Shokz Openfit Air earbuds review – All your audio, while still hearing your environment

REVIEW – I exercise a lot outdoors, alone.  That gives me an opportunity to listen to music, podcasts, and audio books, which I absolutely love.  But running and riding bikes on streets with cars can be a bit dangerous, even more so when you can’t hear those cars coming. My “go-to” ear buds for my outdoor activities had been ones what fit inside the ear with silicone tips, and are designed to block out environmental noise.  They work great, but you really can’t hear cars coming.  That’s where open design comes in.  Instead of having a speaker inside your ear canal, this one rests outside of your ear, allowing environmental sounds to come in as well as your audio.  How does it work?  Surprisingly well, but there are limits.

What is it?

The Shokz OpenFit Air earbuds are an open design earbuds that rest on the outside of your ear, and hook over your ear for stability. 

What’s included?

• Earbuds in their charging case
• USB-C to USB-A charging plug
• Quick-start manual

Tech specs

Design and features

The Shokz OpenFit Air work differently than most traditional earbuds, which fit inside of your ear. These rest on the outside of your ear, allowing for ambient sound to also be heard. They are held in place by a hook which goes over the top of your ear.  The OpenFit Air features touch controls which can be customized using the app, but can allow you to control volume, pause and play your content, skip forward or back, or activate a voice assistant (siri, google assistant). The buds feature a choice of four equalizer modes (standard, vocal, bass boost, treble boost), but does not allow for custom EQ settings. 

Multipoint pairing allows the buds to be paired to two devices at once, and switching between the devices is easy. The buds are charged inside of their compact case, which is charged via a USB-C port, but there is no wireless charging. A free app (Android and Apple) which allows you to customize the controls, enable multipoint pairing, and change the EQ settings. 

Performance

I have been very impressed with the Shokz OpenFit Air earbuds, especially for running.  First off, the pairing process to my Pixel 7 phone went smoothly, and I was able to use the multipoint pairing feature to also pair to my laptop. They are remarkably comfortable!  I think a bit part of that comes from the fact that the buds are very light and don’t fit inside of your ears, but rest on top of them.  I had no problem wearing them for a full day of working, and using them for meetings and listening to music and podcasts.  The microphones on the Shokz OpenFit Air buds are surprisingly good, and are generally better than any earbud microphones I’ve tested so far. 

Now on to their intended use – exercise.  For running, they are fantastic. The sound quality is great, you can hear ambient noise like approaching cars, and you don’t have the unpleasant sound of your breathing, feet pounding, or your heart beating that occurs with the ear buds that seal inside of your ear canal. They stay in place during rugged trail runs, and I honestly just forget that I’m wearing them.  My only complaint about running with them is that the touch controls are very sensitive to sweat.  While running with them on a warm day, the volume all the sudden started going up, al the way to the maximum, without any input from me.  Turns out a drop of sweat had landed on the touch pad, and the buds interpreted that as my finger, turning the volume up.  So touch sensitivity to sweat is an area for improvement. 

On to riding bikes – what makes them great for running proves a challenge for riding bikes.  The open design allows for ambient sound to enter, but on a bike, a lot of that ambient sound is wind noise. They unfortunately can’t overcome the wind noise.  If they were a bit louder, that might help, but then that starts to negate the open features.  If you ride slowly (less than 10 mph or so, on relatively calm days) they might be fine. But for me, I found myself getting frustrated trying to listen to books or podcasts because so much of the sound would be lost to the wind. But in general for me, that’s OK – I have other technologies to warn me of vehicles (like the Trek CarBack rear radar, reviewed here). 

Charging is very quick, and the battery life is great.  I only wish the case had wireless charging, which seems to be the norm now.  Most of my mobile devices now feature wireless charging, so to break out a charging brick for these buds seemed a step back. 

What I like about Shokz OpenAir Fit

• Comfortable
• Surprisingly good sound quality
• Long battery life
• Very good microphone quality

What needs to be improved?

• Sweat resistance to touch controls
• Add wireless charging

Final thoughts

If your outdoor adventures put you around cars, or you just want to be able to hear your surroundings, the Shokz OpenFit Air would be a great choice. The combination of great sound, a comfortable design, and the ability to hear the world around you make them a winner. But maybe not for cycling. 

Price: $119.95
Where to buy: Shokz or Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Shokz.  Shocks did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.