Nothing Ear (stick): Trendy wireless earbuds that stand out from the crowd
Nothing Ear (stick) earbuds. Picture: Noel Campion.
The relatively new London-based tech company Nothing is a brand whose mission is to bring tech without barriers to the world. Their plan is to create connected products that improve our lives without getting in the way. I’ve been testing one of their audio products called the Nothing Ear (stick).
The Ear (stick) has a refreshing design that centres around a cylindrical case with an ingenious opening mechanism and equally interesting buds with transparent plastic that allows you to see all of the electronics inside. They have a one size fits all shape, so no silicone tips. The short stems are angular with touch areas for gesture controls.
The oval-shaped buds, like AirPods, just rest in the concha of your ears and a little grille at one end directs sound down your ear canal while not sealing to prevent external sounds from passing through. This is great if you want to hear what’s happening around you but if you’re looking for ANC or some kind of noise isolation then the Ear (stick) are not for you. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but some will find this a desirable feature — Sony’s LinkBuds were designed with a hole in the middle to fully allow sounds in.
I love the small attention to detail like the small red and white dots on the outsides of the buds to visually indicate, which is left and right.
The touch controls work well — squeeze once to pause/play, twice and three times to skip tracks, and squeeze and hold to change the volume — left for down, right for up. The buds include wear sensors that will detect if you’re wearing them and pause music if you remove them from your ears.
The cylindrical case for charging is beautifully designed with a simple and smooth rotate to open. On the end of the case with a red section is the USB-C port for charging but unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging support. Here you’ll also find a small silver button that’s used to initiate manual Bluetooth pairing. The buds will automatically enter pairing mode when you use them for the first time.
The Ear (stick) buds just hang in your ears and provide decent but not exceptional comfort. I found them slightly large for my medium-sized ears, so I don’t think they’d be ideal for people with small ears. The original AirPods were the same and I know several people who couldn’t use them because they wouldn’t stay in their ears.
The buds feel relatively comfortable if you place them in your ears but the sound improves if you push them in a little. The downside is they don’t feel as comfortable. They’re light at just 4.4g and they didn’t fall out when walking or cycling.
The Ear (stick) supports both AAC and SBC audio codecs but not aptX. They do come with Google's Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair which is a bonus.
The buds are rated for up to seven hours of playback. In comparison to competitors, the case’s battery provides enough power to fully recharge the earphones just over three times, for a total of around 29 hours.
There’s a unique equaliser that allows you to tweak the mids, bass and treble plus or minus 6dB. It has four pre-tuned presets; voice, balanced, more bass and more treble. You can also create your own custom preset.
The app also allows you to customise the controls, toggle on/off in-ear detection, enable low lag mode for gaming and update the firmware. The find my earbuds feature will trigger a sound to help you locate misplaced buds and you can see the battery levels of each bud and the case on the home screen.
The Ear (stick) have a well-balanced sound that is ideal for most users. They have an open sound due to their design that I like, but those who want a thumping bass won’t be satisfied. There’s excellent clarity in the mids and highs and I found them great for listening to podcasts.
They’re great for working in the office too — I could enjoy listening to music but was still able to hear someone asking me a question from across the room.
In general, I think most people will enjoy the sound quality but it’s not in the same bracket as more premium buds like the Sennheiser Momentum 3 or even AirPods Pro 2s, both of which cost considerably more.
The Nothing Ear (stick) are super cool and I love the transparent case. The touch controls are excellent too easy-to-use gestures that work flawlessly. If you’re looking for something different and don’t care about ANC the Ear (stick) is well worth a look.
Nothing Ear (stick) €119 Nothing
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
