How We Research
We compare products from their published specs and features; the verdicts below are our independent editorial opinions.
If you want situational awareness and a secure fit for running, cycling and sweaty workouts, choose Purity Air Open Ear; if you need active noise cancellation and a traditional over-ear fit for commuting or listening at home, choose MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones. These two are built for opposite jobs, and that's the whole story here. One keeps your ears open to traffic and your playlist going. The other shuts the world out on purpose.
• Purity Air Open Ear – biggest strength: Open-ear air conduction with a neckband design, IPX5 sweat resistance, dual mics for calls, and 15 mm dynamic drivers that leave your ear canal completely unobstructed.
• Purity Air Open Ear – biggest trade-off: Battery life is listed at about 6 hours, and there's no active noise cancellation — that's by design, but it means noisy environments will bleed into your audio.
• MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones – biggest strength: Genuine over-ear cups with Active Noise Cancellation, plus the flexibility of Bluetooth 5.4 and a 3.5 mm wired jack for devices that don't do wireless.
• MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones – biggest trade-off: The data sheet is thin on specifics — no driver size, no battery figure, no microphone details — so you're buying on the strength of the core design rather than a long spec list.
• Who Purity Air Open Ear is for: Runners, cyclists, gym-goers and anyone who needs to hear what's happening around them while they train.
• Who MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones is for: Commuters, remote workers and home listeners who want to block out background noise and don't need to stay aware of their surroundings.
The Purity Air Open Ear is a neckband-style open-ear headphone, and that shape tells you almost everything. The drivers sit outside your ear canal and pipe sound in through air conduction, so nothing is plugged, nothing is pressing, and nothing is sealing. For long wearing sessions that's a genuinely different feeling from any in-ear bud — the "comfortable longtime wearing" claim in the specs isn't marketing fluff here, it's just physics. Nothing is jammed into your ear, so there's nothing to get sore. At 2.8 ounces it's light enough that you'll forget it's draped around your neck.
The fitness angle is where this thing earns its keep. IPX5 water resistance covers sweat and light rain, and the neckband plus open-ear hook design means it stays put when you're moving. The bigger deal is awareness. Because your ears aren't blocked, you hear cars, bikes, other runners and whatever else is going on around you. If you've ever pulled a bud out at a crosswalk to check for traffic, you already understand why that matters. Purity leans into this directly, calling it the "best fitness partner" for running, cycling and outdoor activity — and for once that framing matches the hardware.
Audio-wise you get two 15 mm dynamic drivers with a 20 Hz–20,000 Hz frequency range and 18 ohm impedance, which is a reasonably easy load for a phone to drive. Bluetooth 5.3 with a 10-metre range handles the wireless side, and there's no headphone jack at all — this is wireless-only. Calls run through dual microphones with environmental noise cancellation, so your voice gets protected while background chatter gets knocked down. Controls are touch-based with a dedicated call control button.
Who should buy it: runners, cyclists, gym regulars, outdoor walkers, and anyone who wants music without sealing off the world. Who should skip it: if you fly a lot, work in a loud open office, or want to disappear into an album on a noisy train, the lack of noise cancellation will frustrate you. Six hours of battery is fine for a week of workouts, less fine for a long-haul flight.
The MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones go the opposite direction entirely. These are classic over-ear cups in grey, with a "Classic" style name that fits — no neckband, no open design, just a traditional headphone that surrounds your ears. The headline feature is Active Noise Cancellation, which actively cancels ambient sound rather than just muffling it. Combined with the passive isolation you already get from over-ear cups, that's a completely different listening proposition from the Purity set.
Connectivity is where this pair gets quietly interesting. You get Bluetooth 5.4 — a newer wireless generation than the Purity's 5.3 — with the same 10-metre range. But you also get a 3.5 mm jack. That means when the battery is flat, or when you're on a plane with an in-seat screen, or when you want zero-latency audio for a game, you can just plug in a cable and keep going. Not many wireless headphones at this end of the market bother with a wired fallback, and it's a real usability win.
The audio side uses a dynamic driver, same driver type as the Purity, though MMWOWARTS doesn't publish the driver size or frequency range, so I can't compare the two on paper there. What I can say is that the over-ear form factor generally gives you more bass presence and a fuller, more enclosed sound than an open-ear design can, simply because the cup traps the air around your ear. That's a design consequence, not a spec claim.
The honest limitation is documentation. The data sheet lists the essentials — over-ear placement, ANC, Bluetooth 5.4, 3.5 mm jack, dynamic driver — and not much else. No battery life figure, no microphone spec, no weight. That's not a red flag, but it does mean you're evaluating this on its core design rather than a detailed feature list.
Who should buy it: commuters, office workers, students in libraries, home listeners and frequent flyers — anyone whose priority is blocking noise out rather than staying aware of it. Who should skip it: runners and cyclists. Over-ear cups plus ANC is exactly the wrong combination for outdoor training, where you want to hear traffic.
Side-by-Side: Which Should You Choose?
• Best for running, cycling and outdoor workouts → Purity Air Open Ear. IPX5 sweat resistance, secure neckband fit, and open ears so you hear your surroundings.
• Best for blocking out noise → MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones. Active Noise Cancellation plus the natural isolation of over-ear cups.
• Best for all-day comfort during activity → Purity Air Open Ear. At 2.8 ounces with nothing inserted into your ear canal, it's built for wearing for hours without pressure points.
• Best for calls on the move → Purity Air Open Ear. Dual microphones with environmental noise cancellation and a dedicated call control button.
• Best for flexibility with wired devices → MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones. The 3.5 mm jack means you're never stranded when the battery runs down or when you're on a plane with an in-seat screen.
• Best for newer wireless tech → MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones. Bluetooth 5.4 versus Bluetooth 5.3 on the Purity — a small but real generational gap.
• Best for situational awareness → Purity Air Open Ear. Nothing else in this comparison does it, and for outdoor training it's the single most important feature.
If I had to pick one, I'd buy the Purity Air Open Ear — but only because of how I'd use it. For training, commuting by bike, or walking the dog, the open-ear design is the whole point: you get music and you keep your ears. The IPX5 rating, 15 mm drivers, dual mics and 2.8-ounce neckband all point the same direction, and the six-hour battery is a fair trade for that awareness. If your listening happens at a desk, on a train, or on a plane, flip it — the MMWOWARTS Over Ear Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation and a 3.5 mm jack is the better tool for shutting the world out. In my opinion these aren't competitors so much as two answers to two different questions.
FAQ
Yes. The data sheet lists Active Noise Cancellation as a feature, alongside over-ear cup placement. That combination blocks more ambient sound than the open-ear Purity Air design, which has no noise cancellation at all by design.
Yes. Unlike the Purity Air Open Ear, which is wireless-only with no jack, the MMWOWARTS includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack. That gives you a wired fallback for devices without Bluetooth or when you'd rather not rely on the battery.
The Purity Air Open Ear is listed at around 6 hours of average battery life; the MMWOWARTS data sheet doesn't publish a battery figure, so I can't compare them on that point. For current pricing on either, check the price on Amazon using the button on this page — I don't quote prices here because they change.
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