I still miss my iPhone headphone jack. In recent years there have been rumblings of a return to physical media, along similar lines getting physical with the 3.5mm jack (or more realistically an adaptor) is also coming back. Whether its fashion, reaction or fidelity, wired headphones are having a moment. Via BBC:
Grusin isn’t alone. After five straight years of declining sales, wired headphone purchases exploded in the second half of 2025, according to the analytics firm Circana, and revenue from wired headphones was up 20% in the first six weeks of 2026.
Wired headphones have become so ubiquitous among the rich and famous that some see these tangles of plastic and wire as a cultural symbol. One social media user posted a viral tweet with photos of actors Robert Pattinson and Lily-Rose Depp sporting wired earbuds. “It’s becoming a class thing,” they said. “Wearing wireless 24/7 tells me you don’t own any land.”
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!