Apple Announced AirPods 5 with Open-Ear Noise Cancellation--Both Models Get ANC on the H2 Chip, $129 and $149, in Stores September 18

Apple announced AirPods 5 on September 9 at $129 for the standard pair and $149 for AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case, and for the first time both models of the open-ear AirPods have Active Noise Cancellation. The chip is the H2, not the rumored H3, and Apple says the earbuds reach stores on Friday, September 18. If you wanted noise cancellation without the silicone tips of AirPods Pro, the cheapest way in fell from $179 to $129.

Both models get ANC, and the chip stays the H2

As 9to5Mac notes, only the high-end AirPods 4 had ANC. AirPods 5 keep the two-model split but put Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency and Adaptive Audio in both, and Apple says the new open-ear ANC removes up to 50 percent more external noise than AirPods 4. Dave Pakula, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering, called ANC "one of our most beloved features." Sound gets a new multiport acoustic architecture and next-generation Adaptive EQ. Dust, sweat and water resistance rises from IP54 to IP57, which TidBITS reads as 30 minutes of temporary immersion.

The announcement never names the chip. Apple's technical specifications page does: an H2 headphone chip in both models, with Bluetooth 5.3. MacRumors' buyer's guide puts it plainly: AirPods 5 "retain the H2 chip that debuted in the AirPods Pro 2 back in 2022, rather than the new headphone chip that had been rumored." That rumor had a Mac angle. On August 18 MacRumors reported two unreleased AirPods models, B868M and B868E, in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 update released the day before, and repeated the talk that AirPods 5 "could get an updated H3 chip with improved sound quality and lower latency." The models were real; the chip was not, and nothing in Apple's materials claims lower latency.

The extra $20 buys a fifth hour and a volume swipe

• AirPods 5, $129: up to 4 hours with ANC on a charge (6 hours with Noise Control off), up to 20 hours with the USB-C charging case.
• AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case, $149: up to 5 hours with ANC (7 hours off), up to 22 hours with the case, which charges from Apple Watch chargers, Qi or USB-C, has a speaker for Find My, and weighs 34.7 grams against the standard case's 32.3.

Apple credits the $149 pair's fifth hour, one more than AirPods 4 with ANC, to a redesigned battery. That model also gets the force sensor with volume swipe, so you slide a finger along the stem to change the volume, a first for the open-ear form factor; the $129 pair does without it. Apple measured the battery figures on preproduction hardware. On price, TidBITS has the history: the base model stayed at $129 and the higher-end model dropped from $179 to $149. For perspective, our 2005 note on CNet's review of Logitech's wireless iPod headphones relayed about nine hours per charge.

The headline software features want an iPhone

AirPods 5 pair with a Mac like any other AirPods; the system requirements list Mac models with the latest version of macOS. The catch is which features come along. The two headline software features are iPhone features: Live Translation works when paired with a compatible iPhone with Apple Intelligence enabled, per MacRumors, and Apple's Siri AI pitch assumes an Apple Intelligence-supported iPhone. The specs footnotes call Siri AI a beta, in English to start, and say activating it with just "Siri" does not work on Intel-based Macs or on AirPods with the H1 chip. The beta arrived with macOS 27 on Monday, September 14: Apple's software update post says the new features started rolling out that day across iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 and watchOS 27. TidBITS adds a useful deflation: Siri AI "will work on all AirPods since it's not really any different from the existing Siri from the AirPods perspective." Noise suppression in an Apple-sold earpiece is not new either; Apple stocked the Jawbone headset with Noise Shield in its stores at the 2007 iPhone launch, though Noise Shield cleaned up the wearer's outgoing voice on calls, not what the wearer heard.

AirPods 5 reach stores September 18

Pre-orders opened September 9 in more than 65 countries. Apple's availability schedule puts AirPods 5 in stores and online on Friday, September 18. The MacRumors guide finds "not a strong case to upgrade" from AirPods 4 with ANC, a stronger one from the standard AirPods 4, and calls AirPods 5 "the clear default choice" for new buyers. A hands-on report follows once we have a pair. Noise cancellation at $129 and a $30 cut on the better pair are worth more to us than a chip nobody would have heard; the H3 can wait.