On Tuesday, Sony announced its newest set of fully wireless earbuds, the Sony LinkBuds.
The earbuds feature a unique “open ring” design built to let in ambient noise alongside your music, with the goal of keeping wearers aware of their surroundings at all times. That puts the particular earbuds in opposition to Sony’s other high-profile wireless earbuds, typically the more awkwardly named WF-1000XM4 , which feature active noise cancelation to block out as much external sound as possible.
The LinkBuds cost $180 and are available to order starting today. I’ve had the earbuds on hand for a few days now; here are some impressions from my testing.