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The JBL Soundgear Clips are open-ear headphones with excellent connectivity and a great mic setup. Sound quality is mediocre and battery life is short at 8 hours. Worth it if you need situational awareness, but look elsewhere if you want the best audio for your money.

The 11mm dynamic driver with Adaptive Bass Boost does its best to add low end to an open design, but physics is physics. Our database puts sound quality at the 36th percentile, which means it's mediocre for this category. The bass boost helps, but don't expect the punch of sealed earbuds. Connectivity is where these shine, landing in the 93rd percentile thanks to BT 5.4, multipoint, and Google Fast Pair. The mic setup is also strong at the 80th percentile, so calls should sound clear even outdoors. Battery life is the weak spot at the 18th percentile, with just 8 hours per charge. The quick charge is decent though, 10 minutes gets you 3 hours.

Against the Sennheiser HDB 630 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra, the Soundgear Clips lose on sound and build but win on situational awareness. The Bose and Sennheiser are closed designs with better audio, but they block out the world. The JLab Epic Lux and QCY H3 PRO are cheaper and offer better battery life, but they don't have the clip form factor or the four-mic call setup. If you want open-ear specifically, the JBL is a solid pick. If you want the best sound for the money, look at the QCY or JLab instead.

The price is all over the place in Europe, ranging from EUR 176 to EUR 256 depending on where you look. That's an EUR 80 spread, which is wild. The best deal we found is in Spain or France at EUR 176. At that price, these make more sense. At EUR 256, you're paying a premium for the open-ear form factor and JBL branding. The affordability score sits at the 24th percentile, so most open-ear headphones in our database cost less. You're paying for the clip design and the mic tech, not the sound quality.

The JBL Soundgear Clips are open-ear headphones that clip onto your ears instead of jamming into them. That means you hear your music and the world around you at the same time. JBL calls it OpenSound Technology, and the angled 11mm drivers plus SonicArc design are supposed to keep your audio mostly to yourself while letting ambient noise through.

They're light at 53g, rated IP54 for dust and rain, and pack Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint. Battery life is 8 hours per charge with a case that adds three more full charges. The mic setup is a four-mic array with AI noise reduction, which is a lot of hardware for a pair of clips.

Skip these if you care about sound quality or battery life. The 36th percentile sound score means your music will sound thin compared to sealed earbuds at half the price. And if you need all-day battery without a charging case, 8 hours per charge will frustrate you. Commuters should especially look elsewhere, since the open design lets in all the train and traffic noise, which is why the commute score is a dismal 19.3 out of 100.

Buy these if you need to hear your surroundings while listening to music or taking calls. Runners, cyclists, office workers who need to hear their name called, that's the target audience. The mic quality and connectivity are genuinely good. Just know you're trading sound quality and battery life for the open-ear design.