Soundcore AeroClip

Price

The Soundcore AeroClip were announced March 2025 for £129.99 / $129.99 and are available to buy from the Soundcore website and the likes of Amazon.

It costs more than Soundcore’s own C30i (£99 / $99) and C40i clip-on earbuds (£69 / $69) with both offering slightly larger designs.

They are significantly cheaper than the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (£299 / $299) but sit at the same price as the Huawei FreeClip (£129.99).

Design

• Available in three colours
• Includes ear grips
• IPX4 water resistant rating

The clip in the name is the big clue to how these earbuds stay on your ears. It’s more Bose Ultra Open Earbuds than Shokz OpenFit in that sense, where the aim is to keep the design sleek and compact while providing a fit that’s comfortable and secure.

Colours-wise, there is midnight, champagne mist or rosy brown shades. The earbuds themselves make use of titanium and TPU, and they cling to your ears in a satisfyingly snug manner. I found wearing them for longer than an hour caused no problems.

To aid fit, Soundcore includes two different sizes sets of ear grips, which fit onto the part of the earbud that sits behind your ear. Without them, I’ve found the fit in general to be good across a range of scenarios.

The distribution of the 5.9g each bud weighs is nicely balanced and I’d say more so than Bose and Huawei’s clip-on earbuds. I might consider putting those grips to use for sweatier exercise and they’re thankfully easy to slip on and slip off again.

On the durability front, they are IPX4 rated to protect against splashes of water and light rain. That’s not the strongest level of protection but it’s also enough to feel confident there’s some defence against sweat or getting caught in a downpour.

The charging case is a relatively compact one, with a USB-C port and pairing button around the back and a nice, long LED indicator light to show the battery status.

It’s surprising to find that Soundcore somehow manages to squeeze controls into the AeroClip’s diminutive body. They’re built into the area that connects the air conduction technology and the other components. You can perform a series of taps to play and pause audio, skip tracks and answer or reject a call.

This is an area where I think the small stature of the AeroClip works against it. You need to deliver a very firm tap to perform those commands and if you’re in a rush or during faster paced workouts, it doesn’t always respond at the first attempt. It is good at least to see you can customise those controls through the Soundcore companion smartphone app.

Features

• Up to 8 hours of battery life
• AI-assisted call quality
• Bluetooth multipoint

Soundcore talks a big game on the call quality front with four beamforming microphones onboard along with wind-blocking meshes and AI to get you strong call quality even in busier environments.

I’ve used them indoors for calls and outside when there’s more sounds to contend with and the AeroClip puts in a pretty good performance. The person on the other end felt call quality was perfectly clear and they didn’t struggle hearing me in more blustery conditions either.

Connectivity-wise, it’s the latest Bluetooth 5.4 and I’ve had zero issues pairing to an iPhone, Android phone and a MacBook Air. I also used them with a Garmin watch that supports music playback and had no issues pairing from the first attempt.

You also have the ability to pair to two devices at the same time, which is nicely presented as an option in the app to swap between the two connected devices.

The battery performance of the AeroClip is very much in keeping with other clip-on earbuds. There’s up to 8 hours from a single charge and an extra 24 hours to top up from the charging case. You also get a very useful quick charge mode that gives you three hours of playback from a 10-minute charge.

If you compare those numbers, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds sits at 7.5 hours and the Huawei FreeClip at 8 hours. It’ll give you more battery than the Soundcore C40i though it comes up short against the C30i’s 10 hours.

Listening volume definitely plays its part on how much battery you’ll enjoy between charges. Unlike some other open-ear earbuds, you don’t have to get near to maximum volume to find them comfortable to enjoy.

I found in general an hour’s listening saw battery drop by around 10-15%, which suggests a slightly shorter battery life. I do think getting 8 hours is possible depending on presets and listening volume.

Sound Quality

• Warm, bright open-ear sound
• EQ presets and custom EQ available

Soundcore delivers open-ear sound using air conduction, which means it puts speakers near but not inside your ears. It also means that unlike most open-ear bone conduction headphones, you have scope to change that sound profile through the Soundcore companion app, which does a good job of keeping things streamlined and putting the things you’ll care about using front and centre.

The design of the AeroClip means you can shift it slightly higher or lower down your ear to give you control of just how open that open-ear sound really is. There’s a 12mm titanium-coated driver and Soundcore’s advanced virtual bass technology to provide the foundations to its overall sound, along with the six EQ presets and custom EQ options you have at your disposal in the app.

I’d say the performance of the AeroClip sits between the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds and the Huawei FreeClip. It’s closer to the Bose than the Huawei, with Bose still winning on balance, with it being clearer and sonically more polished. That’s not to say what you get from the AeroClip isn’t enjoyable on the whole.

It’s set up with the Soundcore signature EQ preset out of the box and you get is warmth, a nice rumble of bass and a sound that matches up well with most music genres or for swapping music for podcasts and audiobooks.

The good lies with that underlying warmth, good power while playing around with EQ settings will get you the most rewarding sound, yet you can only do that from the app and not from the earbuds.

I’d describe bass performance as woolly and prominent. You get a good sense of that on tracks like Sneaker Pimps’ 6 Underground, Animal Collective’s My Girls and Everything But The Girl’s Wrong.

Mids sit quieter beneath that bass-centric profile while the grainy feel you get from the trebles still keeps things likeable if not quite matching up impeccably for all sound genres.

Should you buy it?