Playing your favourite tunes while still letting in the outside world, the Shokz OpenRun Pro open-ear bone conduction headphones are for those times you can’t afford to get lost in the music.
Bone conduction technology has been around for a long time and has a lot of practical uses, but it’s still not mainstream when it comes to consumer audio gear. Rather than sitting in or over your ears, bone conduction headphones rest on the very top of your jaw, just in front of your ears.
When traditional headphones play sounds into your ear, the sound waves strike your eardrum, which in turn passes the message to your inner ear. Bone conduction bypasses your eardrum and instead sends vibrations through your skull directly to your inner ear.
Understandably, you lose some sound quality compared to traditional headphones. But the upside is that your ears are still free to hear the world around you. This can be important when you’re in a potentially dangerous environment, or you simply can’t get away with ignoring what’s going on around you.
OpenRun Pro review
Shokz OpenRun Pro first impressions
At first glance, the Shokz OpenRun Pro look like slender traditional headphones, but it soon becomes clear that you wear them very differently.
A thin flexible band runs around the back of your neck, with large loops on either end which sit around the top of your ears. At the end of each loop is a transducer bud which sits flat on the top of your jaw.
The instructions say “Wearing your headphones the wrong way could cause discomfort. The transducers should rest in front of your ears.” I dread to think how some people have been wearing them.
Assuming you put them on correctly, behind your right ear you’ll find two easy-to-reach buttons, along with a multi-function button on the left bud. Between them, the buttons control power, volume, playback, phone calls, Bluetooth syncing and summoning your smart assistant.
You get spoken feedback when you power the headphones on and off, including battery status, as well as when you pair them with a Bluetooth device like your smartphone.
There’s also a Shokz app that lets you switch between Standard and Vocal EQ modes, as well as enable multipoint Bluetooth for quick switching between two devices. The app also allows for firmware updates down the track.
The OpenRun Pro is very lightweight and comfortable to wear for extended periods, to the point where you can forget you’re wearing them. They only touch you on the top of your jaw and just above your ears, where they gently clamp against your head to hold them in place even when running.
The fact that they’re not actually in or over your ears, and don’t squeeze tightly on your head, avoids the warmth and discomfort problems that many people experience when wearing headphones for extended periods.
Thankfully they don’t get in the way if you wear glasses, or when wearing a bike helmet, but they are awkward to take on and off if you have a lot of hair.
It’s worth noting the OpenRun Pro comes in two sizes, Mini and Standard, and the Shokz website offers guidance on choosing between them.
Shokz OpenRun Pro specifications
| Frequency response | 20Hz-20KHz |
| Sensitivity | 105 ± 3dB |
| Microphone | Dual noise-cancelling, sensitivity -38dB ± 3dB |
| Battery life | 10 hours |
| Charging | 1 hour |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 2.1, SBC codec |
| Ruggedness | IP55 Sweatproof |
| Weight | 29 gm |
| Colours | Black, Blue |
| Price | $269 RRP |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Official website | Shokz Australia |
Features
The nature of the band means you can’t fold up the Shokz OpenRun Pro into a small package when not in use.
Thankfully, Shokz includes a firm carry case, which could slip into your bag but is too large to jam into most pockets. Alternatively, you could keep the headphones around your neck when not in use, although they might sit a little uncomfortably against the side of your throat.
The headphones offer a 10-hour battery life and the handy quick-charge feature gives you 90 minutes of playback after just five minutes of charging.
They charge via a 60 cm USB-A cable, fitted with a custom magnetic connector that attaches behind the right ear loop. Unfortunately, the carry case lacks a secure compartment for storing the custom charge cable, which you really don’t want to lose.
Each transducer bud features a microphone for making hands-free calls, with the benefit of noise cancellation, but if voice quality is important then you might look at the Shokz OpenCOMM models with a microphone arm, primarily designed for wearing at work.
It’s worth noting that there are quite a few Shokz models to choose from, so consider your requirements carefully.
As the name suggests, the OpenRun Pro is designed for exercise. You’ve also got the standard OpenRun and entry-level OpenMove, which offer shorter battery lives, slower charge times and use earlier generations of Shokz’s bone conduction technology (the OpenRun Pro uses Gen 9).
Aside from these, you’ll find the OpenSwim and OpenSwim Pro, along with the OpenFit and new OpenFit Air, which focus more on sound quality and battery life.
Bone conduction is a great safety solution for ensuring you can still hear the outside world while exercising, but there are other times when it would also come in handy. At the gym, you can listen to your workout playlist without being too anti-social. At work, you can enjoy music yet still talk to colleagues. Around the house, you can rock out but still listen out if someone needs your attention.
Quality
While they’ll naturally never match the sound quality of high-end headphones, the Shokz OpenRun Pro sound surprisingly good for bone conduction headphones.
Typically, bone conduction offers muffled sound and lacklustre bass, but Shokz has worked hard to improve this. Shifting the buds slightly back or forward on your jaw adjusts the sound characteristics, so it’s worth experimenting.
The bass has a surprising amount of punch, not enough to rattle your teeth but definitely enough to get into the groove. Meanwhile, the mid-range and high-end remain surprisingly sharp and clear.
They’re also surprisingly clear on both ends for phone calls, even when you’re out in the wind. With an iPhone, you can answer incoming calls but you can’t use Siri to make outgoing calls unless the phone is unlocked.
Part of the secret to the great music quality is that the high-frequency tones leak out of the transducers and still find their way into your ear canal. So what you’re actually listening to is a mix of bone conduction and sound waves – which is part of the reason why shifting their position changes the sound characteristics.
Put in noise-cancelling earbuds, so you’re just hearing bone conduction from the OpenRun Pro, and you get the muffled sound that you traditionally expect from bone conduction headphones.
Thankfully the sound leakage is minimal at reasonable volumes, so your music won’t bother people around you.
It’s important to note that, to your brain, it still sounds as if the audio is coming from your ears. It’s not like the music is a voice in your head. So if you crank up the volume, you can struggle to hear some noises from the outside world. Crank it too high and the music starts to distort, to the point where you can feel the buds vibrating against your face.
All of this means that when you wear the Shokz OpenRun Pro outside you need to strike a compromise in terms of volume. Too soft and the ambient noise will drown out your music, especially if the wind is blowing in your ears. Too loud and you start to lose the advantage of being able to hear quiet but important external noises, like bicycles coming up behind you on a shared path.
Who is the Shokz OpenRun Pro for?
If you’re a keen outdoor exerciser, and happy to sacrifice some sound quality in return for safety and convenience, the Shokz OpenRun Pro are a great option. They’re very comfortable to wear for extended periods, they’ll stay securely on your head and the sound quality is extremely good for bone conduction technology.
That said, they’re not cheap, especially if they’re your secondary pair of headphones. Many people would still want a decent primary set of headphones or earbuds for those times when sound quality is your highest priority or you need noise-cancelling – such as when commuting, or working in a noisy shared environment.
It’s also worth remembering that some high-end headphones and earbuds support an active pass-through mode, such as the Transparency mode built into Apple’s AirPods Pro, Google’s Pixel Buds Pro, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and others.
Transparency mode lets you listen to music without blocking the outside world, with less compromise on music quality. Depending on your budget and your needs, as well as whether earbuds stay put while you’re running, earbuds with transparency mode might be a better all-around solution for some people.
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