Huawei Unveils Unique Wireless Earbuds That Don't Actually Go Inside Your Ear Canal

Huawei has revealed a different take on the open-air earbud by adding some high fashion, professional flare along with flagship features to it. Called the FreeClip, Huawei utilizes a unique "C-bridge" design that allows the earpiece to stay secured in (but not into your ear canal) and around your ear. If you don't mind wearing something that looks like an oversized ear piercing, then this might be for you.

2022 and especially 2023 have seen a renewed surge in open-air earbuds, mostly aimed towards the active, fitness crowd. Between Sony's Linkbuds and Shokz's new OpenFit, the genre is selling units like hot cakes. Part of the recent interest in this genre has to do with buyers realizing the benefits of open-air listening—users can jam to their tunes while being constantly aware of their surroundings (like a jogger is running through a busy intersection) or for those suffering from ear infections because open-airs will never agitate the ear canal.


Chinese electronics maker Huawei's take on open-air comes in the form the FreeClip. The fact that it sports smooth shiny plastics versus grippy TPU indicates its target audience, which are those looking for something that goes better with their Armani than their REI. How the FreeClip differs from other open-air devices is how it stays attached to your ears. While others traditionally straddle the helix or sit entirely in the concha, the FreeClip merges both ideas by clipping around the posterior helix. In this case, the C-bridge connects the "comfort bean" (that primarily houses the battery and controllers) and the "acoustic ball" (which houses the 10.8mm driver assembly and mics).


Digging into the specs also reveals that the FreeClip isn't a one-trick pony. The company says that the earbuds can generate cancelling waves that will help with sound leakage, plus because the earbuds are both uniform in design and shape, they can be used on either ear thanks to sensors that will adapt the correct left-right audio channels. Each earpiece weighs 5.6g, but still has a respectable 8-hour listening time, IP54 resistance, multi-point Bluetooth connection with support for AAC, SBC, and proprietary L2HC codecs.

Availability of the fancy earbud is limited to UK and Europe (for around 199 euros) at the moment.