If there’s one thing that CES 2026 illustrated to audiophiles, it’s that open-ear audio is the thing right now. The category isn’t new—big names in the audio space like Bose and Nothing have been selling open wireless earbuds for a while now—but the options are about to get overwhelming, and it’s not just earbuds getting in on the trend.
One thing that jumped out to me was a couple of entrants from Asus; in particular, its new ROG Cetra Open Wireless Earbuds. These wireless gaming earbuds join a growing number of gaming-centric buds from companies like Razer and SteelSeries, but add an open-ear twist. The best part is that they don’t shed the things that make gaming wireless earbuds good for gaming; they still have a low-latency, 2.4GHz dongle and physical buttons for when you want to use the wireless earbuds without screwing around with touch controls. To my knowledge, they’re among the only open-ear options when it comes to gaming-specific wireless earbuds.
Asus’ open-ear emphasis didn’t stop there, either. The company also unveiled a pair of open-ear headphones (a headset, really), the ROG Kithara, that combine hi-fi audio with the perks of wired audio—zero latency and no audio compression, to name a couple. All of that comes in an open-ear form factor that uses a MEMS microphone, which could help boost sound clarity. In short, open-ear audio is coming to gamers in a big way.
And it wasn’t just gaming. Companies like Soundcore and Shokz are pushing the whole category of open-ear audio forward by tackling arguably the biggest downside of open-style wireless earbuds—I’m talking about active noise cancellation (ANC), or lack thereof. For those who aren’t baptized in the waters of open-ear audio, let me backtrack for a second.
As great as open wireless earbuds can be, there’s one thing that they (formerly, at least) can’t do, and that’s ANC. That’s because noise cancellation typically requires creating a tight seal in the ear canal through a silicone ear tip. Soundcore’s solution with the AeroFit 2 Pro is a “dual-form” pair of wireless earbuds that can be worn outside the ear like a typical pair of open wireless earbuds or readjusted to a “semi-in-ear” position to function more like traditional ANC wireless earbuds with ear tips. I haven’t had a chance to try the AeroFit 2 Pro myself, but the solution is an interesting and unique one.
Shokz, on the other hand, said screw it and just gave its new open-ear wireless earbuds noise cancellation, or as the company calls it, “noise reduction.” I got to try the OpenFit Pro with noise reduction myself on the show floor at CES 2026, and I was pretty impressed. Despite the fact that the OpenFit Pro sit on the outside of the ear like other open-ear wireless earbuds, as soon as noise reduction was activated, it quieted my surroundings significantly. If you were looking for a best-of-both-worlds pair of wireless earbuds, the OpenFit Pro might be it.
While those were the explicitly labeled open-ear products, they were far from the only examples at CES 2026, because boy, were there quite a few pairs of smart glasses, too. While smart glasses might garner a lot of attention for in-lens displays, there are just as many pairs that don’t have a screen, which makes them a lot more like a pair of wireless earbuds than you’d initially think.
Take Rokid’s Ai Glasses Style, for example, which are the company’s screenless rebuttal to Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. Like Shokz’s OpenFit Pro, I also got a chance to try Rokid’s newest Ai glasses at CES 2026, and was actually able to hear them on the show floor, which is saying something given the amount of environmental noise. If smart glasses are going to be 2026’s next big thing, then so is open-ear audio by proxy.
To recap, that’s a lot of open-ear audio, which, if I’m being honest, is good. I love open-ear designs; they’re comfortable, they’re convenient, they’re safer when you’re exercising, and they make personal audio just a little bit more exciting. And the good news is, you won’t have to take my word for it—if you’re interested in open-ear audio, there’s probably a pair of headphones or earbuds made for you. In that regard, I’ll call CES 2026 a success, AI slop be damned.
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