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I love running while listening to a podcast or a Taylor Swift playlist, but I'm always worried my earbuds are going to block out too many sounds and leave me splattered on the hood of a Ford F150. This means picking the right pair of headphones to wear outdoors is critical. Sony’s new LinkBuds let everything in—no, really. These wireless earbuds have literal holes in the middle of each bud so you can hear all the ambient sounds around you.

They’re far from the first headphones to try to integrate the real and digital worlds, but they are the best I’ve used thus far. For the first time, I’m finding few reasons to remove a bud—or even pause my music—when I’m wandering around. Now that's what I call augmented reality.

The key to the LinksBuds’ success is their shape. They are tiny, round earbuds with silver-lined halos that sit in your ear canal, suspended in your ears via comfortable (and interchangeable) silicone ear loops. A rounded upper section is where you'll find the battery and processors.

They come in either dark gray or off-white, with a variety of loops to fit different ear shapes and sizes, which is good because the buds are so small I had to size up the band to keep ’em in my ears. This is a boon for anyone with smaller ears, like WIRED’s very own senior associate editor, Adrienne So, who constantly complains about bulky earbuds that never stay in. Their small size also helps them mostly disappear into your ears, though you will feel the grippy plastic on the outside of each bud in your ear canal–no cozy silicone ear tips here.

Here's the LinkBuds' main trick: Instead of using bone conduction drivers or microphones to pump in sound from the world around you—the most common approach on any earbuds with some type of “transparency” feature—the donut-shaped drivers of the LinkBuds let the sounds of the world in through the hole in the middle of the bud, and the digital sounds from your paired phone or computer come in through the inside of the ring.

At low volumes, you mostly hear ambient sounds and very little music, but crank up the volume and your tunes enjoy more of a 70/30 blend—you’ll hear a car horn or person screaming, but not much else. Fair warning to anyone with embarrassing taste: At high volumes, folks around you will hear what's coming out of the LinkBuds.

The simplest solutions, in my experience, are passive ones like this. I haven’t struggled with wind noise on bike rides or ski runs using the LinkBuds, which is a common problem with earbuds that use built-in microphones to pull in ambient sounds. I can still be a part of loud environments and hear my music. 

I took the LinkBuds on a ski trip, on runs, and to the supermarket. They're much better than most wireless earbuds in instances when you need to quickly pause your music—like when someone asks you a question or you want to hear an announcement. 

I like that you can use the Android or iOS app to have the buds automatically adjust the volume based on your environment. But the way you actually control the earbuds is pretty clever. You tap the area on your head right in front of the buds twice to play or pause a song, meaning you barely ever need to touch the LinkBuds themselves. I love these controls. They make you feel like a Star Trek character with cybernetic implants. That said, the controls didn’t always work perfectly. 

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These don't sound anywhere near as great as a pair of tipped and noise-canceling earbuds like Sony's own WF-1000XM4, but the LinkBuds are more than capable of reproducing my favorite music faithfully. The biggest difference is a lack of bass—the primary physical drawback of having big holes in the middle of each bud. Still, they're not totally without low end.

The charging case is small enough that it will fit just fine in smaller pockets, and a secure lid and click-in charging mean the buds never rattle around when you juice them up for another 5.5 hours of playback. Yes, that battery life is on the lower end of the spectrum these days, and the lack of wireless charging in the case is a bummer. At least they're IPX4-rated, so sweat won't be an issue and they'll work just fine in the rain.

If you're a Pokémon Go fan, you'll be excited to hear Sony is working with Niantic to optimize the LinkBuds for unique experiences in the game maker's titles. That's a perfect use case for these buds, but Sony also thinks they're ideal for Gen Z listeners who tend to leave one earbud in and the other out throughout the day. 

I can see why you'd be hesitant to fork out $180 for a pair of earbuds that purposefully leak sound, but 30-year-old me is in love. With the LinkBuds in, I can hear wheels on the pavement a block away. I love that I can hear announcements through loudspeakers when I’m in stores. They even work great on calls, which is somewhat surprising, given the tiny design and the amount of ambient sound that leaks in.

There are a million pieces of technology looking to link our digital and physical lives, but none are as seamless as these tiny earbuds with a hole in the middle—they're the only pair I actually want to take with me everywhere. Want to listen to the birds chirp on a morning walk while celebrating the 25th anniversary of Elliott Smith’s Either/Or? Want to hear when the dogs are rustling in your out-of-bounds garden bed while you do yard work? Want to chat with the supermarket checkout clerk about their cool hat after a Jay-Z-powered shopping spree? Grab yourself a pair, you'll rarely leave the house without them. 

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