TL; DR
- CMF’s first open-ear buds, CMF Clip Pro, built around a three-point clip design are here.
- It features a 10.8mm dual-magnet driver with ‘Ultra Bass Technology’ to fight the usual open-ear bass loss.
- Clip Pro gets LDAC support alongside AAC/SBC, plus Bluetooth Multipoint and a Low Latency gaming mode. It has no touch control—only physical dials.
- The Clip Pro is priced at $99, launching August 15 in the UK, US, and Japan. An India launch isn’t happening.
CMF is finally doing open-ear buds, and it’s ditching the one input method everyone complains about on cheap earbuds: touch controls. The Clip Pro uses a slim C-bridge that hooks around your ear at three points, and instead of tapping the stem and hoping it registers, you get a physical dial on the unit. That’s a useful call for a sub-$100 product, where touch sensors are usually the first thing to feel cheap.
Open-ear designs almost always lose bass because the driver isn’t sealed against your ear canal, and CMF is trying to claw that back with what it’s calling Ultra Bass Technology alongside a 10.8mm dual-magnet driver.
What’s surprising at this price is LDAC support. Hi-res wireless streaming on a $99 open-ear bud isn’t something you’d expect Nothing’s budget sub-brand to bother with, especially when most competitors in this bracket stop at AAC/SBC. Pair that with Bluetooth Multipoint and a dedicated Low Latency Mode for gaming, and CMF is clearly positioning this as a spec-for-spec value play.
Battery life is fairly standard for the category: 10 hours on the buds, 32.5 hours total with the case, and a 10-minute charge gets you 4 hours back. The IP54 rating is the bare minimum for something marketed at an active lifestyle, though open-ear buds rarely need to survive full submersion anyway.
Price and Availability
The CMF Clip Pro is priced at $99 and comes in Dark Grey, Light Grey, and Coral. It launches August 15 in the UK, US, and Japan, with Europe and the rest of the world following on September 15. There’s no mention of an India launch just like the Ear (3) and Headphone (a), which is a notable gap given CMF’s usual India-first positioning on its other products.
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