The Earbud That Lets the World In

Most gaming earbuds are designed around a single idea: block everything out. Asus just bet $229 that some of us don't actually want that.

The Cetra Open Wireless earbuds sit outside your ears rather than sealing inside them. Game audio mixes with the room. Your partner's voice gets through. The cat knocking something off the shelf — you'll hear that too. For a category built on isolation and bass cannon performance, this is a deliberate step in the opposite direction. Whether that's a feature or a flaw depends entirely on how and where you play.

What Open-Style Actually Means for Gamers

Open-back headphones have long been a favorite among audiophiles for their natural soundstage. But in gaming, they've been a rarity — especially in earbud form. The dominant logic has been simple: seal the ear, block the noise, deliver punchy bass, win. Products like the Sony InZone Buds and SteelSeries Arctis Buds follow this playbook faithfully, pairing active noise cancellation with a snug fit that turns your ears into a private cinema.

The Cetra Open rejects this entirely. The earbuds rest just outside the ear canal, which means you lose the physical advantage that makes bass reproduction easy. Asus compensates with a feature called Phantom Bass — enabled by default — which digitally reinforces low-end frequencies. The result is surprisingly capable: full-bodied mids, reasonable bass, and a sound profile that holds up well across both gaming and music. It won't satisfy a bass-head, but it doesn't embarrass itself either.

The obvious limitation: open design leaks sound. Turn the volume up in a quiet library or a late-night bedroom and the people around you will know exactly what you're playing. And in a noisy environment — a commute, a busy café — ambient sound will compete with your game audio rather than disappear beneath it.

The Real Story Is a Small Piece of Plastic

The earbuds themselves are good. The included USB-C 2.4GHz transmitter might be the most practically useful gaming audio accessory released in the past two years.

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Here's the problem it solves: handheld gaming consoles like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2 have a single USB-C port. Plug in a wireless audio dongle, and you've just lost your charging port. You can game with wireless audio, or you can charge — but not both. Every competing dongle on the market accepts this as an unavoidable trade-off.

Asus didn't. Their transmitter includes a passthrough USB-C port that supports up to 60W of one-way charging while the dongle is active. That's enough to keep any modern handheld running indefinitely during a session. It sounds like a minor convenience until you've spent an hour watching your battery drain because your dongle was sitting in the only port available.

Battery life holds up on the earbuds themselves: up to 16 hours in Bluetooth mode with LEDs and mics off, around 10 hours in 2.4GHz mode in real-world use. A quick charge cycle takes the buds from 70% to full in under 20 minutes. The case charges via USB-C — no wireless charging — and can top up the earbuds multiple times before needing a refill.

Multipoint connectivity is supported, letting you pair to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously, or one Bluetooth device alongside the 2.4GHz transmitter. Source switching is automatic and requires no button presses, though you can't blend audio from two sources at once.

Who These Are Actually For

The Cetra Open aren't a better version of the InZone Buds or Arctis Buds. They're a different answer to a different question.

If you game alone in a quiet room and want maximum immersion and bass, the sealed ANC options remain the stronger choice. But if you game on a couch with other people around, or at a desk where you need to stay present in the room, or on a handheld where charging and audio compete for the same port — the Cetra Open solve real problems that their competitors don't.

The $229 price point is competitive but not cheap. It sits alongside premium ANC earbuds that offer a feature set this product deliberately avoids. Buyers are paying for comfort, the passthrough dongle, and a design philosophy — not for noise cancellation or isolation.

For handheld-first gamers, the value case is strong. For everyone else, it requires honest self-assessment about where and how you actually play.