Some earbuds seal your ear shut and dare you to knock them loose mid-run. The Xiaomi Clip does the opposite, hooking over the edge of your ear like a cuff and leaving the canal wide open for traffic, voices and everything else.
Xiaomi just put the Clip on its global site, and the spec sheet reads like a dare aimed at every in-ear bud. Nothing goes in your ear. It’s model M2529E1, and it comes in Sand Gold, Pearl White, Frost Purple and Graphite Black.
Xiaomi Clip (M2529E1)
Open-ear clip-on buds · 5.5g per earbud · Bluetooth 5.4 with LHDC 5.0
Price: TBD
Where to buy: More details at Xiaomi
A titanium wire does the holding
The fit comes first. A teardrop-shaped body follows the curve of your ear, and a memory titanium wire bridges the gap between the speaker up front and the battery pack behind your lobe. Xiaomi sized that clamping gap at 3.4mm. The bud grips the edge of your ear instead of plugging it. The curved battery compartment spreads the pressure out, and Xiaomi says the shape stays pressure-free during extended wear. It sits like jewelry, not gear.
The case gets the jewelry treatment too. It’s rounded, wrapped in nano-tech vegan leather, and the buds lift straight out with one hand. The case weighs 41.42g, and the whole kit lands at 52.44g. Light enough to forget.
The speaker housing is see-through, ringed in metal styled after a vinyl record. It’s a small flex, and it works.
Sound that never seals your ear
An 11mm dynamic driver does the work, with a microcrystalline metal coating on the diaphragm and a rated range of 20Hz to 48kHz. It supports LHDC 5.0 for Hi-Res audio, plus AAC and SBC, over Bluetooth 5.4. Since nothing seals your canal, Xiaomi aims the 4mm sound outlet straight at it and fires antiphase sound waves outward to cancel what leaks. Your playlist stays yours.
Calls get four microphones: three regular mics, plus a VPU, a bone-conduction pickup that hears your voice through vibration. A wind noise algorithm leans on the VPU when the street gets loud. Rain is fine too, since the buds carry an IP57 rating, though the case doesn’t.
Find My tracks the case, not the buds
The case talks to Apple Find My, with real-time location on a map. Lose the case and an iPhone running iOS 18 or later can point you at it, and the case plays a sound once you’re within Bluetooth range. The buds alone don’t check in, only the case does, and that’s the catch Xiaomi states plainly in the fine print. It’s the same Find My network that tracks AirTags and lost iPhones. The map updates in real time.
Battery runs nine hours per charge in AAC mode. The case stretches that to 38 hours total. Switch to LHDC 5.0 and the numbers drop to six and 25, so the fancy codec costs you a third of your runtime. Calls get six hours, or 25 with the case, and those are Xiaomi’s lab numbers, tested in AAC at half volume.
The buds also connect to two devices at once, and a triple-press on the case starts a recording for calls, video or the room around you. HyperOS 3 phones and tablets can hand audio off between devices, and two pairs can share one phone.
Controls are taps, nothing fancier. Double-tap to pause, triple-tap to skip, and the Xiaomi Earbuds app remaps the rest. The bud recording shortcut ships off by default.
If you want this shape this week instead, Anker’s Soundcore C50i already clips on the same way and sells on Amazon right now.
Soundcore C50i by Anker
Open-ear clip-on buds · Ultra lightweight flexible fit · 25H playtime with case · Sold by AnkerDirect
Price: $44.99 · $69.99 (save $25.00, 36% off)
Where to buy: Buy on Amazon
Wait for Xiaomi to post a global price before you plan around the Clip. The design is the fun part, and a Find My case is a trick pricier buds should steal. If your ears are done with tips today, the C50i fixes that for $44.99. Skip it only if you need buds that seal out the world, because these never will.
