Apple wasn’t first to MP3 players, smartwatches, or wireless earbuds. Its AirPods still made the company a central name in wireless audio. Now a Helsinki industrial designer has sketched what an airpods open ear concept might look like, and he calls it AirPods Open.
Apple’s audio legacy runs deep, and a London studio’s revived classic iPods with AirPods compatibility shows how far that history reaches.
Anurag Sarda’s airpods open ear concept starts with the AirPods 4 bud. He gives it a glossy white hook that loops over the ear. The stem, Apple’s most recognizable part, moves to the end of the hook and rests behind the earlobe. The bud sits angled above the ear canal, so sound reaches the ear without sealing it off.
Apple already uses the phrase “open-ear” for its tipless AirPods. Apple says the AirPods 5 have the industry’s best active noise cancellation in that design. That design has no silicone ear tips. Sarda’s concept takes the phrase literally.
A stem that works as a counterweight
The bud borrows heavily from the AirPods 4, including the black mesh grille and the small pill-shaped vent beside it. A soft hook arcs over the top of the ear and drops behind it. At the bottom, a visible seam separates a stem-shaped module from the hook. That seam makes the stem look like a separate part.
Hook earbuds usually carry a battery pod behind the ear to balance the driver in front. Sarda’s relocated stem fills that role. Apple’s stems already hold microphones and battery cells, so the engineering logic carries over.
The case follows the same idea. Two mirrored hooks wrap around the buds, and the stems meet at the hinge. Sarda’s renders carry the tagline “Always on, never in.”
How the airpods open ear concept compares with rivals
Nothing Ear (open) is the closest rival to Sarda’s concept. It costs $149 and weighs 0.29 ounces (8.1 grams) per bud. A nickel-titanium wire inside the hook lets it flex and return to shape. Sarda has his own link to Nothing, having designed the Nothing Gamepad (1), a controller concept with glyph LEDs.
Bose chose a clip design. Its Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) launched this fall at $299. Huawei sells both styles, with the hook-style FreeArc and the clip-style FreeClip 2. The FreeClip 2 costs £179, roughly $240, in the UK and is not officially sold in the US.
Apple already has a hook. Beats’ Powerbeats Pro 2 costs $249.99 and uses a nickel-titanium hook. Beats says that hook was tested for more than 1,500 hours with nearly 1,000 athletes. The Powerbeats Pro 2 use silicone tips to seal the ear canal, so they suit workouts more than all-day wear.
The airpods open ear concept combines those pieces. It takes the Powerbeats hook, removes the tips, and adds an AirPods bud. The AirPods 5 already keep the tipless fit and add active noise cancellation, so Apple has the core parts.
Other designers are testing the same idea
Frog Design, the firm that created the original Macintosh shape, has a different answer. Its Unum concept is an open hoop with no ear tips and no ear hook. Frog’s designers say the hoop channels sound into the ear while leaving the ear visible to people nearby.
Jungsoo Park, an industrial designer at Frog, explained the goal. “The intention with this concept is to create a headphone which doesn’t need to be taken off,” Park said. The Unum is meant to last all day and has no charging case.
The Unum is still a prototype. Its images show fit models without working components, so its sound quality is unknown. Frog has not announced pricing or a release date, and it is a design firm rather than a manufacturer.
Apple’s engineers have studied fit closely. Kate Bergeron, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, told What Hi-Fi that the team studied physiology and ear geometry to find a shape that fits people’s ears.
Fit is the real challenge for open designs, and this earplug design honoring the natural helix shows how ear anatomy guides comfort.
Open-ear models are growing, according to Omdia data reported by Apfelpatient. Open-ear earbuds are where the growth is. Omdia expects open models to reach 90.5 million units a year by 2030.
AirPods Open exists only as a render, and Apple has said nothing about it. The concept still shows how much of Apple’s existing hardware could support an open-ear design. If Apple enters this market, it would start with parts it already sells.
Source: yankodesign.com
Frequently asked questions
What is the AirPods Open concept by Anurag Sarda?
AirPods Open is a design concept by Helsinki industrial designer Anurag Sarda that starts with the AirPods 4 bud. It adds a glossy white hook that loops over the ear, with the stem moved to the end of the hook and resting behind the earlobe. The bud sits angled above the ear canal, so sound reaches the ear without sealing it off.
Why is the stem placed behind the ear in the AirPods Open concept?
Hook earbuds usually carry a battery pod behind the ear to balance the driver in front. In Sarda’s concept, the relocated stem fills that counterweight role, and Apple’s stems already hold microphones and battery cells, so the engineering logic carries over.
How much does the Nothing Ear (open) cost?
The Nothing Ear (open) costs $149 and weighs 0.29 ounces (8.1 grams) per bud. The article describes it as the closest rival to Sarda’s AirPods Open concept.
Has Apple announced the AirPods Open earbuds?
No, AirPods Open exists only as a render, and Apple has said nothing about it. The article notes that if Apple enters this market, it would start with parts it already sells.
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