The Crazy Geniuses at Shokz Gave Open Earbuds Noise Cancellation

Open earbuds are great, man. They don’t cram your ears with silicone, they sound better than ever, and they aren’t going to prevent you from hearing a truck barreling in your direction while you’re biking around a busy city. There is one thing they don’t have, though, and that’s noise cancellation—or one thing they didn’t use to have, I should say.

At CES 2026, Shokz just took the wraps off its OpenFit Pro open wireless earbuds, which bring “noise reduction†to the open-ear form factor. Shokz stops short of calling the technology “noise cancellation,†but the effect is very similar. And while recently released competitors from Soundcore, the AeroFit 2 Pro, deal with the active noise cancellation (ANC) problem by tweaking the form factor to allow semi in-ear usage, Shokz is doing something different altogether.

The OpenFit Pro wireless earbuds are actually giving you a noise cancellation effect without having to block your ears up, meaning all you have to do is press a button and boom, you’ve got more traditional ANC in a true open-ear form factor. I got to try the noise reduction on the OpenFit Pro wireless earbuds, and I gotta say, folks, this stuff really works.

I only did a brief demo, but with the push of a button, the OpenFit Pro wireless earbuds did a pretty good job of blocking out noise on the busy show floor at CES—even without music playing. With music playing, the effect was even more efficient. To achieve a noise reduction effect, Shokz is using three microphones: one for monitoring your surroundings, one for enhancing noise reduction, and one for “predicting in-ear noise.†Using information from those three mics, Shokz says the OpenFit Pro “generate precise inverse sound waves that reduce unwanted noise.â€

The result is a pair of open wireless earbuds that can not only cancel a certain amount of noise, but also adapt to the loudness of your surroundings. If you don’t want the noise reduction to tailor automatically, you can also adjust it manually.

Outside of all the noise reduction goodness, the buds sound solid, too. Inside is what Shokz is calling a “dual-diaphragm 11 × 20 mm ultra-large driver,†which, in my brief listening test, was able to keep up with the din at CES. Battery life will depend on whether you’re using noise reduction or not, but Shokz says the OpenFit Pro can get up to 6 hours on a single charge when the feature is on, which is about the average for a pair of regular wireless earbuds with ANC.

These open earbuds aren’t super cheap at $250, but they’re also not as bad as some competitors like Bose, which sells their Ultra Open Earbuds for $300, and those don’t have any noise reduction. You can preorder the OpenFit Pro now, and Shokz says priority shipping will begin Jan. 12 for early bird buyers.

Gizmodo is on the ground in Las Vegas all week bringing you everything you need to know about the tech unveiled at CES 2026. You can follow our CES live blog here and find all our coverage here.