The ergonomic dolphin arc ear hook ensures that the headphones rest securely around your ears, allowing for natural airflow and minimizing discomfort during prolonged wear. The buds also have an IP54 water resistance rating. This is better than many of the best true wireless earbuds although isn’t quite as impressive as the IP55 rating from the Shokz Open Run Pro. It does mean they’ll be fine throughout even the sweatiest of workouts – just not a dip in the pool. I put the Shokz OpenFits over my ears and let the music rip. Already connected to my phone, the earbuds fired up immediately without me having to push play. That can be a little alarming the first time, but not a big deal. Pairing was super easy, and there’s no buttons to press to activate the headphones, you just open the case, put them on, and hit the play button. Battery life appears to be good – I ran for 3 hours at the weekend with no issues, the case re-charges them between use.

While they're not likely to win any awards for audio quality, for open-ear headphones the sound is great. Aside from the aforementioned limitations, the quality remained consistent, loud and smooth during our tests thanks to the brand’s ‘Direct Pitch’ technology, which is said to help deliver ‘bold highs, clear mids, and surging bass’. Whether it was during runs, cycles, or workouts, the audio for both music and podcasts was of great quality throughout. Overall I am enjoying the Openfits so far and it is a good step into a different market for you. I was impressed from the second I opened the box and set them up. That being said, the charging case offers a combined battery life of approximately 28 hours, and the OpenFit’s fast-charging capabilities mean that just 5 minutes of charging will give you one extra hour of listening time. This is quite good and on par with most of the competition. Controls Unfortunately, this also means that sound leakage can be an issue. However, OpenFit utilizes Shokz’s patented DirectPitch, a directional sound field technology that considerably limits sound leakage. Even at 50% volume, I found that people close to me could barely hear any sound coming from my earphones. JBL took a different approach with the aforementioned Soundgear Sense open-ears. Their open-ears are significantly larger, also cover the ear more and you can’t forget them quite as easily when wearing them. Thus, the Americans sacrifice both the striking airiness in sound and feel, but voices and especially basses sound fuller and remain clean even at higher listening levels. Conclusion and alternatives to the Shokz OpenFitThe extra situational awareness means that if you’re cycling to work, you can listen to music while still being able to hear the sound of cars, pedestrians, sirens and other cyclists around you. For runners, the benefits are much the same. They’re also handy in the office, where you may want to listen to music while still being able to hear your colleagues. I also accidentally pushed the buttons a lot. The buttons themselves are unreliable; sometimes they’re sensitive enough that readjusting my hair can stop a song. Other times I can determinedly tap “skip” several times at a stoplight without any result whatsoever. To try and give the Shokz a home run to wrap up my listening/writing session, I fed them one of my go-to focus songs: Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” The former can be counteracted within certain limits with the equalizer in the Shokz app for iOS and Android, the latter rather not. So you should already have music playing when putting on the OpenFit to help it fit perfectly according to acoustic criteria. Simply boosting the bass via the equalizer is not such a good idea. Despite its 18 x 11 cm diaphragm, the oval driver occasionally reached its limits in the listening test. More about this below in the detailed listening test.

There’s also room for dual noise cancelling microphones to handle calls which use AI noise cancellation technology that, according to Shokz, deliver clear call quality. Utilizing bone conduction or DirectPitch™ technology, these open-ear earphones transmit sound to your ear canal without obstruction. This means you can enjoy your favorite music while remaining aware of your surroundings. But the OpenFit is not a panacea. Its radical open-ear design, which may also have inspired JBL’s Soundgear Sense, also requires certain compromises. These mainly affect the bass range, but also the midrange and treble reproduction. Although the oval diaphragm provides a surface area that exceeds that of conventional in-ears many times over, the pressure loss cannot be completely compensated for by the open design. After all, the main motivator was obviously to create a pair of sports headphones that were as compact and comfortable to wear as possible, without completely isolating you from your surroundings. The airy sound reproduction seems to be more of a collateral benefit here. The Shokz OpenFit require a little consideration The Shokz OpenFit are engineered to get sound from the buds to your ear canals in the most effective way possible.Prioritize safety with outdoor sports like cycling, jogging, or hiking. The open-ear design allows you to hear crucial environmental cues like approaching vehicles, strangers, or wildlife encounters. You’ll get seven hours of battery life from the buds themselves and 28 hours if you have the case with you to charge on the go. In comparison to rivals, this is a decent amount of time. It’s slightly better than the Beats Fit Pro, which bring you 6 hours of listening time. But it isn't as good as the Beats PowerBeats Pro at 9 hours or the Shokz Open Run Pro with a more impressive 10 hours of battery life. The same can be said for noise leakage. I was surprised at how little people around me could hear considering the open-ear design, but they could still hear noise. For most scenarios, a little bit of leakage won’t matter. If you want these buds to cater for all day wear, you’ll need to consider whether they’re going to suit a super quiet office environment. They never fell off, but the design creates the sense they might. It feels like there’s an issue with the weight and balance of weight between earhook and the main earbud element. I’ve tried other open ear speaker-style headphones before like the Cleer Arc and they felt more secure than the OpenFit.

Trebles can feel a little strangled on the standard sound profile, with the electric guitars in Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” sounding dampened, in favour of more weight in the drums. While the Treble Boost preset did a reasonable job at countering this issue, I found that I had the most success when I opened a custom EQ and bumped the higher frequencies up a couple of notches. Those changes and promised audio improvements make the OpenFit the priciest pair of headphones in the Shokz collection. So do they justify the bigger spend and do deliver that solid Shokz performance? Here’s my take. Availability These earphones are quite a significant change in direction for Shokz. It doesn’t mean the company will stop manufacturing bone conduction headphones; that is still its primary focus. But the OpenFit differs from other air conduction earphones, as I’ve found after spending some time with it. Let’s look at it more closely. What Makes OpenFit Different? There’s clearly a market for headphones that leave your ear canals free – the success of Shokz’ bone-conduction range is testament to that. The OpenFit serve that market effectively, offering environmental awareness and impressive sound quality (as long as your surroundings aren’t too noisy). They’re also supremely comfortable and sport a design with greater mainstream appeal than their headband-style bone-conduction stablemates.Shokz is using what it calls DirectPitch technology to do this, which is similar to air conduction. It uses sound waves to optimize the distance and angle between the earbud and your ear. This leads to more sound pressure directed right at your ear and less off into other directions. What those battery numbers don’t illustrate is performance at different volumes or when using more powerful EQ modes. I found an hour at close to maximum volume using the Bass Boost EQ mode saw battery drop by 30-40%. That would equate to significantly less than the claimed 7 hours battery. The over-ear design is comfortable, the rubber is soft even when wearing sunglasses at the same time (which I was initially concerned about).

There are noise-canceling mics on the exterior of the buds, which is to make call quality as clear as possible, and I found this worked well in more environments apart from it being rather windy. In terms of fit, the OpenFit’s flexible hook design means they bend around your ears and adapt to the shape of your head. When we first put them on, they felt fairly loose compared to traditional earbuds and so we were sceptical as to how they would stand up to the motion of running or dynamic exercises in the gym. The hook is made from dual-layered liquid silicone with a flexible memory wire inside, which Shokz says is what makes the earbud pliable, so you can adapt them a little to your ear shape. On their exterior, they have a soft silicone finish, which makes them feel incredibly comfortable and almost velvety to the touch. Stay engaged on calls or video conferences while being aware of your surroundings. You can hear your partner, kids, or pets when they need you, and achieve work-life balance and effective communication from home.The OpenFit allows you to attend calls all day long, enjoy your favorite tunes or podcasts for hours on end, and almost forget you're even wearing earphones. It's like having the best of both worlds.