Both AirPods 5 models now include active noise cancellation

Apple announced AirPods 5 on September 9 with a major change to the entry-level lineup.

There is no ANC-free AirPods 5 variant.

The standard version costs €149 in France, while AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case costs €169.

Both begin shipping on September 18.

Open-ear ANC remains the difficult engineering problem

AirPods 5 still use an open-ear design without silicone tips sealing the ear canal.

That makes active noise cancellation inherently more difficult because outside sound can enter without first passing through a physical seal.

Apple nevertheless claims up to 50% more noise reduction than AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation.

On its French product pages, the same improvement is described as up to 1.5x stronger ANC than the previous generation.

Those are Apple test results and will need independent verification across real traffic, voices and low-frequency noise.

A new multiport acoustic design compensates for varying ear shapes

Apple has redesigned the internal acoustic system.

The new multiport architecture manages airflow and sound through several acoustic paths.

Next-generation Adaptive EQ then adjusts the output based on how each AirPod sits in the listener's ear.

That matters particularly with open earbuds because small differences in fit can dramatically alter bass response.

Apple says the new system performs consistently across a wider range of ear geometries.

Adaptive Audio and Transparency move down to the cheapest model

AirPods 5 also include an improved Transparency mode intended to reproduce nearby voices more naturally.

Adaptive Audio blends Transparency and ANC dynamically according to environmental conditions.

Conversation Awareness lowers media volume automatically when the wearer starts talking.

Those features are now present even on the €149 version.

The €169 model mainly buys one more hour of ANC battery

The standard AirPods 5 provide up to four hours of listening with ANC enabled.

The Wireless Charging Case version increases that figure to five hours per charge.

Apple attributes the improvement to a redesigned battery.

With the case included, the more expensive model reaches up to 22 hours of total ANC listening.

Paying more therefore does not provide a stronger ANC system.

It primarily improves endurance and charging convenience.

Stem volume control is also paywalled behind the higher model

Apple is adding volume swiping to an open-ear AirPod for the first time.

Users can slide a finger up or down the stem to change volume directly.

That capability is exclusive to the €169 Wireless Charging Case model.

The base version still has a force sensor for playback and call controls but no volume swipe.

The separation is slightly artificial because the case itself obviously has nothing to do with the sensor built into each earbud.

Wireless charging adds Apple Watch and Qi support

Both cases support USB-C charging.

The higher-end case can additionally charge from Qi pads and Apple Watch chargers.

It also includes a speaker so Find My can make the case emit a sound when it is lost nearby.

Those conveniences now define the upgrade more clearly than ANC itself.

IP57 is a meaningful durability upgrade

Both AirPods 5 models carry an IP57 dust, sweat and water-resistance rating.

That offers stronger protection for workouts, rain and ordinary daily exposure than many previous open AirPods designs.

The rating does not make them swimming earbuds.

It does make accidental water exposure less concerning.

AirPods are becoming a hands-free Siri AI interface

When paired with a compatible Apple Intelligence iPhone, AirPods 5 provide hands-free access to the new Siri AI experience.

Siri can use authorized personal context from sources such as messages, emails and photos and perform certain app actions.

The earbuds themselves are not running a frontier model locally.

They function as the microphone and interaction layer while the iPhone and Apple's software stack provide the intelligence.

Head gestures can still be used to respond yes or no to certain Siri prompts.

Live Translation is included on both versions

Live Translation can feed translated speech directly into AirPods during a conversation.

It requires a compatible Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone and supported software.

French is among the supported languages.

Availability still varies by language and region, and some Siri AI functions have separate rollout schedules.

The €149 version now looks unusually complete

Previous AirPods generations created a clearer choice between a low price and ANC.

AirPods 5 remove that tradeoff.

The base model already has the same headline noise cancellation, Adaptive Audio, Transparency and acoustic architecture.

The €169 version is objectively more convenient, but most of what it adds is quality-of-life functionality.

Apple has improved the lineup while simultaneously making the upsell less obvious.

AirPods Pro still have one physical advantage that software cannot erase

Open earbuds can be more comfortable for people who dislike silicone tips.

They also lack passive isolation.

AirPods Pro can block part of the incoming sound mechanically before active cancellation begins working.

Apple still rates AirPods Pro 3 for considerably stronger ANC than AirPods 5.

The new open model therefore does not automatically replace Pro earbuds for aircraft cabins or very loud environments.

What it does is narrow the gap.

The bigger change is that ANC is no longer an option

After years of treating noise cancellation as an upgrade, Apple has now made it the default on its mainstream open-ear AirPods.

That shift matters more than the headline percentage improvement.

A €149 buyer no longer decides whether ANC is worth paying for.

The decision is now how much battery life and convenience they want around it.

For Apple, that is a new pricing structure. For the rest of the open-ear market, it is a new baseline.