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Your everyday headphones and earbuds are more than vessels for playing music; they are your workout buddy, your Do Not Disturb sign at the office, and your travel companion. Intelligent features, such as heart rate monitoring, AI-powered noise cancellation, and live translation, are in high demand as consumers expect more from their personal audio devices.

However, these features can become useless to consumers if there's too much friction in accessing them. Apple's friction increases once you leave its ecosystem, and Bose's friction increases when your environment becomes too dynamic for its headphones' capabilities.

Also: I've tested dozens of Sony headphones - these 4 tweaks get me the best sound quality