I own a lot of earbuds, and I can say with total confidence that none of them have ever made me feel fancy. Earbuds are the gym socks of consumer tech. You need them, you lose them, and you never show them off. Xiaomi’s OpenWear Stereo Pro argues the category deserves better, with open-ear buds that look like they came from a jewelry counter and a case straight out of a leather goods boutique. They launched last fall, and I still can’t stop staring at the press photos.
Mirror-polished pods sit on thin silicone ear hooks, and the whole set tucks into a case wrapped in vegan leather with a suede-style lining. Each 9.7-gram (0.34-ounce) bud packs four drivers for your ears, plus a fifth that fires anti-noise outward to help keep the stranger next to you on the train out of your true-crime podcast. You can pick from Sand Gold, Titan Gray, or Graphite Black, and the gold one is the obvious answer. Xiaomi sells them for €149.99 in Europe and £139 in the UK, with no official US release. Your friend in London suddenly looks very useful.
Designer: Xiaomi
A polished metallic finish wraps each pod, and Xiaomi pairs it with a soft cream-colored silicone hook, so the shiny bit gets all the attention while the hook practically disappears. Beneath that silicone runs a 0.6mm (0.024-inch) memory titanium wire designed to flex around your ear and spring back into shape. Xiaomi built the fit around three contact points to distribute pressure, with the pod tilted outward to avoid pressing against your tragus, that little flap at the front of your ear canal. The slim hook is also designed to leave room for glasses. On a model with her hair up, the whole thing reads like a boutique ear cuff that happens to play Spotify.
The case measures 2.68 inches square and just over an inch thick (68 x 68 x 26.3mm), with pebbled vegan leather outside and a tan faux suede lining that gives it the look of a watch box. A magnetic lid holds it shut, and a little “DESIGNED BY XIAOMI” tab inside tips its hat to Apple’s famous sign-off. The buds nest in a figure eight, hooks overlapping, so neatly that it feels rude to take them out. Most earbud cases are glossy plastic pebbles that collect scratches the moment they meet your keys. This one looks more at home on a nightstand beside your watch and wallet.
Each pod combines a 0.71 x 0.51-inch (18 x 13mm) dynamic driver for bass, two balanced armatures (the tiny precision drivers found in pricey in-ear monitors) for detail, and a piezoelectric ceramic tweeter for the high frequencies. Xiaomi says Harman helped with tuning, and the Xiaomi Earbuds app offers two dedicated EQ profiles on iPhone and Android. The fifth driver, a 10mm unit, plays reverse-phase sound outward in Balanced mode. Xiaomi claims 60% better sound-leakage reduction than the original OpenWear Stereo. The company rates battery life at 8.5 hours per charge and 45 hours with the case, enough for a week of commutes before you hunt down a USB-C cable. It also says a 10-minute top-up buys two hours, a useful fallback if you forget to charge before a flight.
Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds cost $299, Shokz wants $249.95 for its OpenFit Pro, and the OpenFit 2+ sits at $179.95. Xiaomi’s €149.99 European price looks appealing alongside those US prices, though importing a pair could change the calculation. Xiaomi followed up in May 2026 with the Ear Clip, a cuff-style design closer to Bose’s approach. A year on, the hook-style Pro is still the pair I’d point to when someone tells me audio gear has to look boring.
