Some of the best parental control apps that use keylogging, like Spyrix, can sometimes generate spirited discussion around the ethics and morality of tracking literally everything children do on their devices, but their popularity proves that there’s undoubtedly a place for them in the market.
And when it comes to pairing a comprehensive set of features with a tempting price, Spyrix gets off to a good start – because it’s free.
With remote monitoring, app activity, screenshots and reporting all available, there’s no doubt that Spyrix has plenty of ability – but this software is designed for PCs rather than mobile devices, so parents may need to combine this tool with other apps for a more comprehensive picture.
Plans and pricing
As the name suggests, Spyrix Free Keylogger doesn’t cost a penny – a good start for any parent who wants a PC-based keylogging tool.
The free version includes keylogging, app activity, screenshot capturing, USB drive and printer monitoring, keyword alerts and remote monitoring with advertisements included in the interface.
Spyrix is a larger software company with plenty of apps available, though, so you’ve got options if you want a broader monitoring solution and if you’re happy to pay.
If you want to remove adverts and add live viewing, message monitoring, and dozens more features to your children’s PCs, then Spyrix Personal Monitor is your best bet. It costs $79 for a one-PC license, $89 to monitor three devices and $129 to cover five, and if you want to add screen, webcam and call recording, or facial recognition, it costs extra.
Those prices are mirrored for MacOS functionality. There’s an Android version too, called Spyrix Phone Tracker, which adds monitoring across a host of social media apps and messaging tools – although it’s very powerful, prices start at $99.95 annually.
On iOS, there’s a rudimentary tool called Spyrix Viewer, but it’s basic and wasn’t available at the time of writing due to technical maintenance.
Beyond the free tool, then, Spyrix gets expensive, and that leaves it a little weaker when compared with its keylogging rivals.
KidLogger, for instance, has a free version that works on Windows, Android and Mac OS that supports five devices – and as well as keylogging, it monitors calls and can be used to block and limit app access, too.
KidLogger’s paid version is more affordable than Spyrix’s paid options, and it includes many of the same options as Spyrix’s equivalent tools.
The third option here is mSpy. It works well on Android and is packed with features, but it’s very expensive.
Features
Let’s get back to Spyrix Free Keylogger, though – the most likely option for parents who want to easily monitor everything their kids are typing on Windows desktop and laptop devices.
As the name suggests, this app is a keylogger – you’ll see all recorded keystrokes on your child’s device, even if they’re deleted.
(Image credit: Spyrix Free Keylogger)
Parents can view all running applications on child PCs using Spyrix, and also monitor and control the usage of removable USB and SSD drives and even printers.
Spyrix allows parents to see all content copied to the clipboard, record the date and time the computer is used, and capture screenshots of the device without the user's knowledge.
That’s a reasonable set of PC-based keylogging features, especially for a free app, but the paid versions of this tool are far more powerful.
(Image credit: Spyrix Free Keylogger)
If you want to upgrade to Spyrix Personal Monitor you’ll get access to a far more capable piece of software.
Parents can monitor remotely from a secure web account, for starters, and view the device and its cameras live. The paid version includes screen recording, monitoring of popular messaging tools, and facial recognition.
The paid version monitors URLs and search engines, can block websites and alert parents if certain keywords are typed. And if you want to pay even more for Spyrix Personal Monitor Pro, you can add microphone monitoring, webcam snapshots and more features to the list.
(Image credit: Spyrix Free Keylogger)
On Android, Spyrix Phone Tracker includes loads of options, including monitoring across lots of messaging and social media apps, keylogging, scheduled screen, photo and audio recording, social media tracking, call capturing, location tracking, geofencing, app blocking and monitoring and more.
Indeed, that version is more like a traditional parental control app than anything else, but it’s expensive compared to other conventional tools – if you want the full array of features, pricing ranges between $119.95 and $249 annually to protect one to five devices.
Interface and in-use
Spyrix Free Keylogger is easy to use. Download the app from the Spyrix website, create an account and install the app on the target system and you’ll be able to link the tools together and start monitoring. Bear in mind that parents have legal obligations to let children know their devices are being monitored.
Be aware that your system’s antivirus software may flag Spyrix Free Keylogger as a malicious tool, so you may have to allow the download and permit the software to run from within your system or antivirus settings.
Once it’s installed, Spyrix has a conventional Windows app experience, with a slick summary screen highlighting activity in your child’s device and individual modules that allow parents to delve into specific areas to see events, typing, social media activity or anything else.
Support
Spyrix’s support ticket system is available 24/7 by emailing the company, and Spyrix assures customers that replies will arrive within 48 hours.
Elsewhere, the Spyrix website has a comprehensive online manual that takes users through the basics of installing and setting up apps, but that’s it.
It’s not a particularly impressive support offering. Many companies offer faster responses, loads of rivals have more comprehensive knowledge bases and FAQ sections, and some even offer phone and live chat support.
The competition
KidLogger and mSpy both have similarly underwhelming support options, so that certainly seems to be a trend with keylogging tools. A conventional parental control tool will be a better option if you want better support, including phone and live chat help or a customer forum.
And in terms of pure keylogging software, Spyrix Free Keylogger may not be your best choice, either. KidLogger’s free version is more versatile thanks to a broader range of features and Android support.
If you want to pay for keylogging software Spyrix suffers from high pricing. KidLogger is more affordable while maintaining a similar slate of features.
We wouldn’t consider mSpy, though. Its keylogging abilities are fine and it includes conventional parental control features too, but it’s very expensive. Want a keylogger? Both Spyrix and KidLogger are better. Want parental control? Check out Qustodio or Bark.
Final verdict
Spyrix Free Keylogger is an effective PC monitoring tool with plenty of functionality, but it does have some severe weaknesses.
It only works on Windows, for starters – if you want keylogging functionality and more features on other platforms, you’ve got to pay for it.
If you want a free keylogging app, then KidLogger is a much better option thanks to its increased functionality. And while Spyrix is much better if you’re willing to pay, KidLogger offers a comparable array of features at a lower price.
Spyrix Free Keylogger is effective, but other apps are much better – so if you do want keylogging, shop around.
The best parental control apps differ in terms of the level of trust they provide to children – some offer more freedom, only reporting notable activity to parents, while others track everything children do on their device. KidLogger falls into the latter category.
That may not work for some parents, but it’s ideal if you need to closely monitor what your children are doing. And, as an added bonus, there’s a free version available – suitable if you want to save some pennies, too.
Plans and pricing
With the free version of KidLogger, you can monitor up to five devices and keep logs and histories for 18 days. You get a meagre 18MB of cloud storage space for storage.
The Standard plan costs $9 for three months of access, $17 for six months of usage, and £29 for one year – so that latter option is the best deal. It retains the five-device limit, which means it won’t be suitable for larger families with numerous devices, but it does increase the storage to 400MB and keeps logs for 60 days – both much better options than the free product.
That plan also adds features, including analytics, email reporting, dedicated technical support, and screenshotting.
The most powerful option is the Professional tool. This product allows parents to monitor ten devices, keep logs for 90 days and use 1GB of cloud storage, and it costs $89 for a year of access.
At this tier, you get scheduled email reports, more in-depth options for monitoring messenger apps, phone calls and cameras, the option to hide the software on children’s phones and powerful keylogging features.
Features
There will, of course, but many parents are unhappy with the prospect of using a keylogger that takes screenshots, looks through the camera, and listens to phone calls. There are plenty of parental control tools that are less intrusive.
It’s also worth checking whether this type of app is even legal in your country – in some countries, using such a keylogger may contravene the law.
If you do need that level of control and it’s legal, though, there’s no denying that Keylogger gets the job done, and it works on Android, Windows and Mac OS – so there’s more platform support than you’ll find on most parental control apps.
(Image credit: Kidlogger)
You’ll notice that iOS is missing because KidLogger is extremely limited on Apple’s smartphones, essentially functioning as a location tracker with little else available.
KidLogger will let you record keystrokes and, on certain platforms, text copied to the clipboard. It’ll monitor web history on Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari, and track the amount of time your children spend using their devices.
The app can log all external drives connected to devices, record the names of files and folders that are opened, take screenshots of the device every five minutes, and even take screenshots when children type particular keywords.
(Image credit: Kidlogger)
It monitors chats and messages on apps like Facebook Messenger, Kik, WhatsApp, and Viber, and tracks the most frequently used applications on your children’s devices.
On certain platforms, like Android, you can track location, record incoming and outgoing calls, monitor text message content and view all the photos taken with the camera.
(Image credit: Kidlogger)
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s now an offline mode that tracks activity and reports back once the children’s device reconnects to the internet – and an option to prevent any unauthorized user from removing the app’s monitoring abilities.
At certain product tiers, you can block websites and apps, and because KidLogger monitors everything, it does a better job of tracking direct messages, notes and search terms – things that other apps may struggle to track.
(Image credit: Kidlogger)
KidLogger doesn’t have traditional social media monitoring, even if it does have its keylogging and screenshotting features, and if you want to create screen time and app usage schedules then you’ll need to install a separate app. Using this module, parents can also allow kids to use certain apps without any time limits.
Also bear in mind that KidLogger does not support conventional website and content filtering options, but this is a philosophical choice: because while KidLogger tracks everything your children do on their devices, it’s not designed to be particularly restrictive with what they do.
It’s an app about tracking what they’re doing – not stopping them from doing it.
(Image credit: Kidlogger)
Interface and in-use
KidLogger is easy to install across all platforms, and its dashboard is easy to use, with clear sections for screenshots, messages, web usage, text records and other data that has been gathered from children’s devices.
The user interface doesn’t look particularly attractive due to its old-fashioned and basic design, but it’s very straightforward, making it easy to access the content you need to see.
There are few options here for actually interacting with your children’s devices – you won’t be able to check in, message, or restrict usage like you can with other tools.
Support
Head to the KidLogger website, and you can log a support ticket, consult the forum and browse knowledge base articles, and you can also email KidLogger directly. The company aims to respond to queries in 48 hours.
In terms of support, though, that’s it – don’t expect live chat or phone support from this relatively small organization.
The competition
KidLogger falls behind most of the competition in terms of its interface – tools like Qustodio and Bark are far more visually appealing.
Bark does a better job of monitoring social media and using AI to stay on top of new trends, and Qustodio is available on many platforms, including iOS.
The best alternative to keylogging is mSpy, which offers many of the same features as KidLogger – but that app is also more expensive. It’s worth weighing up the features of both to decide which one is more applicable to your situation.
Final verdict
KidLogger may not be a moral or legal choice in your family or location but if you do want a logging app for your children’s devices, there are few better than this – especially on Android.
It’ll track everything that children do on their phone, even going beyond texts with its screenshotting, camera monitoring and call recording, and it works on Windows devices too.
You’ll need to look elsewhere if you want a service that can block websites and apps and allow you to control your children’s screen time, but this is a first-class tool if you want to log, monitor and keep track of children’s device habits.
Mobicip is positioned as one of the best parental control app for busy parents who want to restrict the impact of big tech companies on their children’s lives, and it’s got Family Voice and Mom’s Choice Awards to back up its claims about protecting kids.
Mobicip also claims that “more than 2 million parents” love its app, and that it can protect kids from social media, apps, websites and excessive screen time.
It can be a little pricey, though, and faces strong competition, so should you consider Mobicip if you want to protect your children?
Plans and pricing
That pricing, for instance, can ramp up if you want the maximum level of protection available from this service.
Mobicip’s Premium package costs $7.99/£6.26 per month if you pay annually, and that tier includes protection for 20 devices and every feature that Mobicip offers.
Qustodio, meanwhile, costs $7.44/£5.83 per month if billed annually and that includes support for unlimited devices, and Norton Family is even cheaper. Bark is more expensive, though, but does go further than almost anything else when it comes to social media monitoring.
If you’d rather not shell out for Mobicip’s premium package, the Standard tool supports ten devices and costs $4.99/£3.91 per month if purchased annually. You don’t get social media monitoring or app timers with that tier, though – and those are two of the biggest draws of any parental control tool. Similarly, the Lite package is affordable at $2.99/£2.34 per month, but it omits those features and only supports five devices.
Mobicip is one of the pricier parental control apps on the market, but that Premium package is still the best value by some way thanks to its features. And, pleasingly, there’s a seven-day free trial and thirty-day money-back guarantee.
Final verdict
Mobicip setup is easy and the ability to filter content by keyword gives you more control over web blocking. It's missing some common features, though - can't set an overall device usage time, for instance, just a schedule - and dated app lists and poorly chosen default settings mean you'll need to pay extra attention when setting up.
Features
Mobicip’s screen time scheduling is immediately impressive. Parents can create specific schedules for homework, sleeping or school time.
Daily screen time limits are available and, in an innovative twist on screen time features, parents can call for “family time” by locking all managed devices instantly – perfect for grabbing people’s attention.
(Image credit: Mobicip)
You can create an unlimited number of custom filters, build schedules with five-minute increments, and allow or restrict apps or websites based on categories, too. There’s also a Vacation Mode feature that parents can deploy to allow more leniency.
This is comfortably one of the best scheduling tools on the market thanks to its great set of features – the only thing missing is the ability to set time limits for individual apps.
If you want to ensure that phones don’t capture attention, Mobicip allows parents to limit time spent on apps that hit certain categories, like social media or games, and particular apps can also be blocked entirely – while others can be put on a safe list.
(Image credit: Mobicip)
Mobicip’s web filtering comes with 20 different categories of inappropriate content alongside the ability to block adult content, block specific words and block specific websites. Parents can also use a “whitelist-only” mode that allows children to only browse a list of pre-approved sites.
GPS functionality extends to a family locator tool, location sharing and geofencing – an ideal slate of location-specific options, even if Mobicip doesn’t have the innovative driving abilities found in some rival tools. Its geofencing includes a 1,000m radius, which is more generous than many other apps – even if Norton is wider still.
When it comes to reporting, parents can access a slick dashboard that provides browsing histories, location histories, your children’s access requests and a graphical representation of screen time usage displaying the categories of content your kids use the most – like social media apps, games or browsers.
Children also have access to a dashboard where they can request more screen time or ask to access blocked apps.
And if you want multiple people to be able to manage the app, parents can add trusted guardians or contacts using a straightforward and secure invitation system.
Elsewhere, Mobicip monitors Facebook and Snapchat for harmful content, but that’s it for social media monitoring – a poor showing compared to most rivals and, notably, Bark.
You can’t set time limits for individual apps on Mobicip, only categories of apps, and Mobicip doesn’t monitor text messages or calls.
Interface and in-use
It’s very easy to get started with Mobicip: download the app, allow permissions, and off you go. And, impressively, Mobicip works across loads of platforms, from Android and iOS to Windows, macOS, Chromebook and even Kindle.
In-depth guides make setup and configuration even easier, and parents can duplicate settings across multiple child devices – ideal for families with more than one child.
(Image credit: Mobicip)
Mobicip’s web interfaces and apps are clean, intuitive and easy to use, too: for kids, it’s easy to check their screen time allowances and schedules. For parents, it’s simple to find every setting required and to access activity reports and analytics.
Support
This is another area where Mobicip goes above and beyond many rivals. As well as submitting a support ticket, parents can schedule a call with Mobicip’s customer service teams – ideal if you want to speak to a human.
An AI-powered chatbot provides answers to simpler questions, and there are loads of guides with useful imagery on Mobicip’s website.
It’s a good support option, with callbacks available alongside more conventional email support and loads of comprehensive articles.
The competition
Mobicip is a strong contender when it comes to parental control, but it still has rivals that are better in some areas.
Bark, for instance, is a much better option for social media monitoring – which is one of Mobicip’s weaker departments. MMGuardian, meanwhile, is better for checking calls and messages.
Qustodio and Norton Family are both cheaper than Mobicip, with the former supporting an unlimited number of devices and offering more robust social media and message monitoring too.
Final verdict
Social media and messaging are the two areas where Mobicip could be better, then, and if these are important to you, then we recommend you look elsewhere.
That said, Mobicip impresses in loads of other departments. Its filtering is effective, and its screen time and scheduling options are among the best you’ll find anywhere. Its location-tracking features are strong, too, and this app is attractive and easy to use for parents and children.
Customer support is excellent, its activity reporting is comprehensive, and it does some innovative things with scheduling and screen time that some rivals simply don’t offer – like its Vacation Mode or Family Time settings.
Mobicip is a little pricier than some tools, and it’s not ideal if you want to monitor social media. But if you need filtering, screen time controls and GPS-based functionality, Mobicip is one of the best parental control apps around.
The Mous Charging Station with Qi2 is a 2-in-1 wireless charger featuring a raised Qi2 pad for compatible smartphone charging and an inlaid Qi pad for wireless earbud charging. It also has an 18W USB-C output on the back and a Pogo connector on the right-hand side, meaning it can be teamed with a USB-C cable or the Mous Elevated Apple Watch Charger to power up additional devices.
Available from the Mous website and Amazon, the Mous Charging Station with Qi2 comes in a choice of three finishes: Walnut, Aramid Fiber, and Matte Black. The list price varies from $79.99 – $89.99 / £69.99 – £79.99, depending on the finish, with Matte Black costing the least, and Aramid Fiber being the most expensive.
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(Image credit: Future)
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(Image credit: Future)
As things stand at the time of writing, I’d highly recommend purchasing this charging station directly from Mous rather than Amazon. This is because Mous includes the 65W power adapter needed to run the charging station efficiently when ordered from their website, but for some reason, one isn’t included when purchasing from Amazon. This would have made some sense if the Amazon listings were discounted, but as I type this, they are in fact more expensive than buying from Mous directly. Go figure!
Aside from this, everything else appears to be the same. There’s a 59-inch / 1.5m USB-C to USB-C charging cable with a soft braided outer included, which, if you’ve seen my guide to the best wireless chargers, you’ll already know is a big positive, as these woven coverings can significantly increase cable lifespan, plus they tend to look a bit nicer, too.
(Image credit: Future)
The charging speeds of the Mous Charging Station with Qi2 delivered were fairly average, taking 132 minutes to fully charge our testing iPhone 13 Pro, which has a 2,600mAh battery capacity, and 269 minutes to charge our 4,610mAh Xiaomi 14, when charged separately.
As it only weighs 9.6oz / 272g, and the non-slip base is a little, well, slippy, this isn’t the sturdiest charging station out there. This light weight is good news if you intend to use it in different locations, but as it was so easy to shuffle it across my desktop every time I touched my phone, I’d wager this isn’t the charging station you’re looking for if you want something that’ll stay put. Skittishness aside, I was pleased with the strong grip of the Qi2 pad and had no concerns over my phone being knocked from it.
The Mous Charging Station with Qi2 looks good aesthetically and appears to be well-made. The materials feel and look nice, including the top surface of the charging station, which is actual walnut, rather than just a printed effect. The entire unit feels suitably robust, with no flexing, despite my best efforts. The only thing that let the aesthetics down was the Mous logo on the top, as some of the white finish was missing, leaving black specks behind.
(Image credit: Future)
I was pleased to find that Mous had used mostly paper-based packaging for the Charging Station with Qi2, though the unnecessary plastic wrap around the housing of the USB-C connectors and what seemed to be a plastic coating on the paper cable ties mean there’s some room for improvement.
For the most part, it was fairly easy to clean the Mous Charging Station with Qi2 when it got dusty, as most of the surfaces were smooth and easy to wipe down. The only sticking points were the fine gap around the edge of the walnut plate, the debossed Mous logo, and the silicone ring of the Qi charging pad, which dust really liked to cling to.
(Image credit: Future)
Overall, I’d say the Mous Charging Station with Qi2 is pretty pricey for an average-performing charging station. That being said, it is very nicely made, and the real Aramid Fiber and Walnut material plates might make it worth the cost if you want something a little more interesting than your run-of-the-mill black plastic finishes. So if aesthetics and the ability to charge extra devices are your top priority, then you’ll be quite happy with the Mous Charging Station with Qi2. If you’ll only be charging one device at a time, and like the sound of good charging speeds at a fraction of the cost of the Mous Charging Station with Qi2, I’d recommend checking out the ESR Qi2 Mini Wireless Charger instead.
Mous Charging Station with Qi2 review: Price & specs
Price
$79.99 – $89.99 / £69.99 – £79.99
Model tested
A839
Output
15W Qi2, 5-7.5W Qi, 18W USB-C, 5W Pogo connector
Devices charged
2 wirelessly, more with add-ons
Connection
USB-C
Charging tech
Qi, Qi2
Recommended input
60W
Weight
272g
Dimensions
175mm x W: 87.5mm x H: 20.1mm
Should I buy the Mous Charging Station with Qi2?
Buy it if…
You want a fancier finish The use of aramid fiber and walnut sets this charging station apart from its competitors, making it worth considering if you want something a little different from run-of-the-mill black plastic chargers.
You want something expandable It’s not uncommon to find wireless charging stations with a USB-C output, but as these are often limited to 5W for Apple Watch Charging, it’s good to see an 18W output on offer here. Not only that, there’s the option to add on an Apple Watch charging module via the Pogo connector.
Don't buy it if…
You want a steadfast station The light weight and inefficient non-slip areas on this dual pad charger meant it wasn’t difficult to knock it around as I charged my phone on my desktop.
You want a charger that’s easy to dust While the majority of the charger is easy to wipe clean, the silicone areas and gaps on the surface make things more difficult when it comes to keeping this charging station dust-free.
Mous Charging Station with Qi2 review: Also consider
ESR Qi2 Mini Wireless Charger If you’re after something cheaper and faster, and you’re happy to charge one device at a time, then this Qi2 charging pad is worth considering. It delivered satisfying charging speeds, plus it’s easy to hold and has a reinforced cable, making it a bargain buy considering the low price. If you’d like to learn more, check out my full ESR Qi2 Mini Wireless Charger review.
It’s impossible to avoid Microsoft if you’ve got a family full of tech - with laptops, PCs, smartphones and games consoles full of Redmond’s software, they’re everywhere.
But while that might sound all-encompassing, it might not be a bad idea if you need a parental control app. With features that smoothly integrate with your existing tech and a free price, Microsoft Family Safety could be the parental control app that your family needs.
There’s not much to say here, because Microsoft Family Safety is free - so you don’t have to fork out any cash, you don’t need to investigate different product tiers and their varying features, and you don’t have to mess around hunting for deals or registering for free trials.
Microsoft Family Safety is also included with Microsoft 365 subscriptions and Windows 11 operating systems.
Features
Family Safety runs on Windows, Xbox, Android, and Apple devices, and parents can also use Mac OS computers to access the web dashboard and monitor their children. Bear in mind, though, that you can’t install Family Safety on Mac OS devices used by your children - on Apple’s desktop and laptop OS, it’s a one-way street.
(Image credit: Microsoft Family Safety)
It’s easy to get started with Family Safety - more on that later - and once you’re up and running, the app has a decent set of core parental control features, at least on paper.
Take web filtering, for instance: while this is a core component of any good parental control app and rivals like Qustodio do a tremendous job, on Microsoft Family Safety you’re only able to filter the Microsoft Edge browser. That might work for Microsoft, which wants to keep people using its own software, but that’s not practical in families where people want to use Chrome, Safari or other browsers.
Many alternative browsers are just blocked by the app instead, and it’s possible for parents to block individual websites - and allow favored ones, too.
Frustratingly, Microsoft Family Safety doesn’t let parents see the categories of content it blocks, and users report frequent issues with unsafe websites not being blocked and not being flagged on the parent dashboard.
(Image credit: Microsoft Family Safety)
Family Safety’s screen time functionality didn’t impress all that much, either. Initially, all seems well: you can set schedules for your children’s devices, save them easily, and customize them for different days. On Android, parents can set limits on a per-app basis, too.
But a deeper dive by intrepid users online suggests that device screen time limits don’t work particularly well on Android - some reports suggest that children could continue using their devices even when contravening their scheduled limits.
Elsewhere, app blocking and whitelisting are supported and parents can allow children app access if kids send a request from their phones.
Family Safety’s location tracking features are basic. These features only work in the parents’ app on Android and iOS devices, not the web dashboard. Geofencing is only supported for Microsoft 365 subscribers - so while Family Safety is free, you’ve got to pay for 365 to get access to that feature.
Delve deeper into Family Safety’s location functionality and you will find one innovation - the Drive Safety mode. If a teen activates the feature, parents can see their route, speed and any abrupt braking. It’s welcome, but apps like Bark provide similar functionality.
What’s missing from Family Safety? Sadly, quite a lot. Outside of its web filtering, there’s no social media, messaging app or text message monitoring, and none of the camera and audio features that you’ll find in some more forward-thinking tools. You also can’t shut down or take control of child devices using Microsoft Family Safety.
Interface and in-use
Family Safety is very easy to use: install the app, grant some basic permissions and build a family group using people’s Outlook addresses, phone numbers or alternative emails and you’re good to go.
(Image credit: Microsoft Family Safety)
In a nod towards transparency, children can see the restrictions they’re under on their app’s dashboard.
On Windows devices, functionality is similar - you just make your children a new account on the device rather than using their phone number.
(Image credit: Microsoft Family Safety)
Once you’re all set up, Family Safety is exceedingly easy to use. The interface is clean and spacious with familiar Microsoft green accents, and everything is laid out well - all of the key options are in obvious places.
Support
Microsoft Family Safety’s website includes setup guides, FAQs and troubleshooting tips that should solve most common issues, and Microsoft’s busy forum is also available for more specific queries.
In-app support and reporting is available on Android and iOS, and the central Microsoft support website is available if you need to get in touch with Microsoft – although that does mean delving into the support functionality of one of the world’s biggest companies, and that means a likely slow response.
The competition
There’s no doubt that Family Safety has impressive rivals. Take Qustodio: it has far better web filtering and monitoring than Microsoft’s tool and it’s excellent for families that have lots of devices.
Bark outpaces Microsoft’s tool for social media and email monitoring, too.
Final verdict
There are certainly some areas where Microsoft Family Safety fights back. It’s free, for starters, and is easier to use for families that already use the Microsoft ecosystem through PCs, laptops or games consoles alongside smartphones.
It’s easy to use, too, and has accessible and moderately effective filtering, location-tracking, app management and screen time features.
That said, there are serious limitations in all of those departments, the iOS app is more limited than the Android version, and its rivals – while not free – are far more capable in every key area.
If you want basic parental control without spending any money, Microsoft Family Safety is easy to use and already available for loads of families. But if you’re at all serious about parental control, look elsewhere.
If your family uses Android devices and you don’t want to pay extra for one of the best parental control apps, then it can be tempting to turn to Google Family Link – Android’s own parental control suite.
Unsurprisingly, this tool works well with Google’s own apps, like Search, Chrome and YouTube, and it can save you money because you’re not investing elsewhere.
But a deeper dive into its features reveals some missing capabilities when compared to other apps – so let’s find out if it’s a false economy.
We’ve skipped our usual “Plans and pricing” section because there’s nothing to say beyond the fact that this app is free.
Before you get started, it’s worth checking Family Link’s device compatibility, too. For kids, Family Link is compatible with Android devices running version 7.0 or higher. However, only certain settings will function on devices using Android 5.0 or 6.0. There’s no kids app for iOS.
For parents, the control app runs on Android devices running Android 5.0 or higher or iOS devices running iOS 11 or higher.
That last point is a boon because it means you can use Family Link on children’s devices even if you’re a parent on iOS.
(Image credit: Google Family Link)
Family Link allows users to set screen time controls, including downtime and app-specific time limits. Parents can also manage app, website, and extension permissions and downloads through the control software.
You can always see your child’s location thanks to Google’s mapping prowess, too.
(Image credit: Google Family Link)
Delve into many of these features, though, and you’ll discover that they’re relatively basic.
You can set device usage limits and restricted times for your children, with support for 15-minute increments, so they won’t be browsing their phones during school hours or bedtime, for instance.
Device locking is supported, and you can also give your children always-on access to certain apps. But when compared to other tools, like Bark or Qustodio, Google’s Family Link is pretty basic here.
The filtering is relatively rudimentary, too. While there’s no doubt that Google’s SafeSearch filtering works very well by blocking or blurring unsuitable text and images, other apps offer dozens of categories to choose from if you want to block specific topics, and you can’t go any further than SafeSearch here. You can block certain sites and allow others, but you’ll have more control elsewhere. And while Family Link filters YouTube, too, the options here are still fairly basic.
More impressive is Family Link’s app capability. You can see exactly which apps your children have installed and either block or limit their usage individually.
Content restrictions are available for Google Play, and you can prevent your children from making purchases as well – handy if you want them to stop spending a lot of money on addictive games. You can also prevent app installation from unknown sources and stop your children from adding or removing users from their devices or delving into the Developer options.
Unsurprisingly, Google’s location tracking is very accurate, and you can set up geofenced locations with decent radius limits – although other apps are even wider here.
You’ll get notified if children leave the area. One smart addition is the ability to view your child’s battery status, allowing you to spot if they’re about to run out of charge, too.
One notable omission here, though, is location history – it’s simply not available.
Elsewhere, Family Link doesn’t include text or call monitoring, and across basically every part of the app you don’t get the granular control you’ll find on other tools. Other apps also offer more comprehensive activity monitoring, including email and social media monitoring. And when your kids are 13, they can opt out of the monitoring if they wish.
Interface and in-use
As you’d expect from a Google app, Family Link is a sleek and minimalist piece of software that looks clean and uncluttered. It’s easy for parents and kids to navigate most of the settings available, which means setup is quick.
That’s great if you want an app that doesn’t overwhelm you with information, but it also means that some crucial bits of info can be hard to find.
(Image credit: Google Family Link)
You’ll need to use different screens to check children’s app and YouTube usage, for instance, and you'll also have to delve into various menus to view their web history. Many competitors make it easier to access this information, offering more centralized access to reports, alerts, and details.
Setup is easy, at least: because this is an official Google product, you don’t have to deal with the sideloading that's sometimes required elsewhere.
Support
Unsurprisingly, from a computing behemoth like Google, Family Link’s support is a little sporadic and impersonal.
If you need help you’ll need to go through Google’s official channels, and you’ll probably not get a fast response.
Thankfully, there are plenty of good knowledge base articles in the help center, but that’s it. If you want more extensive or faster support, a dedicated app will be far better.
The competition
Norton Family, for instance, has much better support, with live chat, and Qustodio has phone support available for people in certain tiers.
There’s also no denying that those apps are more extensive in terms of features, even if competitors fall short in certain areas: Norton doesn’t do well with text and call monitoring either, and Qustodio can be pricey.
Final verdict
Google Family Link’s free price is one of its biggest selling points, then, and elsewhere its key strength comes from its granular, powerful app controls and its decent screen time and scheduling options.
Go beyond this, though, and Google Family Link is lacking. You may have to pay for rivals, but they have far more extensive filtering and location tracking and work on a broader array of devices.
Google Family Link is ideal if you want to use it alongside one of those apps, perhaps to control Google Play usage or double up on filtering to have an extra safety net. But it’s just not powerful enough to function as your primary parental control tool.
There are few more prominent names in cybersecurity than Norton. Norton Family tries to leverage that recognition and trust into one of the best parental control apps that protects your children when they’re using the internet.
With a wide feature set that includes screen time controls, inappropriate content filters, app restrictions, and location checkers, it’s clear that Norton Family provides many of the options that busy families with digitally savvy children need.
Some of the features have more depth than you’ll find on other parental control apps, too, but there are questions about how effective Norton Family is on Apple’s iOS platform – so let’s find out if Norton’s product is the right option for protecting your children.
Plans and pricing
Norton Family gets off to an impressive start: it costs just $49.99/£29.99 per year. That stellar price undercuts many rivals – top tools like Qustodio and Bark cost $89.36/£69.95 and $99 for a year of access to their upper-tier products. Mobicip’s pricing also sits in the same category as Qustodio and Bark.
Because Norton offers so many consumer cybersecurity products, it’s easy to get Norton Family included in other products.
Norton 360 Deluxe, for instance, includes Norton’s parental control features alongside a secure VPN, dark web monitoring, and scam protection. It costs $49.99/£29.99 for the first year, with a renewal price of $119.99/£89.99.
And if you want to add even more features, Norton 360 Premium or Select Plus costs $99.99/£99.99.
Those prices may look high, but remember that they’re for broader security products that happen to include Norton Family features, so they still represent excellent value.
If you’re still unsure if Norton Family is right for you, there’s a thirty-day free trial – a generous offer that’s longer than many other free trials. Bear in mind, though, that there’s no free version of Norton Family.
Features
Web filtering is one of Norton Family’s strongest areas. Parents can block websites using 45 pre-defined categories of inappropriate content – more than many rivals.
Norton tries to give children some trust with its web filtering too: parents can choose to warn children about sites and let them decide whether to proceed. Kids will also be able to see why particular sites have been blocked.
Differing access levels are also allowed depending on age groups, with specific categories of content permitted for older children, and there is the usual option to allow or block specific sites.
Norton also monitors how your children use search engines, and has an option to always enable safe searching across various browsers on Android – but on iOS, this only works using Norton’s own browser. Also note that Norton Family doesn’t work on child Mac OS devices at all.
Reports for parents show your child’s web history, including which blocked sites they’ve tried to access, their search histories and their YouTube history. Norton’s web filtering works across Android and iOS, with browser extension options for desktop and laptop browsers. It’s a comprehensive, effective system.
The impressive filtering extends to apps, too. Parents are presented with a list of apps installed on child devices, blocking is simple, and each app has an activity report for parents to see when the app was installed and how much it’s used. Newly-installed apps are even given a special highlight on Android devices.
Set a device to school time and it can only access educational web categories (Image credit: Norton)
The only thing missing here is the ability to set app time limits – a feature you’ll find on many rivals, including Qustodio.
Norton’s screen time schedules can be built in thirty-minute increments – that’s fine, but apps like Mobicip allow more granular control. Parents can set screen time limits on different days or just restrict devices at night, and it also has a selection of effective pre-defined schedules for children of different ages. There’s also a specific module for setting more restrictive limits during school hours – that education option includes additional web filtering to further restrict the content children can access.
Kids can request more screen time – a feature you’ll find in Mobicip but not in Qustodio – and screen time reports are displayed easily, with clear graphs showing usage.
(Image credit: Norton)
Norton Family includes the usual array of location-based features. There’s real-time tracking, and the geofencing tool includes a generous radius of 3,200m (2 miles) – the largest we’ve seen on any parental control app.
Parents can set up alerts to find out where kids are located at particular times of day. Norton’s emphasis on trusting children also extends to an option where kids can perform check-ins and choose to share their location – rather than parents automatically viewing the location.
Elsewhere, Norton allows parents to instantly lock child devices and prevent app uninstallation with additional security features, but Norton Family does not monitor text messages or calls – or what your children are posting and messaging on social media apps. If you do need that feature, Bark is your best option.
Interface and in-use
Norton’s parental control apps are available on Android, iOS and the Edge, Chrome and Firefox browsers, while child apps can be installed on Android, Windows and iOS devices.
No matter what platform you’re using, Norton Family is very easy to set up with a familiar process that requires account registration and allowing the typical range of app permissions on child devices.
That ease-of-use continues to using Norton Family. The kids apps allow children to browse the web using the Norton Family Browser and it’s easy for children to find the option to send a check-in to parents, see the rules they’ve been set, or ask for a time extension.
Parent apps are similarly well designed, with clean design and options in sensible places. Altering settings is simple, and the app's web version is just as straightforward to use.
Support
Norton Family’s entry-level support module includes loads of helpful, well-produced guides and a busy forum for asking questions. If you need to contact Norton support, there are phone and live chat options that are open 24/7 – the benefit of dealing with a large business like Norton rather than a smaller organization that can’t provide that level of access.
If you’d like more support, including faster access to experts, then you can also pay for Norton Ultimate Help Desk. This provides quicker and more comprehensive support, but it costs $99.99/£99.99 annually.
Also note that Norton’s array of support options doesn’t always mean you’ll get a good answer.
The sheer size of Norton means that some users report that some of Norton’s customer support representatives are not particularly helpful with queries about Norton Family features – if you’ve got a specific query then you’ll need to get lucky and land a knowledgeable support representative if you don’t want to get generic and vague answers.
The competition
Still, those support options are excellent, and align with what you get with Qustodio’s Care Plus package. Bark’s support is reasonable, but it still can’t compete.
Elsewhere, Norton competes reasonably well on value thanks to its great pricing, but its biggest competitors offer more features: Qustodio is stronger on call and SMS monitoring, and Bark is better with social media.
MMGuardian is worth considering if you want improved web filtering, and Mobicip has great scheduling and screen time functionality, even if it fails on social media and messaging in the same way as Norton.
Final verdict
Norton Family, then, sits in a tricky spot. It’s an effective, competent parental control product that offers great value and a good range of features – and it’s very easy to use, too.
However, it falls behind on social media, call and text message monitoring, and it could perform better on iOS, too. And, importantly, rivals go better in all of these areas, with more power and innovation.
There’s still a place for Norton Family, though: it’s a good, well-rounded parental control app, it’s affordable, and it’s very easy to use. It helps that it’s included with many other Norton apps too.
If you want a straightforward, effective tool that’s easy to use – and trust Norton’s brand and other products – then this is worth its good-value prices. But if you need social media or messaging monitoring, or want more power, then shop around.
If you’ve spent any time researching the best parental control apps, then you will have heard of Qustodio – it’s one of the most prominent names in the sector. It’s been around for over a decade, it’s been trusted by over seven million parents, and the app’s systems have averted over three billion threats.
That’s an impressive resume and, on paper, it’s backed by an impressive slate of features, too. But can Qustodio earn your vote ahead of big rivals like Bark, Norton Family or MMGuardian?
(Image credit: Qustodio)
Plans and Pricing
The Qustodio experience starts with a refreshingly straightforward look at pricing, with two paid tiers available.
The Basic package offers core functionality and costs $43.37/£33.95 a year – the equivalent of just $4.25/£3.33 per month.
With the Basic package, you get daily time limits, web filtering, location monitoring, game and app blocking and the ability to pause internet access for your children’s phones. It’s a solid core product with a more generous offer than the basic package you’ll find elsewhere.
The Complete product, at $89.36/£69.95 annually, adds AI-powered alerts, social media monitoring, custom routines, app time limits and additional monitoring, and allows parents to add unlimited devices to the account.
It’s a decent offer, especially when many premium products restrict how many devices you can monitor.
Bark and MMGuardian are both pricier than Qustodio, but Norton Family is even cheaper.
There’s a free version of Qustodio, too, that offers web filtering, daily time limits, 7-day activity reports and the ability to pause the internet, but it only protects one device, so it’s understandably limited.
Features
Qustodio offers good value, then, and it also serves up a good range of features.
It’s possible to filter out inappropriate apps, games and websites easily, and pick categories for whitelisting, alerting or total blocking. Parents can access alternative recommendations to apps that kids aren’t allowed to access, and even deploy conversation starters, approved by child psychologists, to start conversations about web browsing and internet use.
With Qustodio you can block unknown websites, automatically enable safe searches in common browsers, and receive alerts if your child searches for inappropriate content.
Qustodio offers more than 25 web filtering categories, but there’s no option within the app for kids to request access to particular websites – a feature you’ll find on Norton Family.
Qustodio allows parents to set screen time allowances for every day of the week, and also set time limits for individual apps – and use the in-built app monitoring and detection to automatically sort over 25,000 apps into categories for easier blocking or accessing.
It’s easy to create different routines and switch between them and, if you need to step in quickly, there’s an option to pause internet access on child devices or block the device completely.
And if parents want to reward their children or be a little more lenient, it’s easy to add screen time and see a new limit once that extra time has been granted.
Different rules can be used to govern screen time use between browsers and apps, there are varying “modes” that alter access for bedtime, leisure time and study time, and custom schedules are very easy to build.
(Image credit: Qustodio)
A straightforward map allows parents to spot child locations, geofencing is supported – albeit with a tiny 200m radius – and you can see location histories.
Call and SMS tracking and reading are supported on both Android and iOS, with full message details available, and parents can block phone numbers on child devices. You’ll get alerts for suspect content.
When it comes to reporting on all of this, Qustodio is similarly comprehensive. A real-time dashboard provides easy access to each child's digital activity, including an activity timeline, screen time and browsing history, and parents can access more detailed daily or weekly reports.
Qustodio is also forging ahead with some AI-based content, too, with AI-powered alerts that notify parents of any worrying searches, conversations or social media activity based on chosen topics or categories. That’s great, but it’s worth noting that Qustodio is a little weak on social media monitoring – it monitors messages on WhatsApp, Instagram and LINE, but that’s it.
In terms of other features, Qustodio allows parents to limit social media use, get app-based insights, and add additional parents or guardians to the software.
The app is also comprehensive when it comes to device support. As well as working on Android and iOS, which is a given for parental control apps these days, it works on Windows and Mac OS tech, Chromebooks, and Kindles. Additionally, parents can monitor child devices using Qustodio’s web interface.
As usual, though, be prepared that not every feature works on every platform. You don’t get WhatsApp alerts on iOS, for instance, and there’s no location, call or SMS monitoring on Mac OS or Windows. Android is the only platform that features a panic button.
Interface and in use
Qustodio has one of the best interfaces we’ve seen on any parental control app. As well as having a straightforward layout that places everything where you’d expect, Qustodio packs its apps and web interfaces with helpful tips and explanations about features and how they work.
A selection of Quick Actions provides fast access to common tasks, and the activity summary does a fantastic job of presenting key data in an attractive and intuitive format.
(Image credit: Qustodio)
Child apps are simple enough for even the youngest children to understand what’s going on, and if you’re a parent who wants to dive deeper into the settings, you won’t get lost – the effective UI continues here.
It’s typically easy to get started, too: download the app, register an account, set up child profiles and tick all of the permissions, and you’re ready to start building schedules, monitoring devices and protecting your kids.
Customer Support
Qustodio makes a big deal about ensuring that its service is easy to use for busy parents who may not have a deep understanding of technology, and this attitude extends to its support functionality.
There are loads of helpful articles in the FAQ section, many of which have screenshots, and the guides that illustrate how to set up the app, use basic features and manage your account are particularly good.
If you need support and you use the Basic package, it’s managed through a contact form – sadly there’s no phone support, chatbot or live chat available here, but users report that they always receive helpful, polite form responses within 24 hours.
If you’re a Complete user, you get access to Care Plus. This adds phone support, personalized guidance and ongoing check-ins for parents who want more from their parental control app. And, impressively, Care Plus has an average resolution rate of 97% and an average resolution time of 15 minutes.
While it’s included for free with the Complete package, it costs $10.21/£7.99 to add it to the Basic product.
The Competition
As a big name in the parental control space, Qustodio has some big rivals – but it does a brilliant job of competing.
Norton Family, for instance, is more affordable than Qustodio but not as good at call or SMS monitoring. And MMGuardian isn’t as easy to use as Qustodio and is a bit more expensive, too.
Bark is probably Qustodio’s best competitor. It’s far better with social media, but is more limited on iOS and doesn’t provide a full web history, and it’s also a little more expensive.
Final Verdict
Those factors leave Qustodio looking like a particularly strong parental control option. It has superb filtering, scheduling and screen time options, AI-based additions, solid location features and excellent design, reporting and platform support.
Its customer support is great if you have the Complete product, the apps are all easy to use, and the pricing is fair, too – either competing or undercutting many rivals. The only downside is weak social media monitoring and a relatively small geofencing zone.
That social media monitoring drawback could be a dealbreaker for many families but, in almost every other area, Qustodio is a winner – it’s one of the best parental control apps on the market.
And you thought Focal's first wireless over-ear noise-cancelling headphones were expensive…
The French company has had a good long think about things, developed an all-new magnesium driver, one with an ‘M’-shaped dome, and built it in-house. The company has then added a lovely new ‘chestnut’ finish and badged the resulting model ‘Bathys MG’. Oh, and then slapped an uber-premium price ticket on it.
Remarkably, the Bathys MG go quite a long way to justifying that asking price. They’re beautifully built and finished, and really look the part. They have potent battery life, and will remain comfortable even if you drain that battery in one sitting. They will function as a USB DAC if you want to use them for desktop or office listening. And they have way more positives than negatives when it comes to the sound those fancy-pants drivers can serve up.
Some of the best headphones money can buy then? Well, nothing's perfect, and the Focal lack the wireless codec compatibility that could absolutely maximise their Bluetooth performance – it only takes a moment’s comparison of their sound when running via USB-C to the wireless equivalent to realise this. And while their active noise-cancellation is pretty good, ‘pretty good’ doesn’t approach ‘class-leading’ at this sort of money.
As with sound quality, though, the overall positives outweigh the negatives to a considerable degree. If you’ve the headroom in your bank account, the Focal Bathys MG have plenty to recommend them.
(Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys MG review: Price & release date
Released March 26th, 2025
$1299 / £999 / AU$2299
The Focal Bathys MG were announced on March 26, 2025 and went on sale the following month.
Eyebrows were raised at the revelation of the asking price, and it seems fair to say they haven’t really been lowered since – Focal has pitched these headphones at the very outer edge of the wireless over-ear market, where only rarefied alternatives from the likes of Audio Technica, Bang & Olufsen and Mark Levinson serve as competition…
(Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys MG review: Specs
Type
Over-ear, closed-back, noise-cancelling
Drivers
40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome
Weight
350g
Battery life
30h (wireless); 35h (hard-wired); 42h (DAC mode)
Connectivity
5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility, 3.5mm, USB-C DAC connectivity
(Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys MG review: Features
40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome dynamic drivers
Bluetooth: 5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility
Will function as a 24bit/192kHz USB-DAC
When you’re asking absolutely top dollar for a pair of wireless over-ear noise-cancelling headphones, there are a lot of ‘features’ boxes that need a thorough ticking. With the Bathys MG, it seems fair to say Focal has dealt with most, but not all, of them.
The headline, the thing Focal seems most proud of, and the feature that goes furthest in separating the Bathys MG from their more affordable Bathys sibling, is the 40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome dynamic driver that produces the sound. These drivers are made in Focal’s workshops in France and, according to the company, deliver a frequency response of 10Hz - 22kHz. The measurable distortion is vanishingly low, and Focal is bullish about the sonic power and clarity this design is capable of serving up.
Getting information on board the headphones in order for those drivers to do their thing can be achieved in a few different ways. Obviously the Bathys MG are wireless headphones, and use Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility for wireless connectivity - which is fine as far as it goes, but it could be argued that it doesn’t go far enough. Bluetooth 5.4 represents the cutting edge right now, and codecs like LDAC and, especially, aptX Lossless offer optimum sound quality. LC3 and Auracast are also increasingly common in wireless designs that sell for significantly less than this, but the Focal go without. At least the Bathys MG feature multi-point connectivity.
There’s a 3.5mm analogue input on the edge of the right earcup, so the Bathys MG can be hard-wired to a source of music – an in-flight entertainment system, for instance – when wireless transmission is not available. And the USB-C slot that’s nearby not only allows for battery charging but also turns the headphones into a USB DAC – make a digital connection to a source of music and the Bathys MG can deal with 24bit/192kHz hi-res content like the best of the standalone headphone DACs we've tested. Just select the correct position on the little ‘off/DAC/on’ slider on the right ear cup and you’re in business.
On the subject of the battery, it’s worth noting the Focal cannot be used passively – no power, no sound. But given that battery life is around 30 hours when using Bluetooth, 35 hours via the analogue connection or an epic 42 hours when operating as a USB DAC, you’d have to be pretty negligent to run dry. And should the worst happen, the fast-charging function means that 15 minutes of mains power should equate to five hours of playback.
Features score: 4/5
(Image credit: Focal)
Focal Bathys MG review: Sound quality
Spacious, insightful and energetic sound
Punchy and dynamic presentation
Treble response can be goaded
Conext, of course, is everything. The Focal Bathys MG get almost everything right when it comes to the way they sound – but when you’re asking four figures for a pair of headphones, ‘almost’ means you’ve come up slightly short.
The stuff that’s enjoyable is a much longer list than the stuff that isn’t, though, so I might as well start here. The Bathys MG are a beautifully open, organised and detailed listen – the stage they create is spacious and properly defined, and there isn’t an event that happens on it that’s too fleeting, too minor or too transient to be overlooked. The Focal are absolutely hawk-like in their attention to detail, and their ability to identify and contextualise every single incident in a recording makes them one of the most out-and-out revealing headphones I’ve heard in a good long while.
No matter it it’s Talk Talk’s timeless Spirit of Eden as a DSD64 file being delivered via aptX Bluetooth or a 24bit/192kHz FLAC file of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You by Aretha Franklin served up by the Bathy MG functioning as a USB DAC, they communicate in the most relentless and articulate fashion. Low frequencies are textured and endlessly varied, and so carefully controlled that rhythmic expression is never an issue. The word ‘revealing’ is almost too weak a way to describe the way the Focal handle the midrange – Aretha’s peerless technique and exquisite tone is translated in the most eloquent manner imaginable.
Switch to a 24bit/48kHz FLAC file of James Holden’s Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities and the dynamic headroom the Bathy MG demonstrate, as well as the straightforward punch and attack, is deeply impressive. There’s real momentum to this recording, and the Focal describe it in full and with complete confidence.
The whole frequency range hangs together well, and frequency response is smooth and even too. Really, it’s only at the top end that any shortcomings are apparent – and for most of the time, they’re latent rather than overt. Treble sounds are slightly distinct in their tonality from the rest of the frequency range – there’s an edginess, a willingness to bite, that puts them at odds somewhat with everything else that’s going on. Very big volumes and/or sharp-edged recordings are no friends of the treble response of these headphones.
Otherwise, it’s only the active noise-cancellation that sounds the mildest of bum notes. There’s no shame in having to play second fiddle to Bose when it comes to ANC – everyone else is too, after all. But the job the Bathys MG do on external sounds is not complete. They damp down ambient noise, of course, and do so without altering their sonic characteristics in any way or leaving a sensation of counter-signal – but if it’s complete negation of external noise you’re after, you won’t get it here.
Sound quality score: 4.5/5
(Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys MG review: Design
Excellent standard of build and finish
Premium materials look and feel good
Rigid carry-case with a selection of cables
Within the inevitable constraints of over-headphone design, Focal has done good work with the Bathys MG. Whether or not a pair of headphones can ever look or feel like they cost four figures is debatable, but there’s no arguing with the standard of construction, the industrial design or the quality of the materials involved here.
At 350g the Focal are of manageable weight, and their clamping force and hanger arrangement allow them to stay comfortable for hours on end. This is helped in a fairly big way by the use of leather and padded microfibre for the headband, and similarly padded pleather for the (replaceable) ear pads. The bulk of the frame is of aluminium or hard-wearing plastic, and the design on the ear cups (first seen on the original Focal Bathys) helps these headphones look distinctive and up-market. The ‘chestnut’ colour, which shifts subtly as the light changes, is very agreeable – and the in-app ability to adjust the intensity of the lighting of the stylised company logo on each ear cup is a nice touch too.
The app itself is on the brief side, but those few functions it does include are useful and well-implemented. A five-band EQ has some presets and the ability to save custom settings, noise-cancellation can be toggled between ‘transparent’, ‘soft’ and ‘silent’, and there’s a ‘Mimi’ test to help the headphones set themselves up to suit your specific hearing profile.
Voice-control is available via your player’s native assistant – there are four mics in each earcup taking care of these interactions as well as telephony and ANC. And there are some physical controls, almost all on the right earcup – the classic three-button strip takes care of volume up/down, play/pause, skip forwards/backwards and Bluetooth pairing, and there’s a button to wake your voice assistant. There’s that on/off/DAC slider too, of course. And on the left ear cup, there’s a button that lets you cycle through your ANC options.
The Bathys MG arrive in a rigid travel case (which is not as big as it might be, given that they don’t fold beyond some articulation in the ear cup yokes). It includes a couple of 1.2m cables of very acceptable quality – one is a 3.5mm analogue number, the other a USB-C.
Design score: 4.5/5
(Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys MG review: Value
Great standard of build, from premium materials
Good battery life, extremely enjoyable sound
Not the last word in wireless technology
Obviously these are expensive headphones – so it’s mildly surprising that the Focal Bathys MG go so far towards offering value for money. They’re nicely made, look good, use upmarket materials and have quite a few technical highlights – not least their driver technology.
The uptick in performance when used as a USB DAC compared to the wireless equivalent does make me wish for LDAC or, better still, aptX Lossless compatibility though – then we’d be talking about value for money that would be very difficult indeed to argue with.
Value score: 4/5
Should I buy the Focal Bathys MG?
Section
Notes
Score
Features
No power, no sound when wired, and no Auracast or LC3 in an otherwise beautiful setup
4/5
Sound quality
Practically perfect… just a shade off excellent for ANC and treble response
4.5/5
Design
Lovely colorway and classy build, but LDAC wireless support would've been ideal
4.5/5
Value
A touch surprising, given the asking fee, but they're not bad value at all…
4/5
Buy them if...
You value exclusivity The Focal look and feel like a premium product - which is just as well, given the asking price
You like expansive and informative sound Even music you’re very familiar with can sound fresh when heard through these headphones
You indulge in long listening sessions Tha Bathys MG have the battery-life to indulge you and are as comfortable as they come
Don't buy them if...
You’re expecting a fully featured control app The Focal app is sort of the anti-Sony - its functionality is very restricted
You want cutting-edge wireless technologies Where Bluetooth specification is concerned, the Bathys MG are not exactly at the forefront
You’re especially sensitive to high-frequency sound The Focal live right on the edge when it comes to treble response
Focal Bathys MG: Also consider
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95 The OG of premium audio will, of course, sell you an extremely pricey and very good-looking pair of wireless over-ear headphones – and happily the H95 have the performance to justify the price. Read all about them in our Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95 review
Focal Bathys Their driver technology may not be as attention-grabbing as that of the Bathys MG, but then neither is the asking price – and the Bathys remain a very compelling option in their part of the market. Learn more in our full Focal Bathys review
Mark Levinson No. 5909 Safe to say Mark Levinson has concentrated on performance with the No. 5909 – they’re no one’s idea of a great-looking pair of headphones. If you prioritise sound, though, they are very hard to argue with. See them up close in our in-depth Mark Levinson No. 5909 review
How I tested the Focal Bathys MG
Wirelessly connected to an iPhone 14 Pro and a FiiO M15S
Hard-wired via USB-C to a MacBook Pro
For quite a long time
An Apple iPhone 14 Pro tops out with the AAC codec, of course – but a FiiO M15S can offer aptX to the Bathys MG, and doesn’t have the distraction of a native voice-assistant either.
For home listening, I listened to the Focal as a USB DAC via a USB-C connection to my MacBook Pro – the laptop is running Colibri software in order to get access to 24bit/192kHz content.
I listened for longer than I needed to, quite honestly, because it was no kind of hardship – and I listened to lots of different types of music, and lots of different file types and sizes.
The Nothing Headphone (1) are the first-ever over-ear headphones from the still-fairly-new tech company, joining its smartphones and a range of earbuds – including one model we rated as a five-star smash hit: the Nothing Ear (a).
While Nothing's earbuds are all mid-range or cheaper, however, the Nothing Headphone (1) are in competition with the best noise-cancelling headphones at a premium level, due to their $299 / £299 price (about AU$630). That's what you pay for a pair of Sony WH-1000XM5 today – so do they stand up to one of the biggest names in wireless headphones?
Well, the Nothing Headphone (1) are a product of two halves. When it comes to the technical side of things, they absolutely won me over. They're crammed with features, ranging from tweakable active noise cancellation, to useful audio customization, to USB-C lossless sound support, to spatial audio.
With the exception of the limp spatial audio, these all work excellently, and when you pair them with fantastic on-ear controls – including a 'Roller' button that changes the volume (plus other functions) and is maybe my favorite button on a pair of headphones ever – and superb build quality, they feel well worth their price.
Sadly, the sound quality isn't at the same level. The audio is tuned by the great hi-fi brand KEF, and is reasonably refined, well-balanced, and broadly enjoyable. But it also feels compressed, and lacks the openness and expansive sound I'm used to from testing the competition at this price.
I tested them directly against the Sony WH-1000XM5, and far preferred the extra breadth and detail the Sony cans offer. I also compared them to the Sennheiser Accentum Plus headphones, which can be bought for about half the price, and preferred the sound of those too.
That's the key divide in the Nothing Headphone (1): premium price, premium features, but mid-range sound. But is why you buy headphones, and it needs to match the rest.
There is another divide of sorts: the aesthetics, which some people like a lot, and some people detest. You'll have to make your own mind up. The headphones are comfortable and extremely well-made, though, there's no question about that.
If (well, when) they get a price drop, these could be great headphones. As it stands, I'd suggest you go for the Sony WH-1000XM5 at this price, or another option among our round-up of the best headphones.
(Image credit: Future)
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Price and release date
$299 / £299 / AU$TBC
Released on July 15, 2025
Nothing's previous earbuds releases have all played in the budget-to-mid-range pool, but the Nothing Headphone (1) are going in at the premium deep end.
Their price of $299 / £299 matches the current street price of the Sony WH-1000MX5, and in the US is about the same price as the Bose QuietComfort Headphones. In the UK, you can get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones for only a little more at the time of writing, and they often drop to a similarly competitive price in the US too.
That's pretty hardcore company, but the Nothing Headphone (1) are still significantly less expensive than the newest Sony WH-1000XM6, which come in at $449 / £399; and when it comes to features, the Nothing are closest to the XM6 and the Bose Ultra.
I'd also expect them to be available for less than their full price before too long. This is fairly standard with Nothing's earbuds, and the Nothing Ear (a) are now available at an effectively standard price that's far less than their launch price, which puts them top of our list of the best budget earbuds. Perhaps the Headphone (1) will drop before long; for now, though, I'm reviewing them based on their full price.
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Specs
Drivers
40mm dynamic
Active noise cancellation
Yes
Quoted battery life
ANC on: up to 35 hours. ANC off: up to 80 hours
Weight
329g
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.3
Frequency range
20Hz-40kHz
Waterproofing
IP52
(Image credit: Future)
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Features
Multiple noise-cancellation modes and spatial audio options
Lots of other customization options in the excellent app
You might need to turn on some basic-seeming features
The Nothing Headphone (1) certainly justify their price when it comes to the list of features. You've got adaptive active noise cancellation with Transparency mode, head-tracked spatial audio, equalizer customization options, LDAC higher-res wireless audio, USB-C lossless Hi-Res Audio connectivity, a 3.5mm jack, multi-point Bluetooth to two devices, wear detection, Google Fast Pair, a customizable control button, and up to 35 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation turned on.
If you use them with the new Nothing Phone (3) you also get extra options, such as the option to use the customizable button to switch between your favorite audio apps, or active AI-based voice-note taking, in which your notes are automatically sorted into a relevant collection of notes on your phone.
Let's start with the noise cancellation, since it's the feature most people will use pretty much every time they turn on the headphones. You have three strength settings, plus 'Adaptive' – I was happiest sticking with 'High', but you might choose 'Low' for an office setting, say.
On High, the Nothing Headphone (1)'s noise-blocking power was essentially on a par with Sony WH-1000XM5 in my direct comparison. The noise cancellation does a great job of reducing sounds across the whole frequency range, and does it without interfering with the audio quality. I'd maybe give the Sony cans a 10% higher rating on higher-frequency noise reduction when listening to a podcast, but when listening to music, any difference between these two headphones was academic.
The Transparency mode works perfectly well, though it really emphasizes higher-frequency noises, such as crinkling a wrapper. This isn't uncommon, but the Sony XM5 cans maintained a more natural transparency sound when I compared them.
I also noted that when using Transparency mode and talking to someone, my own voice felt really boomy in my ears, far more so than with most of the premium headphones I've used for a while now, which is a bit distracting.
(Image credit: Future)
You can switch noise cancellation levels in the app, and you can switch between ANC or Transparency mode using the Roller button on the headphones. The sound that the headphones make to indicate when you've switched modes are my favorite I've ever heard on a pair of headphones – a small thing, but I genuinely loved it.
You hear the sound of a big intake of breath when you switch to Transparency mode, like a sound spirit has been freed from the captivity of ANC. Then, when you turn ANC back on, there's a sucking and shutting sound, denoting the noise being trapped – like the lid slamming back down on the Ark of the Covenant. There's zero confusion as to which mode you've switched to, unlike with some headphones.
When you've finished choosing your noise cancellation mode in the app you can also customize the sound, using two different EQ options and a separate Bass Enhancer tool. I'll get into the latter in the Sound Quality section next, but the EQ options initially give you the option of some named presets (such as 'Vocal'), or you can go into a truly custom mode with an eight-band EQ.
By default, the only way to activate the spatial audio mode, or the separate head-tracked spatial audio mode, is from the app. However, one of the other options you can customize in the app is a physical button near the top of the headphones, which you can use to trigger basically anything from within the app (plus the Nothing Phone (3)-specific options, such as the AI Assistant or switching audio apps). I decided to set this to switch spatial audio modes for my review period, which worked nicely.
I'll talk about the quality of spatial audio in the next section, but the short version is that I don't think it adds anything here, and actively harms the quality of watching videos or movies, sadly.
One slightly odd thing about these headphones is that the wear-detection (to auto-pause what's playing when you take them off) and multi-point Bluetooth (to connect to two devices at once) are both turned off by default, and these settings are hidden in the Device Settings screen rather than being somewhere obvious.
I kind of get it with multi-point Bluetooth – it's not uncommon for this to be turned off by default, and it could be confusing for people not used to the idea. But auto-pause should definitely be turned on by default! The good news is that both work perfectly.
When it comes to battery life we're promised 35 hours with active noise cancellation turned on, and 80 hours with it turned off. I didn't have time to test the latter claim during my review period, but I got just over 38 hours of real-world use from the cans with ANC on, and that was with spatial audio turned on at times as well, which uses even more power.
When it comes to microphone quality, these headphones are a little tinny and robotic, as many over-ear headphones are, but largely clear. Not bad, not impressive. I again broke out the Sony XM5 for comparison, and the two performed incredibly similarly – however, once again I heard my own voice booming far more in the Nothing in the Sony, which is a little unpleasant.
Features score: 4.5 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Sound quality
Well balanced with energetic low-end, especially with Bass Enhancer
Limited dynamism and expansiveness
Movie audio quality is weak, and spatial audio doesn't add anything
A quirk of timing meant that I received my Nothing Headphone (1) and starting testing them out before I knew their price. This meant that during my initial testing I had no preconceptions of how they should sound relative to their price; I just listened in isolation.
My instant reaction was "Oh, these must be much more mid-range than I expected from the design." I grabbed the Sennheiser Accentum Plus to do some comparison testing, since those are a top mid-range pick for us. And then I received the pricing information, and realized that these are not mid-range at all – but disappointingly the sound is.
The audio quality of the Nothing Headphone (1) is good, to be clear. But for their price, 'good' isn't good enough.
They're well-balanced across the frequencies, so the different elements of songs feel well represented, and no part seems to particularly overwhelm the others – as you'd hope, given the promise that the sound has been tuned by KEF.
The bass is muscular and impactful, but it still leaves space for the mid-range to feel solid. The treble is prominent without sticking out awkwardly, and delivers a reasonable amount of detail.
The problem is that it all feels bizarrely small and compressed. There's a surprising lack of expansiveness, and while the treble, mid and bass are all very well balanced they also feel shackled to each other, stuck dancing in a small group when then should be moving and spreading around the dance floor.
The sound never feels bigger than the earcups, and for this price, it should. I did direct listening comparisons, using the same music source, with the Sony WH-1000XM5, and you can feel that the music has more room to breathe in the latter.
Instruments separate better, voices sound more natural, the bass is more nimble and nuanced, the transient details are more defined in a way that gives the sound more solidity and realism, and there's a more expansive feeling to the mix.
The Nothing cans feel like they're lacking the fifth gear that other premium headphones have – when a song is supposed to open up into a climax of energy, the Nothing don't have any more headroom to offer.
If the Sony XM5's sound feels like it's coming from a pair of bookshelf speakers, the Nothing Headphone (1)'s sound feels like it's coming from a really good Bluetooth speaker; enjoyable enough given the limitations of the source, but simply lacking the scale and clarity you'd want.
I said that I was initially inclined to compare them to the Sennheiser Accentum Plus, and I'd put these two headphones roughly on a par. I prefer the Sennheiser's more open sound and extra touch of dynamism with small details, but the Nothing's energy and full bass will have their fans.
That's especially true if you activate the Bass Enhancer feature. I really like this! It adds more resonance and viciousness to low frequencies, in a good way. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it reaches deeper while maintaining total control over the sound. I would use this day-to-day with the headphones personally, for sure.
Bass Enhancer also gives you some fun extra flexibility choices when using the equalizer – for example, the Vocal preset on its own wasn't to my taste, but the Vocal preset with Bass Enhancer on was actually a tempting new option to listen with for a while.
The Sony XM5 are boomier in the bass than the Nothing, and with Bass Enhancer on I would say Nothing have the edge for low-end control and thrill, but it doesn't change the fact that I prefer the overall audio advantages of the Sony.
The spatial audio options ranged from middling to disappointing, in my opinion. They don't make music sound worse, but they don't really add to it. I felt no sense of anything new in the tracks with the basic non-head-tracking spatial mode enabled, I think mainly because it can't overcome the headphones' aforementioned overall problem of feeling like the sound is stuck right in the drivers next to your ears.
Switching to head tracking threw up an odd wrinkle, in that it always started with the 'centering' of the track being directly to my right, for whatever reason. If I kept my head looking forward it corrected itself after a few seconds.
The head tracking is good, but the lack of meaningful spatial upscaling means you don’t feel like you’re immersed in a performance in the way you can with Dolby Atmos head-tracking on the AirPods Max. It feels like sitting in front of a set of speakers; but, you know, not a very expansive set of speakers, because the headphones can't do that.
I'll also note here that spatial audio is no good with podcasts, since it throws a load of reverb into the mix, which just muddies things.
I tried movies as well as music, and the headphones' dynamic limitations really show themselves here. Epic movies feel smaller than they should, with dialogue trapped within the overall crush of the mix.
And spatial audio is even weaker here than it is with music – there was actually less directionality from the source soundtrack than when just listening in normal mode, I found. To go back to the Sony XM5, they delivered way more exciting movie audio, at a bigger scale, with harder impacts, and offering far clearer speech at the same time.
This has been quite a negative sound quality write-up, but I want to emphasize what I said at the top – they sound good. There's detail and good balance across the range, but you can get arguably better sound for half the price from Sennheiser, and definitely, in my opinion, better sound for the same price from Sony.
Sound quality score: 3.5 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Design
Weighty, but comfortable to wear
Headband adjusts further up than most headphones
On-ear controls are excellent
Before we get into the practical side of the Nothing Headphone (1)'s design, we need to talk about the aesthetic side.
This is one of the most divisive pairs of headphones we've had in TR Towers for a while, and conform strongly to Nothing's penchant for clear cases and the feeling that the tech inside is showing – but mixed with Apple-esque clean, milled aluminum.
The gamut of responses in the office has run from "I love the look of them" to "I really like what they're doing, but I don't think I'd wear them" to "I think they're straight retro cool" to "If they were round I think I'd like them more" to "These are the ugliest headphones I've ever seen".
I'm not going to dwell on the aesthetics here because it's so personal – I think they're charming, but they're not really my style.
They feel high-quality, though – there's basically no give in the construction where there shouldn't be, and the finish on the aluminum and plastic elements is really premium.
(Image credit: Future)
The earpads and headband cushion are leather, with no vegan option, so take note if you'd rather avoid that. The black leather really picks up skin oil, whether that's from your fingers while holding them or your head while wearing them. It wipes off instantly, but just know that it'll really show.
In terms of fit and comfort, the wireless headphones they most remind me of are AirPods Max. At 329g, they weigh a little less than 384g AirPods Max – but notably more than the 250g of the Sony WH-1000XM6 – and like the Max they use a fairly strong clamping force to stay on.
This fit will also be a little divisive – some people really prefer just a lighter-weight headphone that doesn't need to grip so much – but I found them more comfortable than the AirPods Max, and fine to wear for a good stretch of time. The well-padded earcups help with this, holding firmly but softly, and they didn't struggle to fit around my glasses. Still, I was certainly aware of the weight more than when wearing my trusty Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones.
I could see this kind of firm, clamping fit being popular with gym-goers, as is the case with the AirPods Max – and also just as with the AirPods Max I'm not sure it's a great idea, for sweat-related reasons.
(Image credit: Future)
Having an IP52 rating for dust and water is better than having no rating at all, but it means they're rated only for very limited water ingress protection; I'd suggest that IPX4 is what you want to protect against sweat properly. But it's better than nothing, which is what most rivals offer.
There is one physical design I element I really dislike here, though, and it's the positioning of the adjustable portion of the headband near the top of the head, rather than down by the earcups. My usual method of adjusting headphones for a tighter fit is to to grip the earcups with my palm, hold the armband with my fingers and pull them a little higher when needed.
Here, you have to reach for the top of the headband, which feels much less precise, and my brain had a lot of trouble adjusting. I'm counting this as an "If it wasn't broken, why fix it?" design change.
On the other hand, I absolutely love the physical controls on the Headphone (1). On the back of the right-hand earcup is a 'Roller' control, which you can rotate to change volume, press once to play/pause, and press and hold to change between noise cancellation and Transparency mode.
It moves really smoothly, the finger grips it just the right amount, and I never accidentally rolled it when I meant to press it, or vice versa. It's a wonderful bit of design, and might be my favorite piece of physical control design on any headphones ever. I should note that my colleague Becky Scarrot found that the Roller made a noise that irritated her when she used it – I didn't have any issue, though.
(Image credit: Future)
Below this is a rocker control, which you can push forward or back quickly to skip tracks, or hold in either direction to fast-forward and rewind – perhaps not a necessary control for many people, but as a podcast fan who's used to skipping through ads or being able to go back if I became distracted, I liked having the option.
Another button near the top on the outside of the rear earcup is totally customizable – used with a Nothing Phone handset, it can be used to change which music service you're listening to; on other phones it'll activate a voice assistant as one option. I ended up setting it to change spatial audio modes.
On the bottom of the right earcup are a physical on/off switch, the USB-C port, and the 3.5mm jack.
Design-wise, then, the Nothing Headphone (1) are an odd mix of things I love, things I dislike, and things that really got the TR office talking. The controls and build quality lead me to conclude that they're well-designed on balance, but how you feel about the look will probably be the deciding factor, and I can't make that call for you.
Design score: 4 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Value
Excellent, well-implemented set of features
High price sits well with feature list and build quality
The sound drags the value way down, though
As I've said elsewhere in this review, the Nothing Headphone (1) not only justify their premium price when it comes to their features, they actually manage to feel like something of a bargain. Only the lack of Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast prevents them from feeling truly future-proof, and those aren't widely used yet, so I can't really knock the value score on account of their absence.
They feel expensive too – whatever you think of the look, the quality under your fingers (and on your head) is clear, and elements as simple as the excellent roller control give you a little shot of satisfaction every time you use it, and reassure you that these are a well-made piece of tech, and that your money was well spent.
Alas, the sound is an anchor dragging all of that down. I think they sound arguably on par with, or perhaps slightly weaker than, the Sennheiser Accentum Plus headphones, which can be regularly found for a street price that's less than half of what Nothing is asking for the Nothing Headphone (1).
Balance it all out and they just about convince me that they're not actively bad value, but they're not good value either.
Value score: 3 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Should I buy the Nothing Headphone (1)?
Buy them if...
You want a unique look They're the most striking pair of mainstream headphones in years, and are extremely well-built.
You want tons of control and customizability Useful sound options, and the fully customizable button to add unique functionality are all really nice to have, and they have lots of connection options.
You'll use a Nothing Phone They offer even more interesting options for Nothing Phone owners, including AI skills and instant switching between audio apps.
Don't buy them if...
Audio quality is your top priority While they don't sound bad, they also don't sound good enough for the price – a lack of openness will frustrate both music and movie lovers.
You make a lot of calls The call quality is average, but hearing your own boomy voice is frustrating, and other premium headphones generally avoid this.
You don't like heavy headphones The Nothing headphones are comfortable, but you can feel their weight compared to far lighter options from Sony and Bose. That's the trade-off for the high-quality metal build.
Nothing Headphone (1) review: Also consider
Nothing Headphone (1)
Sony WH-1000XM5
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones
Price
$299 / £299
About $299 / £279
About $349 / £349
Drivers
40mm dynamic
30mm dynamic
35mm dynamic
Connectivity (wireless)
Bluetooth 5.3, LDAC
Bluetooth 5.3, LDAC
Bluetooth 5.3, Snapdragon Sound
Weight
329g
250g
Connectivity (wired)
USB-C lossless audio, 3.5mm jack
USB-C (power only), 3.5mm jack
USB-C (power only), 3.5mm jack
Sony WH-1000XM5 The newer Sony WH-1000XM6 are out, but they cost way more than the Nothing Headphone (1). The older Sony XM5, however, can now be found for the same price, if not cheaper, than the Nothing – and they sound better, and feel far lighter, if that's your preference. Read our full Sony WH-1000XM5 review for more on the intricacies of these headphones.View Deal
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Another pair of headphones that are much lighter than the Nothing, and these also have a folding design, so are great for travel. They have better noise cancellation than the Nothing or Sony, and better sound too. Like the Nothing cans, they have a spatial audio mode that works by upscaling sound. They have around half the battery life of the Nothing headphones, though – although that was my only real complaint in my Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones review.View Deal
(Image credit: Future)
How I tested the Nothing Headphone (1)
Tested for two weeks using pre-release Nothing app
Tested at home, in the office, and while travelling
I've been reviewing audio tech for 14 years
I had two weeks to test the Nothing Headphone (1) before their official launch as part of my regular routine, using a pre-release version of the official Nothing app to control their features.
I primarily used them with my iPhone 16 Pro over Bluetooth, and also connected them to my iPad Pro to test the multi-point Bluetooth. I also listening to USB-C lossless audio from these devices, and from my MacBook Air. I used a Fiio M23 music player for LDAC playback.
I tested the active noise cancellation on public transport, walking around city streets, in the TechRadar office, and at home. I listened to the TechRadar audio testing playlist, as well as many hours of whatever music I was in the mood for.
I compared them directly to the Sony WH-1000XM5 and Sennheiser Accentum Wireless headphones in listening tests.
To test the actual battery life I charged the headphones up to maximum, and then left them playing at 50% volume, with active noise cancellation turned on, for long periods, until I ran them down.
I've been testing audio products, including headphones, for around 14 years, ranging from early consumer Bluetooth options through to today's best wireless headphones of all kinds.
