First announced at CES 2026 in January and released Monday, EarFun Clip 2 open-ear earbuds arrive with an unusually ambitious spec sheet for $79.99 (or less with launch discount). EarFun says Clip 2 is the world’s first Hi-Res comfort ear-clip earbuds with built-in AI translation priced under $80 — a claim that would sound like marketing bluster if the hardware didn’t largely back it up. After spending time with them, here’s my EarFun Clip 2 earbuds review with an honest verdict.
EarFun Clip 2 earbuds review
Before anything else, I’ll be clear about what the new Clip 2 open-ear earbuds are and are not. These are open-ear earphones. That means they clip onto your ear rather than going into the ear canal — which makes them a fundamentally different proposition to traditional in-ear designs like AirPods Pro 3. No silicone tips, no ear canal seal, no passive noise isolation. You’re not blocking out the world — you’re adding a soundtrack to it.
Clip 2 is designed for people who need to stay aware of their surroundings while listening. As in runners who want music but also need to hear oncoming traffic, gym-goers who want a podcast in the background without losing track of what’s happening around them, and people who wear earphones for hours at a stretch and find traditional in-ears uncomfortable over time. What they’re not really designed for: deep listening sessions, commuting on a noisy train or keeping office noise at bay.
Getting that framing right matters, because everything about the Clip 2’s strengths and limitations flows from it.
These lightweight, clip-on headphones feature LDAC Hi-Res Audio,12mm titanium drivers, four microphones with AI for clear calls, AI translation, secure fit, 40-hour playtime and Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity.
- Noninvasive fit for those who like ears free
- AI translation
- Long battery life
- Advanced Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity
- LDAC Hi-Res Audio codec is Android only
Table of contents: EarFun Clip 2 earbuds review
- Design and comfort
- Pairing and controls
- Audio quality
- Audio app and sound modes
- AI translation: genuinely useful, with caveats
- Battery life
- EarFun Clip 2 earbuds review: Verdict
Design and comfort
Photo: EarFun
The Clip 2 come only in black for now and look exactly like what they are: small, sleek ear-clip earphones with a rounded body and a flexible hook that wraps around the back of your ear. If you’ve been using in-ear buds for years, the clip format takes a few minutes of fumbling to figure out, and it doesn’t feel completely natural on first wear. But that changes quickly.
The ear clips use a C-bridge design built from a 0.55mm nickel-titanium memory wire wrapped in soft liquid silicone, which EarFun says was refined through over 20,000 flex tests and 10 months of real-person wearing data. At just 5.5g per earbud, the Clip 2 provides a seamless “barely-there” feel for effortless, all-day listening, in my testing.
Ear size may matter
In practice, that weight claim holds up. Because the earbuds don’t go into the ear canal at all, there’s none of the pressure or fatigue you sometimes get with in-ear models after a few hours. The only potential pressure point is the larger section housing the battery and button that sits behind the earlobe — how much you feel it will depend on your ear shape. My ears are big, as is my head. The housing didn’t bother me, but not being able to get speaker pointed more directly into my ear canal for the best sound did bug me. It just wouldn’t reach far enough no matter where I nudged it (but in nudging it, I could hear how much better the sound would be if it fit me well).
For exercise specifically, the Clip 2 performs well. Running for close to an hour produced no issues — the earbuds stayed locked in place while sweating, with no shifting or slipping. Testing on a cross-trainer with jumping and lateral movement yielded the same result. The IP55 dust and water resistance rating adds reassurance for workouts and light rain.
Pairing and controls
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
Pairing is straightforward — open the case, and the Clip 2 go straight into pairing mode. Android users get Google Fast Pair support for an even quicker setup, and once paired, reconnecting is fast and reliable. The Bluetooth connection proved rock-solid in testing, with no dropouts.
Multipoint connection lets you pair with two devices at once, but there is a trade-off worth knowing about: you can’t use LDAC (hi-res sound for so-equipped Android devices) and multipoint at the same time. It’s one or the other, and the app makes that clear when you try to enable both.
Rather than touch-sensitive panels, the Clip 2 use physical buttons — one per earbud. That’s a deliberate choice, and the right one for earphones aimed at exercise. Touch controls and sweaty fingers don’t mix well, and accidentally triggering playback while adjusting earphones mid-run gets old fast. The buttons are positioned behind the earlobe, which takes a little time to get used to, but it is not a dealbreaker.
Audio quality
Let’s be honest about open-ear audio physics. Without a seal in the ear canal, you lose the bass response and sound isolation that in-ear earphones deliver by default. EarFun has done what it can to push back against those limitations. Each earbud features a large, 12mm dual-magnetic titanium composite driver combined with proprietary BassSurge technology for deeper bass. And there’s Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification with LDAC support (Android). It delivers a high-fidelity listening experience with three times the data transmission of standard Bluetooth.
Bright indie pop and loud guitar rock sound delightfully clear on EarFun’s latest buds, leaving plenty of room for every instrument and vocal harmony to shine. Vocals and upper-frequency detail come through with impressive openness for earbuds at this price.
The weakness, predictably, is bass. Tracks built around driving basslines sound bright and clean, with good detail in the vocals and upper frequencies — but the low end doesn’t hit as hard as it should. It’s as if the bass announces itself but then doesn’t stay around for the party. And as I said above, the fit didn’t help me hear everything better.
Audio app and sound modes
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
The EarFun Audio app gives you several EQ presets — Rock, Classical, Bass Boost, and others — plus a custom equalizer, and a Theater Mode powered by EarFun’s Spatial Stage Technology.
Theater Mode gives music and movies a surround-like effect. It’s not quite as immersive as Spatial Audio on the AirPods, but it’s still a nice perk that’s pretty rare for this price range. The Bass Boost preset does relatively little given the open-ear design, which is simply a physics problem no EQ can fully solve.
Call quality is solid in quieter environments. The quad-microphone ENC system does a decent job — voice pickup is clear and background noise is reasonably well controlled. The limitation is the open-ear design itself: in a busy street or noisy gym, there’s nothing between your ear and the world around you.
AI translation: genuinely useful, with caveats
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
The AI translation feature sets Clip 2 apart from nearly every rival at this price. Clip 2 supports translation of more than 100 languages. You activate it with a (customizable) tap or double-tap gesture set in the EarFun app. When others speak, the translated speech is heard in the earphones in near real time.
The AI Translation feature lives entirely in the EarFun Audio app and works in two modes: Face to Face and Real Time. Face to Face is the more practical of the two for actual conversations. Select the two languages involved, then each person takes a turn. Your conversation partner speaks toward the phone, and the translation comes through your earbuds. When you speak, your words are translated and played through the phone’s speaker for the other person to hear. Everything also appears on screen as text in both languages, which helps fill gaps when the audio isn’t clear.
Real Time mode works for a single language direction continuously, making it better suited to listening scenarios — following a foreign-language video or a one-sided conversation — rather than a true back-and-forth exchange.
In testing, translation speed is practical enough to follow a conversation, though a natural pause between speech and translation remains. Accuracy is decent but imperfect — suitable for grasping the gist of an exchange rather than anything requiring precision. One important note: an internet connection is required, and a small banner in the app notes that real-time mode is available free for a limited time, suggesting it could become a paid add-on down the line. That is a risk worth factoring in before buying primarily for this feature.
Battery life
Photo: EarFun
Battery life is one of the Clip 2’s stronger suits. You’re looking at up to 11 hours on a single charge with LDAC off, and up to 40 hours total with the case. Switch LDAC on and those figures drop to six hours per charge and 22 hours total — a meaningful reduction. If you run low, the quick charge feature is useful: just 10 minutes plugged in gives you 2.5 hours of playback. The case charges via USB-C or wirelessly, with a full charge taking around two hours via USB-C.
The case supporting wireless charging is a genuinely welcome touch at this price point, and the combined battery is generous enough that most users will go multiple days between charges under normal listening habits.
EarFun Clip 2 earbuds review: Verdict
★★★★☆
EarFun Clip 2 is a strong open-ear earbud for anyone who knows what they’re signing up for. For exercise, these work great — light enough to forget you’re wearing them, stable enough to survive an hour’s run without budging, and comfortable enough for hours of wear without fatigue. The physical buttons are the right call for sweaty sessions, the battery life is class-leading at this price, and the AI translation is a legitimate feature rather than a gimmick — even if it carries usage caveats.
The bass may disappoint anyone expecting in-ear levels of low-end weight, and sound leakage is simply a fact of the open-ear format. At $79.99 — or considerably less during the current 30% early-bird launch discount — these occupy a rare position in the market. Pricier open-ear options do manage better bass and sound quality, but at this price, the Clip 2 are a very strong option if open-ear earphones are what you’re after.
Price: $79.99; currently $55.99 with early-bird discount
These lightweight, clip-on headphones feature LDAC Hi-Res Audio,12mm titanium drivers, four microphones with AI for clear calls, AI translation, secure fit, 40-hour playtime and Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity.
- Noninvasive fit for those who like ears free
- AI translation
- Long battery life
- Advanced Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity
- LDAC Hi-Res Audio codec is Android only
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
