Kids’ headphones are an essential bit of tech kit. They’re designed for little ears – both in the shape, weight and size of them, and with the volume controls. Exposure to loud sounds can do irreparable damage to children’s hearing, resulting in permanent hearing loss.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 85db is the maximum safe volume level for up to eight hours. Some devices have a maximum output as high as 136db. To protect delicate ears, thankfully most kids’ headphones cannot be turned up higher than this. We’ve noted the maximum volume level on all our reviews below.
You want to pick headphones that are comfortable for your child – cups that are well padded, and headbands that fit snuggly. Most are adjustable in size, so they can grow with your child. And many fold, and have carry cases or bags, so they’re easy to take with you on the go.
Many headphones are wireless – this is great as you don’t have to mess around with different devices having different ports, and the kids don’t have to be in contact with the device to be able to listen to the content. But it does mean they need charging regularly, and functions like noise cancellation will drain the battery life.
How we tested
We spent two months testing out kids’ headphones, using them in a variety of settings from cars to trains to busy households. We wanted to find ones that were comfortable to wear, protected our children’s hearing and delivered good sound quality. And of course, ones our kids actively wanted to wear. Here are our picks of the headphones that will take kids’ listening to the next level.
Pogs the gecko wireless kids’ headphones
We really liked these headphones for our younger tester, but they’re a great shout for older kids too. They’re lightweight, so perfect for on the go and they don’t weigh too heavy on kids’ heads. The Bluetooth wireless pairing was easy, and our five-year-old tester never complained the audio was too quiet, despite the noise limit of 85db. Also smart are the anti-tangle cables and the quick safe cables, which detach quickly to reduce damage to the headphones and make it safer for the user too. These headphones feel durable and robustly kid-proof while still looking stylish – not an easy feat. They’re also made with non-toxic materials and the cups are hypoallergenic.
Jlab JBuddies studio wireless over ear folding kids headphones
Perfect for bickering kids on the backseat of the car, these headphones have a “shareport”. This allows you to daisychain two sets together (the cable to do this is included, and the other pair can be any make of headphones) so they can watch movies together while you relax in silence. The wireless function is great – it means no tangling if your children are fidgeters (show us one that isn’t). You control the volume and power using tactile buttons on the cup – a younger child might need help getting the hang of this – while there’s also a built in mic if they’re Zooming or gaming with friends.
The grey and blue design appealed to our boy testers, and doesn’t seem at all “babyish”. The cups have padding that’s about 1cm wide – which is enough for little ears – and the headband is padded too for extra comfort. As you’d hope, these come with a volume limit of 85db to protect young sensitive ears.
Yoto headphones
We really liked these headphones for their simplicity. Although they’ve been designed to work with Yoto players, you can use them with any other device you want. They have a volume limit of 85db, so no ear-splitting volumes are allowed. The bright orange colour makes them easy to locate in a hurry, and our younger tester was definitely drawn to them. They are adjustable in size, and have comfy soft-to-touch cups – the padding is wide and extra thick, and the headband is padded too. These are wired headphones, so great if you’re not keen on faffing with recharging (we know we always forget). They also come with a cloth travel bag, which means they won’t get all scuzzy in the school bag. The cups fold down too, to make them more compact. If you want, you can link two sets together so kids can listen together.
Pogs the elephant on-ear headphones
The folks at eco-friendly Pogs are specialists in kids’ headphones, and it seems from this set they know their onions. They come in a range of kid-friendly yet not-too-garish colours – we went for pink – and we thought these headphones looked a lot more stylish than others we tried. They have an 85db noise limit on them, and in the box are two cables – one to connect to your chosen device, and another to link to other Pogs headphones. The cable that links to your device has a remote on it, which enables you to take calls via the integrated mic. This is great for tweens and teens who need to be in constant contact with their mates. The cups are generously padded, as is the top of the headband, making for a comfortable wear – our testers had no complaints, which is a virtual first.
Happy Plugs play headphones
These kids’ headphones were the envy of the adults in the house. The stylish, minimal design appeals to teens, while the noise limit appeals to adults in charge. The wireless headphones come with an integrated mic for online classes or gaming, but you can also use them tethered. Plus there’s an extra cable to link them to another set. They are also optimised for use with Siri and Google Assistant and Siri, so your kids can get help with homework (does that count as cheating, we wonder?) without having to lift a finger. Well almost, you do have to click a button on the cup to activate.
The headphones are plush – both the cups and headband are padded and covered in vegan “leather”. Indeed, the fabric is antimicrobial to reduce the build up of germs from extended use. These headphones will run and run, with a battery life of up to 25 hours (after that you can always plug them in to your device to carry on using them) and have noise cancellation to help your child focus on what they’re doing. Lastly, they come in a padded case – great for kids who are less than careful with their tech. We were seriously impressed by this pair.
Puro Sound Labs puroquiet wireless headphones for kids
Packing some serious functionality into these kids’ headphones, these have all the features you’d want from an adult pair in a mini package. We found this made our tester feel really grown up. They’re wireless, but include a wire to connect them to a device if the battery is running low. But with 22 hours of battery life, your screenager will be fine for pretty much any journey they’re making. The wireless range is decent on these, meaning teens can dance around freely to practice TikTok videos without you having to listen to the same track over and over and over again.
They also have active noise cancellation (ANC) – turn this on and the surrounding world is blotted out for your child. Surely this is a teenager’s dream?! But actually it was handy for doing homework, and when our tester just wanted to have some calm in our busy house. The ANC also means they’re not tempted to turn the volume up too loud, although there is a noise limit of 85db. You can flick the ANC on and off on the cups, which is handy as this function does drain the battery more. The adjustable headband is padded, as are the cups. These are on the expensive side, so we appreciated the hard-shell case they came with, with space to tuck in all the extra wires you might need.
BuddyPhones play+ wireless headphones
These headphones have clearly been designed with kids in mind. Our mini tester loved the bright colours the headphones came in, and the fact they could customise the cups with stickers that are included. There are also two blank stickers so they could design their own, while the cups are nicely padded, and the wires are also in the matching colour. We went for yellow, which made them easy to find in the melee of wires in our house. There’s even a matching carry bag – not the sturdiest bag compared to ones other sets come with, but it does offer some protection. And the earphones fold, so they’re easy to chuck in a bag and go.
The play+ also has three main listening modes: travel, kid and toddler. The travel mode lets kids listen to audio up to 94db – this is louder than any others we tried. This is to combat ambient sounds of cars, aeroplanes and whatever else while travelling. We weren’t sure this was the best for our kids’ ears though. However, we did like the additional focus mode that isolates voices to produce sharper sound – great for using to do home working. The headphones come with a buddy link wire, to link headphones together, and a wire so you can connect to your device if the 20-hour battery life isn’t quite enough for your child.
Puro Sound Labs BT2200 kids’ Bluetooth headphones
These headphones have been designed to deliver clear, crisp audio while limiting volume levels to 85db. This means kids can enjoy the full range of their music, games and whatever else. They also block out background noise, meaning our testers were less prone to whack up the volume. We’ve found during testing that a number of headphones don’t really emphasise the need for decent sound quality for kids, so it’s nice that these do. Indeed, the founder of Puro Sound Labs’s daughter was diagnosed with noise-induced hearing loss, and it feels like the brand’s headphones have been really sensitively designed.
The BT220 are Bluetooth enabled and offer 18 hours of playback – that was plenty enough for our tester, so long as we remembered to charge them (the battery does continue to run down when on standby mode). There’s also a built-in mic and a daisy-chain sharing cable. We liked the slight nod to retro headphones in the design (this will go over kids’ heads, but nevermind!) with the circular cups. The cups are nicely padded, as is the simple headband. And they come with a hard-shell carry case so we had peace of mind that the headphones would survive being chucked in bags and tossed about.
