty remarkable claim, although the LHDC codec is currently adopted by a number of brands in Asia, but isn’t entirely widespread.

The fact that these earbuds are designed to look like a prop out of Ghost in the Shell or Fallout isn’t entirely accidental… GravaStar’s known to make some absurdly futuristic products – you should check out their Mars and Venus Bluetooth speakers! The Sirius Pro follows that brand ethos by being unconventionally sci-fi while serving as pretty great earbuds too. They come with enhanced bass response, boast Environmental Noise Canceling, and actually have an incredibly low latency of 65ms that’s perfect for gaming. When not in use, they sit inside a rather unconventionally designed case, with a cutout running right through the middle and a bare-basics cage-like lid that secures the earbuds in place without concealing them.

Nothing, former OnePlus founder Carl Pei’s latest venture, is lifting the veil on products with its brand of minimalist ‘nothingness’. The ear (1) marks Nothing’s debut in the product space and comes with a rather alluring transparent design. The earphones sport a transparent housing that lets you really appreciate the design and detail gone into the product’s inner assemblies, and a transparent case accentuates the brand’s ethos… of being a breath of fresh air in a saturated tech space that’s all about making black and white boxes. Partnering with Teenage Engineering over the design of the ear (1), Nothing highlights the fact that the design’s beauty lies in its inherent rawness. “Nothing like you’ve seen before, the raw beauty of ear (1)’s stripped-down aesthetic features transparency to expose the engineering, including microphones, magnets, and circuit board. Everything that is ear (1) is there with purpose”, the brand mentions in a press release.

Designed by Yibai Science & Technology from Shenzen, these are called the “Jade Culture Earphone Jue 20.” That’s a bit odd name but everything else about these conceptual wireless earbuds listed on iF Design Award 2020 is super cool. When not in use, the earbuds magnetically lock together to take the form of a necklace pendant that’s suspended by the tethering wire. Then again, when you want to listen to your favorite tunes, simply separate the pendant and get groovy. Picture this scenario – your buddy compliments, “This pendant looks so cool, bud”, and you’ll detach them and plug into your ears to their amazement, “It’s my pair of earbuds, mate!” Added bonus – you surely won’t lose one of the earbuds as there is no accidentally falling down- speaking to you AirPods!

Meet the Mode II, Marshall’s first TWS earbuds, designed with the promise to deliver a “thunderous audio experience” with “growling bass, natural-sounding mids, and crisp treble,” pumped out through its custom-tuned dynamic 6mm drivers. The drivers sit within the earphones’ tiny yet ergonomic enclosure. The Mode II comes with four earbud tips to choose from for that perfect fit, and the earphones themselves are designed to be IPX4 water-resistant, which means you can descend into an incredibly sweaty moshpit with them. Although compact, the Mode II earphones wonderfully reflect Marshall’s audio-forward DNA, from their black faux-leather texture (both on the earpieces as well as the case) designed to pay a hat-tip to their nearly 60-year legacy of building some of the best amplifiers and stage monitors, to the classic M logo emblazoned on each earphone, serving as the iconic branding detail.

Designed to work BOTH as TWS earphones for most consumers, as well as FDA-approved hearing aids for the impaired, the Olive Pro provides enhanced hearing for everything – nearby sounds, music, and conversations. Outwardly, they slightly resemble the AirPods Pro with the bulb and stem design, and with the silicone earpiece… and believe it or not, that’s not subtle plagiarism, it’s a design feature. You see, by bridging the gap between medical devices and consumer-tech, the Olive Pro makes it ‘cooler’ and less of a social stigma for the hearing impaired to wear these aids. Designed to help them blend into society, the Olive Pro’s consumer-centric aesthetic helps normalize an affliction. On the hardware front, the Olive Pro boasts powerful drivers and microphones that work to seamlessly distinguish between noises, voices, and music.

Sevy connects with you through its inherently warm aesthetics and easy user experience. “I was trying to create something which is fun to use and simple in nature. By making the design/product familiar to the user, the product wholly connects with their activity of living the events. Mimicking plays a major role in this part. So, this project is inspired by the natural form which is more simple and important,” says Pon. The earbuds can be controlled via various touch gestures on the surface as well as the Sevy app. Unlike AirPods, these earbuds are completely inside the ear – there is no physical component that protrudes outside so it is a lot more discreet and well-fitting. I also love how they come with a variety of silicone tip sizes because one size doesn’t fit all and was the main reason I switched from my AirPods to another brand.

Housed in a rather unusually designed case that makes optimal use of space, the G1 earbuds designed by Designest for Havit are a treat for the eyes and the ears. The IPX5 waterproof earphones come in a compact case that splits into two to reveal both earbuds stored in separate halves, connected by a vibrantly colored silicon piece that also transfers power between halves. The earphones boast a supremely ergonomic fit that the company claims was arrived at after scanning and measuring thousands of ears. The G1’s design features a twice-molded TPU body, to ensure the earbuds are absolutely water/sweat-resistant, anti-fall, anti-fingerprint, and wear-resistant. Havit’s G1 headphones come with a convenient 3.5 hours of battery, while the 720mAh case is capable of topping them off as much as six times. The case wirelessly charges too, for extra convenience, and a pretty nifty LED on the top glows to let you know your buds’ batteries are being replenished.

The internet is filled with very believable knockoff AirPods Max headphones. Here’s how to spot a fake.

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It’s difficult to say if some of these knockoffs were made to just harmlessly copy Apple, or to actually defraud customers, says YouTuber Dave2D… but the video above is a fair demonstration that for the right price, you can apparently buy a fake AirPods Max that’s looks and behaves just like the real deal. Or a warning that the crazy discount you find on eBay could actually be a fake Apple product parading around as an original.

The minute Apple announced the AirPods Max, tech YouTuber Dave2D instantly knew that there would be an absolute deluge of knockoffs. He just didn’t know that some of the knockoffs would be so good that they’d even confuse a seasoned tech reviewer like him. Dave hopped onto Alibaba and decided to pick up the cheapest and the most expensive pair of AirPods Max knockoffs he could find. The cheapest cans cost him roughly $30, while the more expensive ones retailed at $150.

The video at the top of the article shows Dave unboxing the two fakes as well as an original. With the $30 pair, the difference in quality was almost too obvious. The headphones shipped without packaging (they just came in a plastic bag) or any of the peripherals like the headphone holder or the charging cable. As convincing as the headphone looked on video, Dave said that the $30 pair felt nothing like the original. It felt obscenely cheap, with a lightweight design, a plastic body, and hinges that actually creaked when you used them. You could fool someone from a couple of feet away, but if anyone ventured too close or even decided to pick up the pair, the difference would be immediately obvious. For $30, the fake Pods didn’t sound anything like the original either.

However, things got really interesting with the second pair, which cost $150. They shipped in what anyone would assume to be original packaging, and even had every packaging detail down to the wire, including the manual on the inside. Perhaps the only difference that Dave could tell was that the print was slightly darker than the original (which was actually a darkish gray and not black). The unboxing experience was a remarkable copy of the original too. The headphones came in the same kind of case (although the stitching felt slightly cheap), with the charging cable, and even the user manual. While the headphones looked practically indistinguishable (even the woven headband looked quite similar), they still had plastic cups, but were considerably weighty (Dave suspects pieces of metal inside to add weight).

Things got even more interesting when the fake $150 AirPods Max actually triggered a notification on Dave’s iPhone when brought near. The fakes were built to be so believably real, they even managed to fool the iPhone, which set up a pairing request when the knockoffs were brought near the device… although they were listed as ProMax on the iPhone instead of the AirPods Max. Unless you were actually looking for signs that these were fake, chances are you’d probably miss them… and here’s the funny part. They sounded fairly decent too, although if you’d heard the real AirPods Max before, you’d immediately be able to tell that the $150 fakes didn’t sound as good as Apple’s $550 originals.

So how do you really spot a real from a fake? The most telltale sign is to examine and inspect the product itself. The knockoffs almost always have a plastic construction as opposed to a metal one, and if you notice anything off like bad stitching, gaps between parts, creaking hinges, or slightly off colors, treat it as an immediate red flag. The fakes also wouldn’t sound the same or have any of the features like OTA updates, Spatial Audio, Find My, etc… although if you’re just discovering those, chances are you probably already bought the fake headphones.

So how do you really make sure you don’t fall for a cheap knockoff or a well-made fake? The answer’s simple, really. Just buy your product directly from Apple instead of hunting for deals on other sites like eBay or Craigslist. Oh, and a sureshot way to avoid fraud is staying away from shady Chinese wholesale websites!

Video Credits: Dave2D