Cleer ARC 3 Open Ear Headphones – Dolby Audio, Snapdragon Sound True Wireless Earbuds, 50Hr Battery, Bluetooth 5.4, IPX 7, Multi-Point, Smart Controls, Wireless Charging Smart Case, Comfort Fit, Blue

Great headphones with nice feature set. Comparison with LG Tone
I have been a fan of neck headphones ever since LG debuted the original design a very long time ago. Nobody had anything similar, and I was skeptical of them. Why would you want to wear headphones on your shoulders and hug your neck especially during working out? I gave it a try and fell in love (after making a few adjustments.) But LG Tone’s headphones came with some annoying flaws with each successive model, one of which was audio cutting in and out, and the other being that they did not last very long: their headsets died within a year. I had three of them. All died within about a year. Customer service was terrible. LG was flying high on its exclusive design.Then came the copycats. They were even worse.Fast-forward 10 years later, and wireless headphones have become de facto, particularly with the introduction of Apple’s AirPods. The problem with AirPods is that they could easily drop off during more intense workouts. I lost 2 during marathons. That made the races even more than I wanted. Alas, I was never able to locate them — either they were swept away, taken by someone, or crushed by other runners or cars. Who knows?I tried over-the-ear, wireless headphones and all disappointed short of buying the very expensive brands. A running mate recommended I try out Cleer. And so I did. I never heard of that company, actually, but the feature set sounded good: sporty look and design, ability to connect to 2 Bluetooth devices at the same time (so I could answer both my personal and work phones without having to switch over), good sound quality (it had clarity and decent bass when I briefly tried my friend’s), and looked to be able to stay on the ear better.PROS- Quality material- Sat comfortably and securely even during high-intensity workouts- Great sound with decent bass- 9.5 hours tested usage (takes about 2 hours to charge)- Reasonable pricing to LG Tone’s neck headphones- Voice calls sounded good to other side (while drowning out background noise)- Connect up to 2 devices at the same time- Sweat proof at IPX7 (X means that it was not rated against dust protection. Second number is for water protection and is out of 9)- Bluetooth 5.4- Carry case included that also acts as UV sanitizer and battery charger packing enough power for 3 more charges (Manufacturer claim. Didn’t test this out)- Cleer+ App smartphone app allows additional customizations and controls and perform firmware updatesCONS- Volume could be a bit louder, especially if you’re going to use it on an airplane [EDIT: You can make it slightly louder on iOS by going to Settings > Sound > Headphone Safety > and turning off “Reduce Loud Audio”]- Bass could use some more powerCONTROLSTaps:Earbuds can be tapped to control music and take/make callsHead Motion:Disabled by default, and I did not want to turn it on to test because I don’t want my head to accidentally trigger things while working out. I just want the headset to play music and take/make calls, that’s it.TIP: Should you need to reset the earbuds, put them into the charging case and long-press the “MFB” button for 10 seconds until it says “Restoring Bluetooth Setting” [sic]Overall, I really like this set of headphones after my disastrous experience with the LG Tone neckbands. LG’s original was great, but LG’s subsequent models, their poor customer service, and poorly-executed copycats made me stay away from this type of headphones. Cleer did great with their take on this headphone. Many thanks for the recommendation from my running mate!

Great open ear headphones.
I needed some buds for activities to augment my current high end buds which fall out of my ears when I’m moving around.I first started down the bone conduction earphones journey but was severely disappointed in the sound quality. I realized I would have to make some sacrifice in sound quality to gain activity focused earphones but even the best of the bone conduction models sounded like old transistor AM radios (younger folks have no idea what I’m referencing there).Anyway, I moved on to testing some of the best open ear headphones currently available and was happy to find that the sound quality improved greatly. Even the worst open ears were much better than bone conducting units imo. Of these the Cleer ARC 3’s was the victor in sound quality and even came pretty close to matching my current set of much more expensive buds. The sound is clear and crisp with plenty of bass and much more defined sound separation than the open ears I tested. My main activity that I wanted these for is bike riding which of course means lots of wind noise. The sound quality remained great even at the highest volume. One problem I had was that the highest volume output wasn’t quite loud enough when biking at higher speeds, but that is more the limits set by my Android and was the same problem with all of the other buds. My solution was one of the free EQ apps which also provide volume boosting. A 20% volume boost gave me more than enough volume to counter the higher wind noises. This is also a big positive for the ARC 3’s since there was zero distortion even with the boost. This wasn’t the case for most of the others I tested.Another thing I found myself loving is the voice commands that do not require going through your phones voice command system which means direct to earphone commands and response. They are fairly basic such as volume up/down, pause/play, fast forward, but I found them to be so much easier to use than saying “ALEXA… VOLUME UP!”Comfort has been great. I can wear them for hours without feeling pressure on my ears, even with glasses and my bike helmet on.One last note, I reached out to Cleer for some clarifying questions about the ARC 3 and they were super responsive and informative. If I had been in the fence about which headset I was going to buy this level of customer service would had me going with Cleer, but I wasn’t on the fence because even prior to this experience the choice for me was Cleer (see what I did there?) Corny I know, but still the truth.