CMF announces its first pair of open-ear earbuds for under $100

The Clip Pro buds enter a competitive market with a tempting price tag.

Nothing's budget-friendly sub-brand CMF has been busy disrupting various product categories over the last few years, and now it's turning its attention to open-ear earbuds with the Clip Pro.

Billed as earbuds for busy city-dwellers and active types, the Clip Pro employs what Nothing calls a "3-point clip design" that evenly distributes pressure across your ear so you don't feel the earbuds pinching. They're also designed to fit any ear shape and weigh just 5.9 grams per bud, which the company says lends them a "barely there" feel.

The earbuds sit against your ear, as opposed to stuffing them into into your ear canal like regular earbuds, so while you naturally give up features like noise-cancellation, the upside is being immersed in your music or podcasts without feeling detached from the world around you. The Clip Pro buds are equipped with 10.8mm dual-magnet dynamic drivers, with Nothing making the usual promises about powerful bass, detailed mids and well-judged high frequencies.

For the bass you lose due to the open-ear design, Nothing and CMF have created something called Ultra Bass Technology, which it says "intelligently enhances low frequencies" at the same time as reducing distortion from the treble. Artificial bass boost features like this can be hit and miss, but if you need that extra oomph in your workouts, you might appreciate it here.

The Clip Pro is Hi-Res Certified and supports the LDAC, AAC and SBC codecs. As for call quality, you get four HD microphones focused on separating your voice from the noise around you. If you don't want the full content of your private conversations shared with the person walking next to you on the street, Nothing says the Clip Pro will manage mid and high frequencies to make voices less audible to nearby people. You can adjust this feature to your liking in the Nothing app.

Nothing's proprietary Smart Dial feature trickles down into CMF's latest earbuds. It's essentially a rotating dial built into the charging case that lets you control volume and playback, as well as answer or reject calls, without needing to use your phone or prod away at often finicky on-device controls. Those are there as well if you prefer, and are of the physical variety rather than a touch interface.

The Clip Pro will give you 10 hours of continuous playback on a full charge, with a total listening time of 32.5 hours if you include the charging case. A 10-minute charge returns four hours of battery life.