Headquartered in Nashville (Tennessee, USA), Grizzly Ears is a company engaged in the engineering and manufacturing of advanced hearing protection gear for hunting, sport shooting, tactical training and professional purposes, particularly suited for outdoor use. The Grizzly Ears brand is chiefly known for its brand of electronic earplugs, with the Predator Pro+ standing out as their flagship model.

First introduced in the US back in 2023, to this day the Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ represent the state of the art in terms of technology and performance when it comes to electronic earplugs with active hearing protection.

At a first glance, the Predator Pro+ earplugs stand out for their diminutive size: these bean-shaped devices are very small, easily adapt to any ear size, and come issued from factory with four sets of Memory Foam buds in different sizes (XS, S, M and L) to further improve adaptability and provide maximum comfort and a perfect fit to any ear canal.

To save users from the hassle of having to deal with extremely small, easily lost batteries – like those used by hearing aids and other types of noise-cancelling earplugs – the Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ come with embedded rechargeable batteries and are issued with a rigid case for storage when not in use, which dubs as a charging station.

The charging station itself has a built-in 5V, 460mAh Li-Ion battery, recharged via a USB cable issued from factory, and automatically charges the earplugs when they're in storage. The embedded charging station battery fully charges in two hours, and will offer two or three full recharging cycles for the earplugs; it takes approximately 90 minutes to fully recharge a pair of Predator Pro+ earplugs. The Predator Pro+ can be recharged everywhere and offer up to seven hours of continuous runtime and up to 100 hours in standby mode.

The Predator Pro+ earplugs activate automatically when removed from their charging station; the multi-purpose button located on a side of each earplug is used solely to navigate the Bluetooth-related functions (which we'll take a look at in a minute). Even more important, their active noise cancellation system boasts a 26dB noise reduction rating (NRR), with the highest on the market being 30dB.

This means that the Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ earplugs are not just perfect for outdoor sport shooting, training, and hunting, but also for professional and utility hearing protection in most work environments, even the loudest ones, exception made maybe for the most extreme like airports or indoor factories with extremely noisy machineries in operation. Having tested the Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ earplugs in rapid fire shooting with a plethora of handguns and long guns of many calibers, we can safely say they're certainly more comfortable than any standard shooting- or industrial-grade earmuffs we've seen so far.

Unlike many electronic earmuffs, the Predator Pro+ earplugs lack a manual volume adjustment dial: that's not a defect, more like a redundant feature shaved off for the sake of simplicity. A 26dB NRR rating means that any noise over 85dB will be automatically reduced to safety levels, while more faint noises will be amplified up to six times.

In professional, hunting, sport shooting and training environments, this means users will be able to entertain normal conversations without having to raise their voices; to maintain a higher level of situational awareness, ready to heed to any warning, sign of danger, or noise of game moving around. And without the passive protection factor that's typical of classic earmuffs, even electronic ones, the level of situational awareness is further improved.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ earplugs feature directional microphones and offer Bluetooth V5.0 connectivity, compatible with other Bluetooth profiles (HSP, HFP, A2DP, AVRCP, SBC) and easily connected to any handheld device following the instructions found on the user manual.

This allows users to receive and make phone calls, listen to music and watch videos with BOSE-level audio quality, and all of that mostly hand-free thanks to the multifunctional buttons. The Bluetooth connection of the Predator Pro+ earplugs boasts a 10-meter range (almost 33 ft).

In basically all environments, the ability to make or receive a phone call – including emergency calls – while keeping your hands free to do something else, such as administering self-care or using a tourniquet, can be a true life-saver. And not many active hearing protection earplugs offer that feature with such a long connection range.

The always-evolving, vanguard Grizzly Ears Predator Pro+ electronic earplugs are completely water resistant and also come equipped with a removable lanyard, a zippered black synthetic transport box and a carabiner. For all information concerning local availability and pricing and to purchase your pair, consult the official Grizzly Ears website for the United States or the international Grizzly Ears website.