Editor’s note, Dec. 2: Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed, but the holiday buying season is far from over, so you should still have plenty of opportunities to save on headsets and headphones for working from home, as many top headset and headphone brands, including Apple, Sony, Jabra and Bose, continue to discount certain models to their lowest prices of the year — or close to their lowest prices. Plus, check out our curated gift guides for a variety of tech products.
HEADPHONE DEALS OF THE WEEK
Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.
The best headsets and headphones for your home office or hybrid setup have a few key traits: good ergonomics, excellent voice-calling performance and the ability to connect simultaneously to your phone and PC (multipoint Bluetooth pairing). I’ve tested numerous headphones and headsets with boom microphones, evaluating noise reduction, comfort, call quality and even music quality. I’ve included a few Unified Communications — aka UC — headphones on this list, which come with a small USB-A or USB-C dongle for easy wireless connectivity with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls. However, several of our top picks are mainstream consumer headphones with good microphone performance and ambient noise-reduction that also work well for everyday use. I should also note that gaming headphones with integrated boom microphones make for good work-from-home headsets, too, but we can’t include everything on this list.
What is the best headset or headphone for working from home?
Sony recently released new flagship noise-canceling headphones, the WH-1000XM6. They’re comfortable to wear, and have great noise canceling and sound quality. They also have excellent voice-calling performance. While expensive, they’re arguably the best consumer headphones for working from home right now. However, if you want a headset with a boom microphone that offers greater compatibility with PCs (and Windows PCs in particular), Shokz OpenMeet UC and OpenComm 2 UC are good choices, while the Logitech Zone Vibe 100 is a top value option. We’re waiting to review Logitech’s new Zone Wireless 2 ES ($160) and Zone Wired 2 ($130) headsets, both of which have noise canceling and are due to ship in the coming weeks.
Read more: Best Earbuds for Phone Calls for 2025
What we updated: November 2025
We added the Shokz OpenFit 2, which feature an open design with ear hooks and are comfortable to wear for long periods and have good microphone performance. They also work well has everyday earbuds and are on best workout earbuds and headphones and best running headphones and earbuds lists.
Best headsets and headphones for working from home of 2025
Pros
- Upgraded design with more comfortable fit
- Improved noise canceling and sound quality
- New QN3 chip is seven times as powerful as QN1 chip in XM5
- Excellent voice-calling performance with more mics
- Improved transparency mode
- Spatial audio with head tracking
Cons
- $50 more than previous model
- No USB-C audio
- It’s not so clear how you access spatial audio
Over the last several years, Sony has made some of the best noise-canceling headphones on the market, so it’s a big deal when the company comes out with a new flagship model, like the WH-1000XM6, which arrives three years after the release of the WH-1000XM5. Though the XM5 was — and still is — one of the top over-ear Bluetooth headphones, there’s always room for improvement. With the XM6, Sony has fixed the small design flaws of its predecessor while bumping up the overall performance, including voice-calling performance. The result is a headphone that’s arguably edged just ahead of the competition and is now at the top of its class. Read our Sony WH-1000XM6 review.
Pros
- Very good voice-calling performance
- Retractable boom microphone
- Includes USB dongle for wireless PC connection
- IP55 splash-proof
- Zoom certification
Cons
- Proprietary magnetic charging (no USB-C)
- Not great for music listening with poor bass performance
A few years ago Shokz turned its OpenRun (formerly Aeropex) bone-conduction headphones into a more communications-friendly headset with an integrated boom microphone called the OpenComm ($160), which remains available. The second-generation OpenComm 2 UC costs more than the original, but features an upgraded Bluetooth 5.1 chipset that improves performance a bit and now allows for the firmware upgrades that are required for Zoom certification. Additionally, the microphone has moved from the left ear to the right and a convenient mute button has been added to the boom microphone — an important addition.
Since these leave your ears open — the sound is conducted through your cheekbone — they aren’t for people who want to seal their ears out from outside noise. Rather, the idea is that you can hear everything around you without having anything covering your ears or jammed inside them. The headset is quite comfortable to wear. Some folks find that liberating and these do feature excellent noise reduction for calls, as callers told me they heard very little background noise even when I was out on the noisy streets of New York.
While the Shokz are arguably the best-sounding bone-conduction headphones, they aren’t great-sounding for music because they’re lacking in the bass department. However, they’re great for speech, so they work very well as a headset for making calls and listening to podcasts or audiobooks. These also have multipoint-Bluetooth pairing, so you can pair them with your phone and PC and easily switch to your phone if a call comes in while you’re on your computer. And they come with either a USB-A or USB-C wireless dongle (you choose) that you plug into your computer for quick and reliable wireless connectivity.
As long as you don’t mind the boom microphone, you can use the OpenComm 2 for sporting activities as well and are favorites for runners who want to keep their ears open to hear the outside world for safety reasons. They’re also water-resistant. The only downside is they require a proprietary charging cable instead of USB-C. Battery life is rated at 16 hours of talk time and eight hours of listening.
Pros
- Lightweight and comfortable wear
- Auto-mute function with retractable boom microphone
- Companion app allows for sound profile tweaking
Cons
- No active noise canceling
- Music listening is only OK on PC
There’s a lot to like about Logitech’s Zone Vibe 100 wireless over-ear headset, which comes in off-white, carbon and rose color options. For starters, it’s lightweight and comfortable to wear, with a retractable boom microphone that you can flip up to mute, plus it has a mute button on it. Additionally, it features multipoint Bluetooth pairing, so you can pair it simultaneously with your Mac or Windows PC and your smartphone and easily switch audio back and forth between the two devices. These aren’t active noise canceling headphones but they offer a decent amount of passive noise isolation. Battery life is rated at up 20 hours of listening time.
People said I sounded clear on calls and there’s some sidetone, so you can hear your voice in the headphones as you talk (that way you don’t end up raising your voice two much). I…