Nothing Ear (open) review: One issue upsets Nothing’s first-draft open-ear headphones

Nothing Ear (open): One minute review

I started testing for this Nothing Ear (open) review under the impression that, like other open ear headphones, they were designed for fitness use. Over the last few years open earbuds, or air conduction headphones, have become a popular type of sports headphone to let you hear your surroundings while running, cycling or working out outdoors.

When judged against this use case, though, the Nothing Ear (open) fly far from the mark, and they’re not ideal for going on walks along roads either, and it’s all from one questionable design decision. I found them frustrating to use and had to force myself to put them on my ear every time I was going to hit the gym or go on a run.

It’s a shame, because Nothing has become a reliable name in earbuds in the last few years. Its Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a) from earlier in 2024 were both impressive and affordable earbuds with amazing bass and unique feature sets, and there were high hopes for the Ear (open), which mark the company’s first foray into the open-ear headphones market.

I’d wait until the second foray to buy some of these buds though, because as I said one design issue ruins the user experience with these buds. That issue is in the band hook, which loops over your ears to connect the body of the bud (which goes over your ear, providing the music), with the rest of it which goes behind your ear.

This band is made of a very flexible material which does a poor job at holding the bud and counterweight still. This means that when you’re moving; say, going on a run or bending down at the gym to pick up some weights, or even walking, it wobbles. Wobbles enough to change how the music sounds for a little moment, and wobbles enough to slap against the tragus of your ear (that’s the sticky-outy bit in your ear) if you’re moving rapidly or repeatedly.

Going for workouts with the Nothing Ear (open), then, was an exercise in patience: could I survive the tap-tap-tap of the wobbling bud for long enough to complete a course or a workout routine? For the purposes of this review I endured it, but I don’t think I would have if not for that!

Putting aside fitness use, it was also an issue when I was walking at any speed (though it was more pronounced the quicker my pace), and given that the entire point of open ear buds is that you can hear your surroundings when walking on roads, this means they miss the mark as non-fitness earbuds too.

Beyond the annoying design, the Ear (open) would need to be incredibly impressive to get a decent review, and unfortunately it missed that high bar. Primarily, the audio wasn’t on par with other open-ear headphones I’ve tested, particularly in the volume department — this latter is vital to combat surrounding sounds when you’re in busy areas.

I did like a few aspects of the buds: the case is the main one, as it’s pretty slender compared to other open-ear headphone cases and was attractive all things considered. Plus the touch controls on the earbuds were handy to use, and there was no sound leakage which fixes a problem I’ve faced in other earbuds (open-ear and not).

These elements show that Nothing is on the right track with the Ear (open), but I only see these buying a worthwhile buy if you’re not into your exercise. If you simply want earbuds you can wear in public without being unaware while crossing roads, it could be a decent option — as long as your walking pace isn’t too quick!

Nothing Ear (open) review: Specifications

Nothing Ear (open) review: Price and availability

• Announced and released in September 2024
• Priced at $149 / £129 / AU$249
• Middling price for this kind of tech

The Nothing Ear (open) costs a reasonable $149 / £129 / AU$249, and was both announced and released in September 2024.

That price puts them slap-bang in the middle of a host of other open ear headphones on our list of the best open ear headphones (excusing the exceedingly-premium Bose Ultra Open, which costs twice as much).

The Nothing roughly matches the $149.99 / £149.99 (about AU$290) 1More Fit Open Earbuds S50, a competitor with which the Ear (open) has a lot in common (namely, a poor fit). If you want to spend a little more you can opt for the Shokz Openfit at $179.95 / £179.99 / AU$289 but if you want to save money, the OpenRock Pro go for $129.99 / £119.99 (roughly AU$185).

Bear in mind that open ear headphone tech is in its infancy, so you’re paying a premium no matter what you opt for; if you’re conscious about price, opting for ‘standard’ headphones will get you superior audio quality at a much lower price.

• Value score: 3/5

Nothing Ear (open) review: Design

• Bendy hook makes buds wobble
• IP54 rating and light weight
• Case is nice and slender

I’ll start with the case, because you will too when you take the buds out of the box.

If you’ve tried other ear-hook headphones, you’ll know that the cases often end up being pretty large to house the hook. The Nothing Ear (open)’s case is comparatively small, due to its thickness of only 2cm. Its total dimensions are 12.6 x 4.4 x 2 cm and it weighs 63.8g – I found it more pocketable than many other open ear headphone cases that I’ve tested.

Like most other Nothing headphone cases, this one has a see-through front, so it’s easy to double-check whether the gadgets are in there or not.

The headphones also resemble Nothing earbuds, in that they’re small and see-through with rounded designs, but with the addition of a long silicon hook to go around your ear and a counter-weight at the end. The buds weigh 8.1g each, so they’re lighter than many rivals, which is obviously really important for fitness earbuds.

In terms of an IP rating you’re looking at IP54: protection against dust ingress and sprays of water, but not full immersion in liquid. The important thing, though, is that they’re sweat-proof.

I’ve often touted Nothing’s buds as having some of the best touch controls: they’re pinch-controlled, so you get a nice haptic ‘click’ when you trigger the function. While the Ear (open) don’t provide this same click, they’re also pinch-controlled – they’re easy to use but impossible to accidentally trigger.

That’s a lot of praise for the Nothing Ear (open)’s design, and you’ve (presumably) already read in this review’s introduction that design is the Achilles Heel of the earbuds. And that’s correct.

As I mentioned earlier, the hook is made from silicon, a very weak and flimsy material being used in a very thin hook. The result of this is that, when you move about, the body of the bud isn’t held in place – it bounces around horizontally which is really annoying to feel and affects the sound quality you’re getting. Sometimes, poor fit can be justified by a reviewers’ ears not matching the size of the buds, but given that this is an issue with the build, it’s a lot less subjective than that.

The fit is a lot less rigid than on other open ear headphones I’ve tried, which I can see some people hailing as making them comfortable, but this just exacerbated the issues that I faced. I’d rather firm-feeling wearables than ones that keep flicking me!

This floppy build quality made the Nothing Ear (open) infuriating to use when on a run, as the body would bounce up and down, and at the gym, as bending down to pick up weights or leaning back on a bench would see the gravity pull the body away from my ear. That’s why I said these aren’t fitness headphones – I found myself opting to hear the clunks and grunts of my gym than endure the Ear (open) wobbling around near my ears.

A problem like this doesn’t solely affect exercise though, and it was even a problem when going on walks. It’s hard not to view these as a ‘draft one’ version of the earbud, if the problem is this pronounced.

• Design score: 2/5

Nothing Ear (open) review: Features

• 8-hour battery life, up to 30 if counting case
• Minimal feature set but equalizer present
• ChatGPT function for certain users

In its marketing, Nothing loudly cites that the Ear (open) has a 30-hour battery life, but you have to delve into the small-text to realize that this refers to the combined lasting power of the earbuds and the case.

On their own, the earbuds last for 8 hours of listening time before they need to be charged, which is slightly above average compared to other earbuds — the lack of ANC helps here. The case holds 22 hours, for a grand total of 30, which is a little on the low side compared to some other bud cases on the market but it’s not a terrible figure.

In headphone reviews, ANC usually goes in the ‘features’ section, so I should touch on it for anyone using CTRL-F: there is none, of course, due to the nature of open earbuds. You don’t want to cancel noise, you want as much of it as possible!

In terms of the rest of the feature set, the Nothing Ear (open) has a few taken from other Nothing earbuds, but a few missing too. Using the Nothing X app you can change what the touch controls do, play with an equalizer, turn on a low-latency mode (for gaming, which doesn’t seem like something you’d want to do on open-ear buds?), and set off a ‘find my earbud’ alert which makes them play a loud chirping sound if you’ve lost them.

The equalizer is the main feature there, and it’s just as intuitive as Nothing fans will be used to. It’s default option is a three-band customization model between mid, bass and treble, but there’s an advanced option with an eight-band equalizer for people who know their way around EQ.

In the default Simple mode, there are three four presets as well as the ability to customize your own mix, which I think most people will go for. A few Nothing features like Bass Enhance mode and Listening Test are missing, but that’s not unexpected given the nature of these headphones.

If you own a Nothing or CMF phone you get an extra feature: you can use ChatGPT as your smart assistant from the buds. You can easily squeeze the button and ask your buds what the weather’s like, what the time is or how many kilometres are in a marathon — given that it’s ChatGPT, though, there are no guarantees that the answer will be correct!

• Features score: 3.5/5

Nothing Ear (open) review: Performance

• Max volume isn’t high enough
• Lacking bass and mid
• Little sound leaking

You can’t expect incredible audio quality in open-ear headphones, due to the way they work — it’s just the nature of the beast, and a trade-off you get with the increased situational awareness of wearing them. That’s not even factoring in how background sounds will get in the way of your tunes.

However even with this in mind, I wasn’t blown away with how the Nothing Ear (open) sounded. I’ve typically found Nothing earbuds to provide overwhelming bass and admirable treble and mid, but that wasn’t the case here.

The earbuds didn’t offer as much bass as fitness-bud fans will be accustomed to, and while they did fare a lot better in the treble department, mid was left in the wayside. There was quite a bit of peaking and distorting too, particularly on drums but it affected other instruments to a noticeable degree too.

Some of these issues could be fixed with the EQ, and I squeezed enough extra bass into tunes to emphasize some workout tracks, but was always aware that I could get a better sound quality purely by changing to another pair of earbuds (normal, workout or open).

A gripe I’ve had with previous Nothing earbuds reared its head, in that the maximum volume wasn’t that high. I listened at max volume for most of my listening, and lots of the time when I was outdoors I could barely hear my music.

One thing I do appreciate — though it could be a knock-on from the volume issue — is that there’s very little audio bleed. People around you won’t be pestered by the tunes you’re listening to.

• Performance score: 3/5

Nothing Ear (open) review: scorecard

Nothing Ear (open): Should I buy?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested

To write this review, I used the Nothing Ear (open) for roughly three weeks. During the first two weeks of that, I only used them for exercise: on a run or at the gym (so perhaps five hours per week), but for the final week I made sure to use them a lot more.

This latter testing involved use at home, at my office, on walks in various areas and on public transport. Most of my testing was done using Spotify and Tidal though I watched a few videos and played games to see how they fared. It was paired with an Android phone during the process.

I’ve been reviewing technology for TechRadar for almost six years as of writing this, which includes many audio and fitness devices. I’ve also tested open-ear headphones and other Nothing earbuds prior to the Nothing Ear (open).