The open wearable stereo (OWS) market gained serious traction over the last two years, and just about every brand has its own entry now. While traditional earbuds come with the tried and tested plug form factor, which sits inside your ear, the OWS models position their drivers right at the tip of your ear canal. The result is raised awareness of your surroundings at the cost of subpar passive isolation.
OpenWear Stereo Pro is the latest offering from Xiaomi, and it aims to one-up its competitors by offering a more premium build while still retaining its open-fit system. Xiaomi is promising impressive claims of reduced sound leakage and extraordinary battery life rated at 8.5 hours from the buds and up to 45 hours alongside the charging case.
So, are the OpenWear Stereo Pro worth their €150/£140 asking price or are you better off with a traditional pair of in-ear buds? These are our findings.
Table of Contents:
Design
While Xiaomi could have used a less convoluted name for the OpenWear Stereo Pro, we have to admit that the fit and finish on the buds and case feel great. The buds feature a shiny metal finish encasing the drivers, which connect via TPU to the bulb on the back. The shiny plastic looks great, but it attracts fingerprints quite easily.
The swooping design hooks around the top half of your ear and positions the driver right on top of your ear canal without actually making contact. This makes for a comfortable fit, and Xiaomi’s three-point support design distributes pressure evenly across the length of the buds.
Each earbud weighs 9.8 grams, while the case is 53 grams, bringing the combined total to just over 73 grams. We never felt discomfort while using the OpenWear Stereo Pro and their ergonomic design is right up with the best of the best in the OWS market.
The ear hook design also ensures that the buds stay in place at all times, even during runs and workouts, where normal in-ear TWS buds would easily lose their grip.
The case feels like a skipping stone in that it is smooth and sculpted to perfection with a soft and pleasant in-hand feeling. It’s certainly not compact, but that goes with most OWS earbuds we’ve tested.
Our review unit comes in Graphite Black and features a faux leather finish on the case lid and a matte on the bottom half. Despite its plastic build, the case feels well-built and does not give out any creaking sounds. The lid closes with a firm snap, and the hinge gives off a reassuring feeling.
The inside of the case has an imitation suede inner lining on the top. This is our first time seeing this choice of materials inside an earbuds case, and it’s nice to see Xiaomi put this much effort into something that’s only visible when opening the case. The soft material should also prevent any unwanted scratches on the buds’ shiny driver housing.
OpenWear Stereo Pro offers IP54 dust and water-resistance, while the case lacks ingress protection. The unboxing experience is pretty standard, you get the buds inside the case, a USB charging cable and a user manual.
Features
Xiaomi didn’t skimp out in the features department with the OpenWear Stereo Pro. The buds connect via Bluetooth 5.4 with support for dual device pairing so you can use them on two devices simultaneously. You also get 360° head-tracking with surround sound, though this feature is more suited for watching movies than listening to music.
Sadly, like all OWS buds, these lack active noise cancellation (ANC), which goes against their primary purpose of allowing you to be aware of your surroundings. This is especially useful for runners and cyclists in urban areas in terms of safety and the on-ear design proves to be more comfortable for longer listening sessions.
While there’s no ANC, Xiaomi claims it improved sound leakage, which has been a pain point for all OWS buds. OpenWear Stereo Pro features a dedicated sound leakage reduction driver that emits reverse-phase sound waves.
On paper, Xiaomi claims you should not be able to hear any sound leakage within a 25cm range of the buds, but in reality, people in your immediate vicinity will likely hear the sounds coming from these earbuds despite Xiaomi’s optimizations.
You control the buds via the touch controls that are integrated on the outer part of the drivers. We had no issues with touch registers, and you are free to customize single, double, triple taps as well as press and hold gestures.
Adaptive volume is another nice feature that adjusts the volume levels based on your ambient noise levels. In our experience, it had a tough time regulating volume in noisier environments where it was needed the most, so we can’t vouch for its effectiveness.
Xiaomi also added the ability to record audio directly from the buds. You get up to 120 minutes per earbud for a total of 240 minutes of total recordings. The recording quality is not that great, but this feature is quite useful for jotting down audio notes when you’re in a rush.
Connectivity was great with no drops or irregularities in our time testing the buds with Android, iOS and macOS devices.
Sound quality
OpenWear Stereo Pro feature custom 18 x 13mm dynamic drivers with piezoelectric ceramic tweeters and dual balanced armatures. They support the AAC, SBC and LDAC codecs and feature Harman audio tuning. We’re not always impressed with audio from OWS buds due to their sound leakage and disproportionate levels of bass and clarity.
But the OpenWear Stereo Pro offer a surprisingly lively soundstage with ample amounts of bass for earbuds that don’t make contact with your ear canal. You get to experience detailed mids and highs while also benefiting from the comfortable wrap-around design of the buds.
Turning up the volume does not distort sounds at higher ranges, which is not always a given with OWS buds. Speaking of volume, you’ll need to raise the slider if you’re using these buds in noisier environments, as sound does tend to leak out.
We found that the OpenWear Stereo Pro delivers more detailed sound output compared to something like the Nothing Ear (open) with deeper bass and a livelier soundstage.
While you don’t get actual control over the equalizer, Xiaomi did provide four pre-installed options, including Harman Master and Harman AudioEFX, as well as treble and voice enhancement modes. In our experience, the Harman Master preset brings out a wider soundstage and more detail in instrumentals.
While the microphone quality on the buds is far from class-leading, it gets the job done indoors, with people on the other end reporting clear reception of my voice. Jumping to a noisy street with car traffic, the microphones experience a tougher time with voice pickup.
Battery life
Xiaomi claims you can expect up to 8.5 hours of playback from the buds which extends to 45 hours combined with the charging case. Each earbud houses a 56 mAh battery while the case packs a sizeable 700mAh charge.
During our testing period, we consistently got over 8 hours of playback from the buds, with the case being good for 5 full recharges. This type of battery endurance is quite good and more than enough for multiple days of heavy usage.
The case charges via USB-C. A full charge from 0 to 100% takes over 2 hours, while a quick 10-minute top-up will net you 2 hours of listening.
Verdict
Xiaomi’s OpenWear Stereo Pro is a great pair of OWS earbuds that pair detailed sound output with spatial awareness and excellent battery life. They have a premium design and just about every feature set you’d want from a pair of open earbuds.
The fact that they hang over your ears means no ear fatigue even after multiple hours of use, and the evenly distributed weight only adds to the great experience. Sound output is surprisingly rich for an OWS product, though you will need to raise the volume in noisier environments. Despite Xiaomi’s efforts to conceal sound leakage, it is still present in everyday usage, but that’s just the nature of this form factor of earbuds.
At €150/£140, OpenWear Stereo Pro delivers a great balance of features, style, comfort and battery endurance. You can certainly get better deals with proper in-ear TWS earbuds, which will offer ANC, but those aren’t exact competitors. As it stands, these are some of the best OWS earbuds we’ve tested so far.
Xiaomi is also offering the OpenWear Stereo Pro bundled with the Xiaomi 15T Pro in some markets, which makes for a great gift to go along with your new phone.
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