Nothing appears to be working on a new pair of ‘Ear Open’ earbuds

Ben Schoon | Aug 27 2024 - 6:10 am PT

Nothing makes some of the best earbuds out there, and the company appears to be working to add to its lineup with the “Ear Open” surfacing this week.

The existing lineup of Nothing earbuds consists of the Ear and Ear (a), two wonderful pairs of truly wireless earbuds which offer noise cancellation, Fast Pair, and solid sound quality at affordable prices. But it seems the company has more in the pipeline.

A regulatory listing at the IMDA spotted by 91Mobiles reveals the “Nothing Ear Open” in development. There’s no image of the earbuds attached to the listing, but there are implications from the branding alone.

The name “Open” suggests that these earbuds may offer some sort of ambient experience. Rather than blocking the outside world, they may pipe it in alongside your audio. This is a concept we’ve seen before, such as with Google’s first-gen Pixel Buds and Sony’s LinkBuds. Google took the approach of leaving a “tunnel” open for outside sounds to come in, while the LinkBuds were designed with a literal hole in the center with the speakers being found around it.

Many noise cancelling earbuds, including Nothing’s own, use a “Transparency” mode to pipe in sounds from the outside world through microphones, but this never has the same effect as audio gear designed around the idea of ambient sounds.