Galaxy Buds On leak shows Samsung’s first clip-on, open-ear earbuds

Leaks point out to Samsung preparing to launch a pair of earbuds that clip on your ears instead of going into them. The Galaxy Buds On surfaced on 10 September as renders and feature text sitting inside Buds Manager, the Samsung app your phone uses to set up and configure Galaxy earbuds.

The renders show two rounded bulbs joined by an arched bridge that looks silicone-wrapped. The fatter bulb holds the speaker and sits in the concha, the bowl-shaped dip just outside your ear canal. The flatter one clamps on the other side of that ridge of cartilage, and its face is slightly concave: that’s the touch pad for taps and holds. Small metal slits on the larger bulb are the charging contacts for the case.

That makes them open-ear buds. You hear your music and the noise around you at the same time. And your ears don’t get that blocked, warm feeling after an hour of use. Open-earbuds have certain trade-offs however. People near you hear some of what you’re playing, plus there’s no bass.

Accoring to the leaks, there are a couple of features we’ll see when these launch:

1. Auto Volume: it lifts the volume when the world around you gets loud and drops it when things quieten down. There’s also Volume Boost which pushes volumes louder.
2. Nod to answer a call, shake to reject it, carried over from the Buds 4.
3. Touch and hold to start a voice memo and have it transcribed, no phone required.
4. Touch and hold to summon Gemini or Bixby.
5. There’s also a setting that pauses your audio when your phone works out you’ve fallen asleep, and that one needs One UI 9.

With such a design, you can’t have active noise cancellation. However, according to leaks, there’s also no 360-audio head-tracking, which wouldn’t make much sense when you think of it since these are open-ear buds.

Samsung is late to the party. Bose made this category with the Ultra Open in early 2024 at $299. Huawei’s FreeClip followed. itel also has the same design. Nothing’s Ear (open) sells for around $100. Sony announced the LinkBuds Clip in January at $229.99.

Galaxy Buds 4 go for about KSh 17,500 and the Buds 4 Pro sit between KSh 22,500 and KSh 29,000 depending on the shop. Such clip-ons should be priced just below the Pro.