Xiaomi Openwear Stereo Evaluation

In a nutshell

Xiaomi is the most recent producer to leap aboard the open ear headphones bandwagon, and as soon as once more, it does not fairly handle to come back near delivering the best-in-class mannequin. The OpenWear Stereo is spectacular when it comes to design, carrying consolation, battery life, and wide selection of features when utilized in tandem with Xiaomi smartphones.

Audio playback high quality in louder environments was not passable regardless of the presence of ANC. Most individuals will due to this fact be higher served with basic earbuds merely due to physics: Higher to have a transparency mode with wind noise than open ear headphones with none form of energetic or passive noise suppression in any respect.

If you happen to nonetheless need to strive the OpenWear Stereo out, you’ll be able to already discover the brand new headphones on by way of varied on-line retailers, though it isn’t formally obtainable within the US. You’ll have to funds for roughly $129 a pair in the event you’re all in favour of selecting it up.

Design & construct high quality

If you unbox the OpenWear Stereo from Xiaomi, the very first thing you discover is the massive charging case. The rationale for this? The design. They’re hooked up to the highest of the ears by way of a bracket and hold in a C-shape in entrance of the ear canal. Tipping the scales at 9.6g per earbud, the load is extraordinarily mild. Collectively within the charging case, the headphones weigh round 70g. Additionally, you will discover mud and water safety based mostly on the IP54 ranking!

Execs:

• Very comfy and safe match when worn.
• Water and dirt safety.
• Reportedly examined and handed 5,000 bends due to the nickel-titanium alloy used.

Cons:

• Headphone dimension just isn’t customizable.
• Contact operation may be liable to unintentional enter.
• Mirrored components on the headphones are extraordinarily vulnerable to fingerprints.

The try to design open ear headphones to let ambient noise by way of whereas listening to music is all the time a curious animal. The Xiaomi OpenWear Stereo proves this to be considerably true. At first look, the headphones appear to be sports activities headphones which might be geared up with retaining straps for a greater grip. Nevertheless, whenever you put on the OpenWear Stereo, one factor turns into obvious:

The 2 earbuds solely cling tightly over the ears and wouldn’t have silicone ideas or fins that you simply place in your ear. Relatively, the design of the headphones is meant to put the 2 speaker membranes roughly in entrance of the ear canal, permitting you to listen to audio content material being performed.

As you’ll be able to see from the photograph of my left ear, this labored surprisingly effectively, because the chrome-colored speaker components are tucked in behind the ear as soon as they’re in place. I suppose most ears are suitable with the headphones or the opposite means round!

To make this design as strong as attainable, Xiaomi depends on an alloy of nickel and titanium within the manufacturing of the headphones ought to have the ability to face up to a whopping 5,000 bends with none points. In on a regular basis life, nevertheless, I’ve to say that you do not really bend the headphones fairly often when utilizing them in a traditional method. I often regulate them on my ear and the earbuds have retained their form.

Regardless of this uncommon design, the OpenWear Stereo remained in place on my ears. When shaking my head and even jogging, the earbuds stayed the place they’re. After getting used to them, I even wore them when doing the dishes with none concern of the earbuds falling into the sink. Nevertheless, in the event that they ever fell prey to clumsiness and the legislation of gravity, that would not be an issue both. Xiaomi has rated it at IP54 for mud and water safety.

What I favored much less is the contact management gestures. As soon as once more, these are liable to unintentional activation and may set off incorrectly in the event that they have been to come back into contact with water. The working methodology you like for headphones is, in fact, subjective. Total, there’s not a lot to complain about when it comes to its design.

App & features

I can be temporary right here: There’s a companion app known as “Xiaomi Earbuds”, which lets you management the earbuds or regulate the sound, as an illustration. Nevertheless, you will not discover a full-fledged equalizer right here. Nevertheless, the twin pairing operate and a search operate for the headphones might are available helpful.

Execs:

• Effectively-designed companion app.
• Controls are customizable.
• Twin pairing, sound customization, and distant digicam management operate.

Cons:

• No precise equalizer obtainable.
• No features corresponding to put on detection or one thing related.

For a pair of earbuds in 2024, the Xiaomi OpenWear Stereo affords a mediocre vary of features. The design of the companion app and battery life show are spectacular. Nevertheless, with out put on detection, 3D audio features, or head monitoring and lacking out on a “actual” equalizer, the $129 headphones fall behind many opponents.

As an alternative of an equalizer, Xiaomi means that you can change to treble emphasis or voice emphasis within the headphone combine along with regular mode. I admittedly just like the treble emphasis and suppose it’s the greatest, however extra on that within the subsequent phase.

Having twin pair functionality, a twin headphone operate that may play two pairs of headphones with only one smartphone, and customization choices for gesture management are additionally very helpful. One other intelligent function is how the headphones can set off the digicam of Xiaomi smartphones if required.

Sadly, the distant digicam management just isn’t solely Android-exclusive, however solely obtainable inside Xiaomi’s ecosystem. As there’s rather a lot to write down about when it comes to design and sound, however I am going to maintain this temporary. Do depart your questions within the feedback!

Sound and ANC

As open ear headphones, the Xiaomi OpenWear Stereo affords an uncommon audio expertise. It is because by design, the headphones permit ambient noise to succeed in the ear with none transparency mode. Not solely that, the Openwear Stereo just isn’t a pair of bone-conduction headphones. As already talked about, the headphones maintain two 10 mm drivers with a frequency response of 20 Hz – 20 kHz in entrance of your ear. It additionally affords…ANC?!

Execs:

• Podcasts and calls are very easy to hearken to.
• Good quantity ranges regardless of its distance from the ear.
• Surprisingly low quantity of audio bleed.

Cons:

• Quantity shortly turns into annoying when mixed with exterior noise
• Bass is nearly fully absent from the music
• ANC barely noticeable and nonetheless liable to errors as a beta function

Over the previous few years, I used to be in a position to check out a number of open ear headphone techniques, be they bone-conduction headphones just like the Haylou PurFree BC01 or “headphones-sunglass hybrids” just like the Fauna Audio Glasses (evaluation). In a means, the OpenWear Stereo is a combination of each techniques. They put on in an identical technique to the Haylou headphones, however outputs audio alerts by way of typical drivers just like the Fauna Audio Glasses.

This makes the listening expertise really feel a bit like taking typical over-ear headphones a number of centimeters away out of your ear to speak to a buddy. The music sounds somewhat farther however stays intelligible for essentially the most half. Nevertheless, ambient noise is transmitted in an apparent method and this is a bonus in comparison with in-ear headphones with a transparency operate.

You do not have to fret about interference or wind noise with the OpenWear Stereo. This can be a very constructive impact, particularly when you’re up and about in highway site visitors, corresponding to when using a bicycle or e-scooter (comparability). Whilst you can suppress ambient noise with in-ear headphones, this operate is essentially absent with the brand new Xiaomi headphones. Though Xiaomi does supply an ANC operate right here, Energetic Noise Cancellation works by way of anti-noise and due to this fact, no closed headphones are required, making the operate probably not efficient.

If you happen to have been to concentrate to fan noise, as an illustration, when activating ANC, it’s decreased by round 10 %. That is not negligible, however it’s nowhere close to as efficient as typical ANC. Because the operate remains to be in beta, there may be additionally a variety of background noise which may be fairly irritating.

Again to music playback. As with different open headphone critiques, low tones specifically fall by the wayside with the OpenWear Stereo. The truth that frequency response solely begins at 20 Hz just isn’t actually the issue. Relatively, bass is solely not transmitted as effectively over the air. Headphones are very sensible in the event you like to concentrate to lyrics when listening to music or need to use the headphones primarily for podcasts. The Xiaomi OpenWear Stereo transmits voices surprisingly effectively.

The truth that Xiaomi licensed the headphones for HiRes audio by way of the LHDC codec is definitely attention-grabbing from a advertising and marketing perspective. Nevertheless, because the headphones are solely appropriate for energetic music enjoyment to a restricted extent, I discovered this function to be fairly negligible. I attempted the high-quality codec with a suitable gadget however could not hear any actual distinction.

What’s fairly stunning is that this: The alleged “audio bleed”, i.e. music leaked outdoors, happens little or no at medium to excessive quantity. Solely at most quantity can I think about the individual sitting subsequent to you on the prepare being aggravated by the noise.

Final however not least, I seen the headphones do not filter out ambient noise, you have a tendency to show the music stage up very loud in noisy environments. In a loud metropolis, my ears began to ache somewhat as a result of I used to be utilizing the headphones too loudly for too lengthy. It is best to take note of this!

Battery & charging

The massive charging case of the OpenWear Stereo homes a 788 mAh battery, giving the headphones a complete playback time of a formidable 38.5 hours. Standalone, the open ear headphones managed to realize 7.5 hours of music playback. That is stable, however sadly, they’re solely charged by cable by way of USB C.

Execs:

• Total good to excellent battery life.
• Exact battery standing show within the app.

Cons:

• No wi-fi charging supported.
• No fast charging supported.

The “battery and charging” class is shortly ticked off with the OpenWear Stereo. The headphones are supposed to have the ability to play music continuous for 7.5 hours. After a number of hours of use, I believe this determine is sensible. I additionally discovered it to be very sensible that the app gives us with exact details about the remaining battery capability share of every earpiece and the charging case.

The headphones can then be recharged as much as 5 instances by way of the massive charging case. This leads to a complete runtime of 38.5 hours, and you do not even have to consider a charging cable whenever you’re on trip. Nevertheless, in the event you do must energy the headphones, you need to use a USB-C cable as wi-fi charging just isn’t included in a tool with an asking value of $129! It additionally misses out on fast charging, which is a disgrace!

Conclusion

I all the time discover it troublesome to attract an expert conclusion when evaluating open ear headphones. The OpenWear Studio is technically spectacular with LHDC compatibility, sporting an extremely lengthy battery lifetime of as much as 38.5 hours and excessive carrying consolation, which doesn’t trigger a sense of strain on or within the ears even after utilizing it for a number of hours straight.

Nevertheless, by choosing open headphones, you might be additionally choosing a powerful area of interest product. In my expertise, it is extra frequent to need to block out your environment when listening to music than to concentrate on them. And whereas present in-ear headphones nonetheless supply a transparency mode for the latter, the Openwear Stereo can not rating factors right here regardless of the built-in ANC.

As open ear headphones, being what the OpenWear Studio is, the brand new Xiaomi gadget positively impressed within the evaluation. I price it 4.5 stars. As a pair of contemporary headphones in 2024, nevertheless, they’re much less spectacular, which is why I might have rewarded 3.5 stars. Placing each scores collectively, we find yourself with a 4 star ranking on this nextpit evaluation!