Open design is the oldest compromise in audio: either you hear the surrounding world or you hear music properly. Xiaomi Clip chooses the former and tries to compensate for it technologically.
What's Inside
Inside is an 11mm dynamic driver with LHDC 5.0 support for hi-res audio playback, although the real challenge for any open design is sound leakage. To solve this problem, Xiaomi uses directional sound transmission and reverse sound waves — a standard approach in this category designed to preserve listening privacy.
The weight was kept at 5.5g per earpiece, with a titanium memory metal bridge used for retention. The clamping distance is set at 3.4mm — according to the manufacturer, to hold the earphones securely without pressing on the cartilage after several hours of wear.
For voice capture, there is an array of three microphones paired with a bone conduction microphone for background noise filtering.
Battery Life: 28 or 38?
The source material mentions "up to 28 hours" — but that's not the whole picture. The battery capacity provides 9 hours of playback in the earpieces themselves and up to 38 hours with the charging case. Ten minutes of charging provides up to four hours of playback. The difference between 28 and 38 hours is likely explained by mode: AAC versus a more efficient codec.
AI Features: There's a Catch
The earphones support real-time transcription, live translation for lectures and videos, call translation, face-to-face conversation translation, AI summaries, and on-device voice recording.
"Such a level of translation is rarely found at a price under $150, but how well it works outside the HyperOS ecosystem is unclear"
gagadget.com
The earphones do support switching between two devices and are confirmed compatible with Apple devices — important for iPhone users, who, however, won't get full integration with XiaoAI.
Apple Find My: Real Value for Non-Android Users
Despite the product's Android focus, Xiaomi Clip supports Apple ecosystem features. The earphones are compatible with the Apple Find My app — users can track both the charging case and each earpiece separately. For a Chinese manufacturer's device, this is atypical and directly expands the target audience.
Market and Price
At $125 in China, Clip occupies an interesting niche: on paper more powerful than most budget open-ear models, but significantly cheaper than the Bose Ultra Open, which costs three times more.
- Price in China: 849 yuan (~$124), launch discount to 799 yuan
- IP57 — protection against dust and water immersion up to 30 minutes at 1m depth
- Bluetooth 5.4, codecs AAC / SBC / LHDC 5.0
- Colors: black, white, gold, purple
- Global pricing: not announced
The question is not whether these earphones are technically good. The question is when and at what price they will appear globally: if Xiaomi launches Clip on the international market above $150 — the advantage over Sony LinkBuds Clip (~$230) disappears, and AI features without HyperOS transform from a killer feature into a marketing line in the specifications.
