Review: Shokz OpenFit

Shokz is one of the most reliably interesting companies I cover, which is saying a lot. In its first iteration, it made bone conduction headphones, which conducted soundwaves through your skull, that were so profoundly uncomfortable, we said we’d rather not wear headphones at all. Then 2022’s OpenRun Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) somehow became one of my favorite pairs of workout headphones. They were light, secure, and surprisingly great-sounding, and allowed me to keep an ear out for traffic or children while still listening to podcasts while biking or working in the garden.

So I was immensely curious about the company’s latest product. In a briefing, Shokz spokespeople noted that customers wanted comfortable, all-day headphones that didn’t circle your neck and didn’t have to be securely wedged, fit, or heat-molded into your ear canal. Hence, the OpenFit are open-ear headphones that rely on “air conduction” technology. They are tiny speakers that deliver sound from directly above your ear canal.

Do the earbuds work perfectly? No. But are these some of the more interesting headphones I’ve ever tried? Yes, and in a crowded market, that’s a lot.

Photograph: Shokz

The OpenFit buds come in a compact, palm-size case with a power indicator light and a USB-C charging port. Each bud is covered with a soft silicone and has a slim ear hook, with a tiny weight at the bottom to hold it in place. Each bud weighs 8.3 grams, or about 3 grams more than my Beats Fit Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends). I didn’t notice the weight difference that much.

The headphones came with instructions on how to slide the buds into place, but I still had to confirm with Shokz directly. It just doesn’t seem like this should work. You slide the headphone back and tuck the body of the unit behind the tragus of your ear. (That’s the little nubbin that sticks out and shields your ear canal, and, yes, I had to look up what it’s called.)

It works, but it just doesn’t feel that secure, especially if you’re not sitting quietly at your desk. It wasn’t until I tried the OpenFit that I realized that my ears really are the coat hooks of my head. I tuck my long hair behind them; I put on sunglasses every time I go outside and push them up on top of my head. With almost every movement, I dislodged the OpenFits and had to find them in my hair or on the floor.

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.

I tried wearing them in one of my favorite ways to use the OpenRun Pro, to listen to music while biking to pick my kids up from school. But the combination of hair, sunglasses, and bike helmet was too much for the OpenFits. I spent the whole ride paralyzed in fear that I would accidentally tap the testers out and crush them under my bike wheels, so when I got to my kids’ school I put them back into my pocket for the ride home.

Photograph: Shokz

I admire the hubris of a company that claims to have invented air conduction technology. Most sound waves are conducted through air—air is the medium that’s in between you and your speakers, after all—but making a speaker this tiny, that sounds this good, designed to be used this close to your ear, is actually quite a feat.

The OpenFit has a customized driver that, at 18 x 11 mm, is somewhat bigger than the average earbud driver and smaller than a headphone driver. They’re made from carbon fiber for lighter weight and increased fidelity. When compared to both the OpenRun Pro and the Beats Fit Pro, the higher ranges do sound a little fuzzy. The pure, piercing clarity of Freddie Mercury’s falsetto is a little muddled. However, it’s mostly unnoticeable with my standard mix of rock-pop-country; the Turnpike Troubadours sound just fine.

The Shokz proprietary OpenBass algorithm, however, is astounding. It’s a full-bodied bass experience that feels like the music has suddenly acquired a whole other dimension. This will not be noteworthy if you don’t normally listen to music with a lot of bass, which I don’t. But turning Bass Boost on did prompt me to start bugging my coworkers for psychedelic trip-hop recommendations, which in turn prompted them to ask if I had started vaping. You can tinker with these settings in the Shokz app, which is currently only available on iOS but will be available for Android soon.

They have an IP54 rating, which is a little lower than most workout headphones but will protect against dust and water splashing to some extent. I was pretty interested to see how the headphones’ AI noise cancellation would work, since, well, they are open-ear headphones. It worked pretty well on calls—a friend noted that it sounded like I was in a small room—but understandably, I could still hear everything going on around me.

Battery life is the one arena in which the OpenFit trounces the OpenRun Pro. The OpenRun Pro have a decent 10-hour battery life for everyday use, but I still have to charge them every three or four days, which is a little annoying if you’re used to workout buds with a charging case. The OpenFit have seven hours alone and 28 hours when used with the charging case, which is excellent, even if the case can’t be charged wirelessly.

The OpenFits don’t sound bad. They’re not uncomfortable or too expensive. They just haven’t found the right niche. They don’t fit securely enough for me to be comfortable wearing them all day while doing chores around the house; noise-canceling works well for the person on the other end of the call, but obviously not that great for me. If I want to be active, I am way more likely to reach for the OpenRun Pro, which can sit securely around the nape of my neck as I hike and bike. But as I’ve seen in the past, the Shokz is capable of turning an interesting experiment into a future favorite product, and I’m already wondering what the next iteration will look like.