Xiaomi Wants a Bigger Piece of the Clip-On Earbuds Action

If there’s one audio trend you can point to in the last year, it’s clip-ons. Sony is in the game now, as is Samsung, and now Xiaomi is looking for a bigger piece of the clip-on earbuds pie by expanding its shiny Xiaomi Clip globally. While the Xiaomi Clip have been available in China for six months, Xiaomi has now listed the wireless earbuds on its global store. Xiaomi has dabbled in open earbuds, but the Xiaomi Clip—as you may have guessed by the name—are its first pair of clip-style earbuds. For the most part, they follow the same template as any other pair of clip-on earbuds, with a C-shaped design that wraps around your ear and looks a bit like jewelry. © Xiaomi Each earbud weighs about 5.5 g, and they come with 11mm drivers. Like most other open wireless earbuds, they have a solid battery life with a maximum of 9 hours on a single charge—a benefit of not having active noise cancellation (ANC). As far as hi-res streaming goes, these wireless earbuds support LHDC, and they have a pretty formidable IP57 rating, which means they can withstand temporary water submersion of up to a meter. Probably the most interesting part of this pair of wireless clips-ons is also the most superficial—the look, that is. The Xiaomi Clip come in a few colors, but the flashiest (literally) is a metallic-looking gold finish that reminds me of the Huawei FreeClip, which were the first wireless earbuds to really popularize the clip-on form factor. There’s no official gloabl price or launch date yet, but those details could come soon during a Nov. 17 Xiaomi event.