The Best Travel Gear for Babies and Kids
Best children’s headphones
The volume limits and noise cancellation features of these headphones protect kids’ hearing.
We’ve bought our children an assortment of cheap headphones over the years and noticed one consistent result—in environments with lots of ambient noise, kids cranked up the volume to alarming levels in order to hear their programming over the background din. We worried about the ear-pummeling effects, and Puro Sound Labs confirmed our suspicions. The company’s founder developed volume-limiting headphones after his daughter was diagnosed with noise-induced hearing loss.
The PuroQuiet On-Ear Headphones max out at 85 decibels, which the World Health Organization and other experts consider to be the upper limit for ear safety. Additionally, noise-canceling technology blocks out background intrusions, making those 85 decibels more than sufficient. Only the loudest restaurants made our testers want maximum volume.
Because it’s wireless, the PuroQuiet is especially tidy to pack. Swiveling earpieces allow the headphones to fold flat for storage—a feature that entry-level headphones typically lack. The PuroQuiet’s butter-soft leather also makes this model leagues more comfortable than drugstore options. Provided that we also packed a portable charger (such as the virtually indestructibleLifeProof Lifeactiv Power Pack 10, $80), our youngest travel companions were able to use the PuroQuiet for days on end.