Still not 100% sold on open-ear buds? This set doubles up as in-ears
Anker's new Soundcore Aerofit 2 Pro earbuds can sit over your lugs as open-ear buds and then go inside your ear for ANC listening
Open-ear earbuds have always seemed practical in theory but questionable in execution. I get the appeal: awareness, comfort, and no ear sweat. But the trade-off has always been obvious. You hear everything. Your music, the street noise, people around you. And you miss out on noise cancellation. So, I’ve sat out of the open-ear camp.
That is, until Anker unveiled the AeroFit 2 Pro at CES 2026 – a pair of buds that offer open-ear design and ANC. Yes, it’s a single pair of earbuds that do both. There’s no need to swap devices or keep a second pair in your backpack, just a quick fiddle with the ear hooks, and suddenly you can no longer hear your surroundings.
These earbuds use an adjustable ear hook mechanism that lets you shift the position so the nozzle edges are close enough to your ear canal to create a seal. It’s not a full seal, mind you – Anker calls it “semi in-ear.” The passive isolation from this position, combined with the built-in Adaptive ANC 3.0, allows the buds to monitor noise nearly 400000 times per second and adjust accordingly. That means the software is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. When I tried the buds the ANC wasn’t quite as good as the infallable AirPods Pro 3, but was very good considering I’d just folded the ear hooks up.
You also get spatial head-tracked sound, high-res audio with LDAC, and a chunky 11.8 mm driver wrapped in LCP and TPU. There’s a four-mic setup with AI smarts for phone calls, which should mean your voice cuts through even when the harshest of winds.
Anker hasn’t ignored comfort, either. The ear hooks are coated in soft silicone, are bendy across 56 degrees, and are meant to accommodate ears that aren’t shaped like the idealised CAD model most companies use. The idea is to keep things comfortable when you’re in open-ear mode, then get just snug enough for ANC without making your ears rebel.
The Soundcore AeroFit 2 Pro are available to order directly from Anker for $180/£180. Matte Black is your only option at launch, with Gloss White and Matte Purple landing later this month, and Gloss Blue arriving sometime after that.
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Connor Jewiss
