The 10 Best Headphones for Your Home Office
Headphones are essential for working from home. They are used constantly while working from home while on video calls, listening to music, and canceling out background noise. A great pair of headphones will enhance your remote working experience and make you more productive. We reviewed dozens of products to bring you out top three recommended headphones for working from home.
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QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones II are engineered with renowned noise cancellation that makes quiet sound quieter and your music sound better. With the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa built in, you have instant access to millions of songs, playlists, and more — hands free. Simply choose your voice assistant and ask away. Keep the music — or the quiet — going all day long. If you need a little bit more, a quick 15-minute charge gives you another 2.5 hours. And that’s just the beginning.
Sony’s noise cancelling headphones boast world class noise cancelling technology. It’s built-in mic also rejects unwanted noises from around you, meaning people on a phone call with you won’t hear any barking dogs or screaming kids – just your voice. These headphones are extremely comfortable to wear, they have touch controls built in, and fold up nicely when you need to store them.
These Mixcder headphones have noise cancelling technology to filter up to 94% of unwanted sounds. They are all about comfort – they have memory-protein cushions, adjustable headband and rotatable ear cups. It is also very lightweight at .56 lbs. It also come standard with with a built-in noise-rejecting microphone system to make hands free calls a breeze. Overall, this is a great pair of headphones at a really great price.
The Jabra Elite 85h is a very high quality set of headphones with a long battery life. A 15 minute charge will get you 5 hours of battery life, and a full charge will get up to 36 hours total of battery. These are also very stylish and water resistant so you can even wear them in the rain. The noise-rejecting microphone is one of our favorite features for a solid work from home setup.
These Bose headphones are very sleek in design. These come standard with Bose’s noise cancelling technology. With the 700 series, you also get intuitive touch controls on the ear cups to allow you to stay connected without reaching for your phone. In case you don’t want to connect via bluetooth, these also come standard with a 3.5mm auxiliary cord to plug into a headphone jack. This pair of headphones are definitely on the more premium side of things.
Apple’s Beats Solo Pro edition is our top pick for the best over the ear headphones to pair with your apple device. They feature the Apple H1 headphone chip and Class1 Bluetooth for a very long range – this means less dropped calls/songs. A 10-minute charge gets you three hours of battery life if you are in a pinch. Beats Solo Pro also comes standard with a built-in microphone, just like all headphones we review for working from home.
For a less expensive option on a pair of headphones with Siri enabled features, the Beats Solo3 wireless headphones are our top pick. Most noticeably, these headphones do not have noise cancelling technology built in so be forewarned if you plan to use these for traveling or other related uses. We like the sleek design and on-ear controls, as well as the long bluetooth range and excellent sound quality to be expected from Apple’s Beats product line.
Jabra’s Move Style Edition headphones offer a very affordable alternative to more expensive headphones. It’s battery life is certainly not as great as others, but it comes standard with a 3.5mm auxiliary cable in case you run out of battery. It has very good sound quality and is great for any sort of work calls and music. No noise cancelling or mic noise reduction tech, but these get the job done for folks in quiet environments.
We think the NAD Viso HP70 headphones are the best sounding set of headphones. They are also very sleek, lightweight, and boast memory-foam earpads; this makes them a very stylish and comfortable pair to wear in all settings. Their noise cancelling technology is not as great as Bose, Beats, or Sony, but it gets the job done. Their 15 hour battery life is also below the industry average, but it’s at least enough to get you through a full work day or even the longest of flights. For the audiophiles out there, this made our list because of it’s amazing sound quality and comfort.
10 COWIN E7
Cowin’s E7’s are a very affordable pair of headphones that still boast all the key features we like. They have noise cancelling technology, a comfortable and lightweight fit, a built-in mic for calls, and a really excellent battery life at 30 hours of playtime per charge. If you’re on a budget, this is a great pick.
What Makes The Best Pair Of Headphones
Headphones With Impeccable Sound
Most people use their office or remote-work headphones for calls and zoning out to music, so we want the very best in sound. When looking for excellent sound quality, there are a few things we considered. First, headphone frequency ranges shouldn’t overpower others. Meaning, a low bass should sound just as crystal clear as a high pitched flute. Secondly, we looked for ones that don’t distort sound. In other words, it should sound like it does in real life. We realize that’s probably an obvious fact, but it is important to look for in purchasing headphones. Lastly, you want over-the ear headphones to offer a three-dimensional type of listening experience. Thus, if you were listening to a symphony, you could hear where the violin was coming from, in relation to the french horn.
Comfortable Headphones That Fit Just Right Over The Ear
Who has had an earbud stuck in their ear that just won’t fit correctly? Or had over-ear headphones that always seem to slip or apply pressure on their ear lobes? The fact of the matter is you can have amazing sounding headphones but they can be completely ruined by the fit. We highly recommend looking at customer reviews when it comes to comfort, and try to only rank the ones that we have used with great comfort or read amazing reviews on. Along these lines, it’s also important to select for headphones that adjust easily. Everyone’s head is different, so the ones that conform to many shapes and sizes get our preferential treatment.
Headphones With An Attached Microphone
Having an attached Microphone is a must have for us. It is true that we are missing out on some really great headphone sets, but we are optimizing for most of our readers who are often taking work calls and need to speak into a mic.
There are two major microphone features we looked for in our ranking methodology. First, microphones that have noise cancelling technology built in. This technology will only pick up on the noises speaking directly into it (i.e. your voice) and block out any unwanted and external noises. This is truly a game changer! That means your noisy neighbors, barking dog, or screaming kids could all be making noise in the background but your coworkers on your call will be none the wiser. This technology is becoming more widespread across all major headphone developers so we highly recommend finding a pair like this. Secondly, microphones with built-in remotes to play/pause music or control the volume are a nice to have feature that gives you a bit more freedom.
Strong And Durable Headphones
We want you to find a pair of headphones that will last for several years, so durability is important to us. Products with flimsy ear pads that need replacing or headbands that are destined to snap in half won’t make the cut for our standards and they shouldn’t for yours as well. Investing in good quality will always pay dividends in the long run.
Should You Buy Wired Or Wireless Headphones?
While we generally skew towards wireless technology on all things, we are more on the fence about this one. When it comes to headphones, there are pros and cons to each side.
Wireless Headphones
Pros:
- Cut the cord, duh!
- Portability: not having a coord is one less thing to pack.
- Distance from device: wireless headphones have roughly a 30 foot range from your connected device.
- Compatible with iPhone and all other devices
Cons:
- More expensive.
- Re-connecting between devices can sometimes be annoying and cause connectivity issues.
Wired Headphones
Pros:
- Generally less expensive than wireless.
- Easy to connect/disconnect between devices without any connectivity issues.
Cons:
- Need an adapter to be compatible with iPhones.
- Must keep headphones connected to the device; limited range of a few feet.
Value
Lastly, we care about headphones that provide overall good value for your money. Since they can run upwards of $1,000, we want to look at only the ones that give you the best value. While very expensive ones are largely better than cheaper ones, we would need to see a very strong feature set to justify such a high price.
Hi, I'm Pam! A corporate girl turned entrepreneur who has been working from home for over 20 years and loving it. From a corporate IT Director to an online business owner, I found success while working remotely (sometimes in my PJs). I've been able to find balance in life and career and love to share what I've learned with others. With my master's degree in software engineering and a career in technology, my drive is to help others learn how to bypass the hurdles and technology challenges to gain the confidence to build the dream business they've always wanted to reach financial freedom. My work has been quoted on Forbes, Bloomberg, European Business Review, Hive, and Business Partner Magazine to name a few. Click my little head above to read all of my posts!
