I have had this one sitting on my bench for a couple of months now awaiting some love from me. The Shokz OpenFit Air are separate line of headset from the classic Shokz bone conduction headband style.
These open ear design do not hook around the back of your neck, or rely on finding the right sized ear tip to jam securely into your ear canal. They come with a slim ear hook to loop around behind the anti-helix, the air conduction speaker tucks in just next to the concha and covering over the tragus.
About the Design
What does that mean? Your ears are a coat hanger, with the ear hook looped over the top of them. The speaker sits over the ear canal opening and air conduction projects the sound into your ear. Like, how conversations are transmitted when you speak to someone else.
Shokz calls this Air-Earhook which features an ultra-fine 0.75mm flexible nitinol – nickel titanium alloy. It isn’t quite as catchy as the “Dolphin Arc” of the OpenFit. The use of nitinol is an interesting and deliberate choice no doubt. This type of alloy is widely used in orthodontic treatments as archwires due to their ability to apply light and continuous force.
In the OpenFit Air I assume Shokz relies on the same principles to ensure the Air-Earhook maintains it’s curvature and shape to keep it secure on your ear.
Shokz also makes a point of discussing the dual-bevel design, including a 25.5° “comfy angle” that shifts the center of gravity closer to the ear for a lighter feel. There is also a 18° stability angle that fits the earbuds deeper into the concha for better results with DirectPitch.
First Impressions
The OpenShokz comes in a palm sized carry case that as one would expect, doubles as a charging device and battery.
Opening the case, they are presented with the ear hooks overlapping.
The buds are bold – both in looks and size. My review unit is a black unit, although they look grey to me. My amazing ability to distinguish colours has been subject to debate and ridicule for decades but I am going to stick to my guns here.
There is a band of reflective “Silverlight” accent around the bud component which catches the eye. Four microphones are paired with Qualcomm cVc 8.0 with a claim to reduce 96.5% of background noise.
The ear hook is not subtle either, at least when you view them in storage. There is a larger part at the bottom of the hook that is designed to move the center of gravity a little lower and provide stability in use.
As an indication of how lightweight the case is, I had the case open on the table and a strong gust of wind nearly took it away from me.
Another feature of the OpenFit is touch control. There are no physical buttons here.
In Use
Being a glasses wearer, I always find it a little fiddly to put on earbuds that involves an ear hook. The OpenFit are no different in this respect, requiring a little dexterity on my part to put them on single handed. However once they are on, they don’t feel like they interfere with anything.
Unlike some competitors (and in some former competitors), there are no additional features to help secure the OpenFit to your noggin. The hooks do, at least in my case, follow the curve where my ear joins to my head.
Each side weighs in at 8.7 grams which are about par for course. You don’t really feel the weight in use. After extended use they still feel ok on my ears, but I do notice the touch on the targus from the earbuds but it has not gotten to an uncomfortable level. It is simply noticable. In one sense it is comforting to know that the earbuds have not been dislodged.
On a generalised scale of sound quality, I would place bone conduction at the bottom of the list. Above that would sit open ear design, then in-ear type buds, with over the ear cans as kings and queens of the hill.
Shokz uses a 18 x 11 mm composite dynamic driver unit with a polymer surround for rich audio. Putting this claim to the test, I fired up Spotify and went with what was last played for my partner which of course is some K-pop.
My taste in music is best described as eclectic at best. Depraved for wanting of a far less flattering term. I can jump genres like a frequency hopping spread spectrum. An idea of what I delved into with this review is below with Spotify links.
- Flowers by Jisoo
- Red bone by Childish Gambino
- In the waiting line by Zero 7
- Lost by Le Youth
- 偷偷摸摸 by 克勤
- 一人有一個夢想 by 黎瑞恩
- 千千闕歌 by 陳慧嫻
- Skyfall by Adele
For a period I lost myself in nostalgia with the Cantopop of my youth, of simpler days and the wide eyed wonders of a future yet to be written. Whilst I generally don’t wax lyrical in a review, one of the songs there I have not listened to in decades and it coming on caught me by surprise. It has particular meaning when the song was released, and it has more meaning to me now. It was not so much the music, but a combination of the sound reproduction that mimicked the quality of that era.
So how was the audio quality?
In short, it’s pretty decent. There were points where I thought some of the sound lacked body, but then as the instruments kicks you can distinctly hear the audio blossom in your ear. Try it out with Skyfall, the opening felt a little thin with the piano solo and the initial stanza with Adele. Then when she kicks it up with “as the sky fall” is a burst of audio pleasure, with the full instruments and the French horn empathetically underlines the score.
The delicate chords of Flowers is carefully plucked out by the OpenFit Air. Even the challenges of Le Youth’s Lost emotional sound and gorgeous vocal performance was not being let down.
Overall for what they are, the OpenFit Air brings the sound quality of open ear buds up into quality territory. The obvious weakness is bass but that is to be expected. It is not terrible, but it also won’t be winning awards there.
There are challenges to maintaining the sound quality, as the open ear design means no noise cancelling passive or active. For the avoidance of doubt, the OpenFit Air are designed to allow external noises to make their way in so you can maintain situation awareness whilst out and about. The Qualcomm cVc is strictly for making calls.
Coming off the back of the OpenRun Pro 2 review, I will reiterate that when outside noise is sufficiently loud, the speakers simply cannot produce enough volume to defeat that.
The DirectPitch technology aims to reduce sound leakage in this format, and does a decent job of it. It is not like in-ear types where you could remove sound leakage, what ends up with the OpenFit Air is some muffled sounds that is difficult to make out without someone coming really close and concentrating to try pick it up. In a Captain Obvious way.
Call Quality
Running a few calls with the OpenFit Air got pretty good results.
The sound profile overall is a little flat due to the background noise suppression algorithm but conversations came through with clarity. The bigger issue is when the background noise is too much and it impedes your ability to hear the conversation, despite the other side being able to hear you. But such is the nature of open ear buds with no passive or active noise cancelling by design.
Battery Life
Shokz claims a total of 28 hours of battery life, split between 6 hours on a single charge and 22 hours with the charging case.
The OpenFit Air can be used in mono, so you could string out that charge a bit longer. A quick 10 minutes charge provides for 2 hours of listening time.
Recharging is via USB-C, there is no wireless charging capability which is a little disappointing but not the end of the world.
At my normal volume levels it seems I will get pretty close to the 6 hours quoted by Shokz. But of course your mileage will vary if you need to boost the volume higher due to external noise, or opt for a boost in bass via the EQ. The performance penalty is not drastic but it does take a little hit.
The case has a single LED to give an indication of the charge remaining.
Shokz App and Controls
The OpenFit Air shares the same Shokz app as the OpenRun Pro 2 that was recently announced and reviewed by me.
It is a fairly basic affair with four preset EQ modes – Standard, Vocal, Bass Boost and Treble Boost. You can only select it via app and there is no means to fine tune it or set a custom EQ profile.
Multipoint pairing is available and requires enabling via the app.
There is also an ability to customise the control but this is limited in multiple ways.
The controls on the OpenFit Air works well despite the lack of a physical button which is not a personal favourite. However Shokz has opt to only have Double Tap and Press-and-Hold as means to activate the controls which eliminates the accidental changing of tracks or volume.
The customisation of the controls allows you to change what functions are triggered, but the combinations and options are locked by Shokz. You can choose a variation of the control based on what Shokz presents to you, there is no option to set your own combination which may be annoying for some.
Other Features
The OpenFit Air, as one would expect of a sports oriented device, has IP54 rating for water and sweat resistant. Don’t jump into the shower with them though as they are not rated for immersion.
I have notice that the OpenFit Air has a pretty quick connection to my phone when they are taken out of the case.
Interestingly Shokz has gone with Bluetooth v5.2 rather than v5.3 with the better efficiency, connectivity management and power management.
Gripes
For a stylish set of buds with high performance audio, the impression management coming from the charging case lets it down. The case feels cheap.
Having use the app a bit more with the OpenFit Air, it is very basic. I am not sold on the limited choices provided by Shokz in terms of controls. There is definitely room for improvements, it doesn’t have to be OTT.
Conclusions
As a tech reviewer I play with a lot of audio gear, and open ear designs have seen a lot of competition in the past two years. The Shokz OpenFit Air for me would rate as one of the better performing ones, and the price point reflects that coming in at a RRP AUD$199.
The question comes down to whether you will use the OpenFit Air in an environment where the sound quality can shine through. For example if your primary use case is road running and situation awareness is paramount, the external noises will overwhelm the speakers which leaves you with an expensive device that you cannot fully appreciate. At the same time, balance that with the multipoint functionality where these perform great on voice calls.
Overall they are a solid, high performing pair of open ear buds. They won’t and can’t replace your in-ear or over ear cans for listening quality, but they do a pretty decent job being a companion when you can’t use those.
The Shokz OpenFit Air are available in black, white and pink and is available from Amazon, Shokz and authorised resellers.
DRN would like to thank Shokz for providing the review unit.
Specifications
Continuous play
Up to 6 hours of music time with a single charge, up to 28 hours with Charging Case; Up to 4.3 hours of calling time with a single charge, up to 20 hours with Charging Case
Charge time
Charge the earbuds with the charging case: 60 minutes; Empty case with charging cable: 120 minutes
Standby time: Up to 30 days
Battery capacity: Earbuds: 40mAh (Min); Charging case: 600mAh (Min)
Charge voltage: 5V ± 5%
Quick charge: A 10-minute charge gives 2 hour of battery life (music)
Connectivity
Bluetooth version: V5.2
Compatible profiles: A2DP,AVRCP,HFP
Wireless range: 33ft (10m)
Audio codecs supported: AAC SBC
Design
Sweat resistance Earbuds : IP54
Charging case: Not waterproof
Weight
Earbuds: 8.7g ± 0.2g
Charging case: 56.4g ± 2g
Total weight: 73.8g ± 2.4g
Exterior Material
Earbuds : Plastic , Silicone , Stainless steel (steel mesh)
Charging case: Plastic
Sound
Frequency response: 50Hz – 16kHz
Speaker sensitivity: 96.2dB ± 2.5dB
Microphone
Microphone sensitivity: -38 dB ±1dB
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