Wired headphones are back in style in 2026, with everyone from Steph Curry to Bella Hadid sporting a pair.
I’m not going anywhere without myself. I’m not trying to get into the “Wired It-Girl” trend, and I’m not excited about Y2K (OK, maybe a little). I was a fan of wired earbuds long before they became the anti-tech fashion product of the 2020s. And I’m sure I’ll continue to use them after the celebrities and influencers have moved on.
I have always put performance first when it comes to technology. In my humble opinion, it’s less effective than wired earbuds.
Iconic until they aren’t
Wired earbuds dominated the 2000s, thanks to MP3 players like the iPod. Advertisements from that decade for the iPod silhouette showed people enjoying their music, the white strings bouncing back and forth with every movement. Wired earbuds were both an important and celebrated part of the MP3 revolution. (Wireless headphones have been around since 2004, but whether they were any good is another story.)
In 2016, Apple had the bad luck to kill the iPhone’s headphone jack. The design decision was intended to help improve the waterproofness of the device, while pushing everyone into a future free from the burden of wires. If you don’t want to use a headphone jack dongle with your new iPhone, you should have bought AirPods.
I couldn’t be less interested in the upcoming AirPods they were promising — especially after I learned they were $160. At the time, I was still using an iPod Touch with a headphone jack as my primary music player. Apple’s wired earbuds are simple and efficient, with no lag or pairing issues. If I needed to replace them, it would set me back $20.
Of course, those strings sometimes got tangled in my jeans pocket. But at least I didn’t have to worry about losing my earbuds. I remember seeing a meme about AirPods, shortly after their debut: “I don’t own AirPods yet, and I’ve already dropped one in a storm drain.”
But here’s the real standout feature of wired headphones: You don’t have to charge them. Always. You plug them into your phone or computer, and they just work. Endless battery life.
Do we really hate wires so much, even if it means we have to charge another device?
What do you mean I have to charge my headphones?
Stop me if this sounds familiar: Your phone’s battery is in the single digits, and you have a long drive home without a charger. You arrive at a cafe, and pull your laptop out of your bag to find it’s out of juice. You’re boarding a plane, and that’s when you realize you forgot to charge your Nintendo Switch.
Oh, and your earbuds have a small battery. Actually, one of them has a low battery and the other is dead.
In the pre-smartphone days, we had separate devices for taking pictures, making calls and listening to music — and we had to make sure we charged each one. Now we have one device that can do it all, but we have new accessories that need charging: smart watches, smart rings, smart glasses and the latest AI gadget (pins, anyone?). I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to charge more for headphones than that.
I don’t particularly want to be stuck in a situation where I can only listen to music in one ear. A common complaint about wireless earbuds is that one always runs out of battery or stops working before the other.
Each wireless earbud has its own lithium-ion battery. It’s the same type of battery that powers your phone or your EV, and over time, it becomes less efficient at holding a charge. Even in two earbuds that look the same, the battery life may be different.
If one of your wireless earbuds is losing power quickly, you might consider solving the problem by getting a battery replacement. Think again. AirPods are notoriously (read: impossible) to disassemble without damaging them, thanks to the ultracompact design with attached parts inside. There are exceptions, but most wireless earbuds cannot be put back together after being separated. You just have to buy new ones.
Wired earbuds are already ready
I admit that when I got my first iPhone without a headphone jack, I was worried about how I would listen to my songs. I didn’t want to use a dongle every time I had to plug in my earbuds.
Thankfully, there are affordable options that connect to modern phones. Apple makes wired earbuds with both Lightning and USB-C connectors, and I can confirm that they are just as good as the original 3.5mm plug version.
I know it’s easy to pair wireless earbuds with a smartwatch during a workout session and not have a phone in the way. I know that trends and movements like Wired It-Girls come and go. But I hope this one will last a while, because I want to play my favorite album or podcast without delay.
I don’t want to charge another device; I don’t want to worry about throwing $100+ down the storm drain — and I couldn’t ask for a better solution than wired earbuds.
When Steve Jobs was CEO of Apple, he liked to highlight the simplicity of new technology by saying, “It just works.” Wired earbuds are just that: they don’t budge and are easy to use. Twenty years ago, they were very high. Today, they still are.
