Are Samsung's first open-ear earbuds too late?

Clip-on earbuds are everywhere right now. Nearly every audio brand sells a pair, and our best clip-on earbuds list keeps getting harder to narrow down. I think the clip-on style could be the final form of open earbuds, since they stay put better and sound better than other open designs, without the pressure of earbuds that seal your ear. Samsung is now one of the last big brands to join the hype train with the Galaxy Buds On, and my worry is whether anything about them is strong enough to stand out in a market this crowded.

How the spec sheet stacks up

At $229, the Galaxy Buds On cost more than most other clip-on earbuds. They sit right next to the Sony LinkBuds Clip ($229.99 at Amazon) and above the Shokz OpenDots 2 ($199.95 at Amazon). Only the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) ($299 at Amazon) cost more.

Everything else is about average. Samsung claims 9.5 hours of battery life per charge, which is a big step up from the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, but that’s normal for clip-ons. We measured 7 hours and 10 minutes on the Sony and 13 hours on the Bose, and the EarFun Clip 2 lasted 10 hours and 46 minutes while costing only $79.99 at EarFun. The IP54 rating beats the Sony and Bose, but the HUAWEI FreeClip 2 and Shokz OpenDots 2 are IP57 and can survive being dunked in water.

Wireless charging for the case is nice, but most of the competition has that too. Even the private listening feature isn’t new: in my CMF Clip Pro review, its anti-leakage mode made everything sound muffled, so whether Samsung’s version avoids that remains to be seen.

The real problem is multipoint, which lets earbuds stay connected to your phone and laptop at the same time. Samsung’s buds only switch automatically between Samsung devices, which is no help if you carry a Windows laptop or an iPad. Samsung has done this before. Neither the Galaxy Buds 4 nor the Buds 4 Pro supports true multipoint, which is part of why we’ve argued that the Galaxy Buds4 Pro’s ecosystem lock-in only hurts itself. Apple takes a similar approach, but most other brands don’t, including the Sony and the CMF Clip Pro. Leaving multipoint out feels less like a missing feature and more like a way to keep you buying Samsung.

So, is Samsung too late?

Being late wouldn’t matter if the Galaxy Buds On stood out, but on paper, they don’t. They match the competition on battery, charging, and durability, but fall behind on multipoint and water resistance, and charge a premium for it. Sound quality, call quality, and comfort could change that, but I can’t judge any of it until I’ve tested a pair. For now, they mostly make sense for people who already own a Galaxy phone and want the auto-switching and Galaxy AI features, like Gemini Live and head gestures. Everyone else can grab clip-ons that cost less or do more.

I also wonder whether a clip-on was the right move at all. Samsung already has an open-ear design nobody else copied: the iconic bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live. When the Buds On design leaked, some Samsung fans on Reddit were asking why the company didn’t just bring the beans back with better features. That would have given Samsung something no other earbuds look like. Instead, it made another clip-on.