In case you had any doubt that clip-style wireless earbuds are the new thing in personal audio, CMF by Nothing is readying to hammer the trend home. After a week of teasing its next product, the company finally revealed a name: the Clip Pro.
While we don’t have any official details on what the Clip Pro has in store, CMF did tease a date—August 4—which will almost certainly be the official reveal. We also have a few (admittedly not very illustrative) peeks at what the Clip Pro looks like. In the teaser above, there’s a glimpse of what appears to be a textured outside of the bud. Previous teases show the bulb part of the clip and a speaker grille within. From those, the Clip Pro looks similar to a lot of other clips I’ve seen/used, including Sony’s and pairs like the OpenDots 2 from Shokz.
Maybe the most intriguing tease suggests that the Clip Pro may come with a volume wheel, or Smart Dial, as CMF calls it, that lets you control volume from the case on previous pairs of their wireless earbuds.
Outside of that, there’s little to draw on in terms of speculation. Given that “Clip” is in the name, I’m assuming they’ll be more like other clips that wrap around your ear as opposed to the Nothing Ear Open, which tucks around the back. In general, clips are the predominant design for open-ear audio nowadays and have been gaining steam throughout the last year. While Bose, Sony, and JBL already have clips, Samsung may also be hopping on the bandwagon soon.
This week, leaked illustrations found in the Samsung app show the company’s yet-to-be-released clip-style earbuds, the “Galaxy Able” or “Galaxy Buds On.” From the looks of it, they’ll stack up comparably to other clips in the field, and while previous rumors suggest they may be bone-conducting, they may actually just be air-conducting like a standard pair.
In any case, it looks like we can expect the clip-on wireless earbud market to get even more crowded soon.
