(Sorry if it’s a miss, this community looked the most fitting)
After mentioning them somewhere in comments, I actually bought Shokz after years of sitting curious. There are a few brands that do them, so it doesn’t matter what’s the brand is. I bought what I’ve heard of and the cheapest model I could find at that.
So, what’s the trick? As I’m cycling, walking and running a lot, I needed a headphone solution to be aware of my surroundings. They don’t cover ears and don’t actually emmit sound - they vibrate and make your bones serve as a membrane.
The obvious minus is that in a bus or other loud setting you can’t hear shit. That’s by design. And, logically but somehow absurdly, by shutting your ear with a finger, you can make yourself hear it okay. I did a full circle here, returning to the old headphones isolation problem, heh.
But what impressed me more, they do feel like some kind of a cyberpunk prosthetic. You can wear them all day and even the cheapest one that promises 6hr of activity lasts days on the idle. But as you call someone or watch a vid – here they are, with a little to no latency. Honestly, I feel like if there’d be implants, that’s one of the basic ones we can try first. It’s hands-free device with a bonus of being more stealthy and not isolating you from the world.
As a cheapskate audiophile who stayed with cords for a long time, I can say that the sound is okay. Keeping in mind that producers can’t control the skull of a wearer, they can’t nail the ideal sound, but I’m impressed with how nice IDM and metal plays on them - something akin to budget Senh, AKG and Audiotechnica. And unlike cheap Sony, they don’t put up low freqs, that’s a plus. BUT when I shared it with others, people in body reported less effectiveness due to thickness of skin and under-dermal stuff, so it’s better to test it if you aren’t skinny as a skeleton.
After being so open about plus sides, I’m to talk minuses. Since the software is proprietary, it doesn’t have many controls and is very weird sometimes. As I bought a model that was for internal chinese market originally, it talked to me in Chinese, and it can only be switched to another language before any pairing, so only after unpairing I could’ve chosen English – and the same combination of button presses when paired was reserved to calling the last called number, so I fucked up a lazy weekend morning for a friend of mine calling them 4-5 times, damn it. Ah, and it supports dual pairing with a PC and a smartphone, but as I tested it this function worked weird and I sometimes manually disconnected them. Walking&working distance from a source device is around the second or third room, that fits most office and home listening cases. I could’ve probably wished for it to have an option to pick lesser distance since I don’t usually have even a meter between my smartphones and them.
Ah, and going back to the bus problem - the obvious downside that you want to turn them to 100% volume that you don’t feel, but your ears do. After the first day when I needed to move a lot in loud contexts and thus put them on max, I had a headache, because although I didn’t register the volume, my head had a first row concert experience. So if you use these, keep that in mind too.
Have you tried them, is there a topic I haven’t covered? As you can tell, I’m happy with them, so I would be biased. It’s just with VR stuff, even from Apple, I feel like we underlook existing tech that already serves us as expander of our life experiences and powers.
I’m partial deaf… These let me hear music in a way I never could. I remember being in a quiet place and listened to an audio sample… Hearing an instrument on my bad side was like listening to it for the first time. Hearing in stereo is just wild when you have only heard in mono your whole life
Beethoven had the same condition. He had a special bracket mounted to his piano he could bite on, in order to make his skull resonate, hence him being able to hear the music again.
For real? Never heard of that. Super interesting if they did shit like that back then
That’s awesome! I wish I could’ve used this information with my dad, who was partially deaf, to try if it could’ve helped him. Unfortunately he passed away some years ago so we’ll never know. I’ll keep this in mind though, so I can suggest it to others.
It can work when the nerves are intact but the bone in the ear (or another external mechanical part of the ear) is damaged. Won’t work for somebody with deafness due to nerve damage
Haven’t thought about that, wow. I’m happy for you.
Thank you very much for this post. I’m glad someone did the effort of getting some of those and presenting them from the PoV of a first time experience. I was curious.
However, I’m not sure what you meant with:
BUT when I shared it with others, people in body reported less effectiveness due to thickness of skin and under-dermal stuff, so it’s better to test it if you aren’t skinny as a skeleton.
At first it sounds like you say that overweight people have trouble using them (which is logical, the device needs to touch the bones), but then you go on saying that it doesn’t work for underweight people? I’m confused. Could you please elaborate a little? Thanks 🙂
I think they were saying that if you’re not super skinny, you ought to test them to make sure they work for you before buying them. Super skinny people can safely assume they would have good enough conductivity and could buy without testing with more confidence.
Not my opinion, never tested these.
You are right on the money. My metabolism makes me super thin, so it’s ideal in my case as they sit right on the bones, but can be less effective for people of average or plus size proportions.
Nice writeup.
I need to replace my aged pair.
A solution to one of the bus problems, is to carry a pair of those mushy ear plugs. If you put them in, you regain isolation, without having to crank the volume and hurt your ears.
One of my gripes is the behind-the-head design. You simply can’t wear them comfortably if you’re reclining or laying down.
I just tilt them up, wear them like normal headphones.
Bone conduction doesn’t care what position or where exactly the transducer is. The sound won’t be exactly as intended but it works.
Tilt them up so the band is on the crown of your head instead across the top of your neck. That’s what I do when I’m laying down or wearing a stocking cap.
Yep, you are right, also in autumn and winter both the high collar of a jacket and the hat touch it. In a place with a various weather it’s harder to forget they are on.
With Shokz especially, it could’ve been undone if the cord was soft, like in many connected headphones. But for some reason they did it hard bending, although heaphones sit without problems by themselves, even when doing sports. For something like Miami or Krasnodar it’s no problem, but for my region of Russia with crazy overnight tilts of weather and states with the same instability, it can be a problem.
I’ve had several pairs of aftershokz, almost all of them Bluetooth. Most recently I was gifted a pair of openrun pro. Shokz has made significant improvement since the first generation. I would put their modern versions on par with fairly average earbuds, with a notable bass drop off as the most significant audio fidelity issue.
They’re massively convenient. They sound rather good apart from the missing low end, and they’re easy to make into an all day wear.
I’ve worn headsets on top of my trekz, glasses, even headphones (don’t ask). They’re not the most comfortable when you have stuff on top of them, pushing them into your skull, but that’s expected.
Most people don’t notice I’m wearing them.
Honestly, 10/10 for convenience.
I also put headphones over them a couple of times. Two devices limit is not so convinient when you have a home PC, then office PC, your phone and sometimes even a tablet\handheld console. I feel like it’s the next thing they can improve to create an incentitive to buy a new pair of those.
I’ve been using various Aftershokz/Shokz models for many years and well over a thousand hours. They are a great option for speech-focused contents like podcasts, audiobooks and that’s what I use them for. I almost never use them for music, the lack of bass (even with earplugs) just doesn’t do it for me. But I don’t find any earbuds satisfactory for music either so maybe I am more picky than most.
I agree with OP about the controls. They are workable but could be much better even considering the limited inputs. I particularly hate the choice of triple-click for backwards-seek and I mess up the timing half the time. Another pet-peeve is the loud beep on play/pause that cannot be turned off. Using the phone/computer controls instead of the on-device ones avoid these issues.
As far as models I originally got the Aeropex and later on “downgraded” to the OpenMove. The audio quality is comparable between the two, the only thing you are missing with the lower end model is comfort - but that is highly subjective! I actually prefer the way the OpenMove feels.
I really wish that there was more competition in this space. The Shokz products are a bit overpriced and slow to evolve and the rest of the options I’ve seen seems lower quality and worse form factor. Would love to hear if anybody has found a different brand that they prefer over the Shokz models.
I would subscribe to every paragraph of yours. Especially the loud notifications. For some reason they don’t adjust to the chosen volume.
I don’t know, how are they popular, but I guess if they’d be a daily driver for many, there would be an interest for others to participate in a competition. But from what I see in Russia where I live, the topmost models are cheap airpods and beats replicas, and I’m probably in the dozen of those who use that tech at all, and I don’t see anyone also using them. It’d take decades and kilometers of my and others’ fanboying to change that.
My short take is the audio quality is mediocre for music or anything artistic, but using the Shokz OpenComm for work, I’ll never go back. Best work headset I’ve ever used. I can wear it all day and sometimes almost forget to take it off at the end of the day.
That… Looks good. How is the microphone quality? How long does it last?
I answred before, but with my love for long form podcasts and rare calls, I charge it once for two days of work.
Thanks. I’m tempted as in and over ear headsets would be less preferable than something which rests outside. I still have another year and a half of teaching online so this would be a decent quality of life upgrade.
A little personal, but what moved me to actually buy them is that my mic on a webcam died that troubled my own online teaching. So far, it worked fine, even on long days if I didn’t forget to charge it. Check that thread and the product page before the purchase and you’d be golden. Keep on going, fellow tutor, although we are treated like shit worldwide, we are the gears that make our society spin (:
Have these Chinese devices been tested / approved by any reasonable governmental health organism?.
In this very post I pointed out that you don’t register the volume if there’s a loud noise around you, that can cause headaches. As people buy them from official stores, I guess they are as safe as usual headphones. And this problem is usually dealt with on source device’s end – my chinese phone shows a notification if I exceed the recomended volume and if I use headphones for too long.
I went into my pair of bone conducting headphones (I have Shokz) understanding their purpose, namely that they are not for an audiophile level sound experience; they are for being able to be active and hear music or audiobooks while maintaining situational awareness.
Once I discovered I could use mine in the shower, I was hooked.
Can’t do that with my Bose.
A minor nuance: besides difference in battery power, different Shokz also have different standards of water resistance. My lowest tier shields it from rain, sweat, minor water exposure - and I tested it all. But standing in the shower or swimming for a long time is safer with higher tier models, and they are certified accordingly. I don’t know if it’s actually true, but they say so on their website.
Excuse me, I see a fellow IDM enjoyer. Any recommendations for me?
I’m a simple man, I put Shobaleader One Boiler Room live session on repeat and bathe in pure joy. It’s Squarepusher’s old hits but played with a band of his fellow musical maniacs who can make previously programmed polyrhitms look as easy as breathing. There’s a lot of bright flashes, so be aware. Also, he himself plays a bass guitar, the usually overlooked instrument he himself uses a lot, and do it passionately.
I have the H2O Audio and they work pretty much the same. I got this pair for listening to music while I swim and they are fantastic for that. They last a long time on one charge and loading songs is easy as plugging it in to a computer. Another reason I got these is because occlusion sounds really bother me. I also carry some of those cheap foam earplugs for really noisy environments like plane flights. The foam earplugs don’t have nearly the same occlusion sounds and they block enough noise that you can hear the induction.
Haven’t heard of this brand. Sounds fitting for your usecase.
Loading songs – you mean they act as a player themselves?
I bought the Shokz opencomm 2 recently and returned them. I wanted a loose fitting headset for home office that didn’t look like I was wearing winter ear muffs.
They really look good. They sound okay. The mic is very good.
My bosses voice made them tickle. Even at the lowest volume everything he said was uncomfortable. They tickle at high volume anyway but having a call with this guy multiple times a day started to get annoying.
I have a jabra evolve2 55 now. Interior, but no tickle
Didn’t encounter that, but it’d be sure a test point for pther people, thanks.
Can others hear whatever’s playing? Like if I’m wearing it on the bus or in library, can others hear my music?
I’ve never used one, but I’ve read reviews on the cheaper ones, they said it’s just speakers in front of your ears.
They use vibrations to drive your skull as a membrane to make a sound. If you turn them on 100% their own metal pieces would do the sound, but it’s still be silent as 10% volume on your smartphone.
As you can tell by my nickname, I’m from Russia and I tested it through and through, for there were sanctions against those that just scrolled anti-russian memes in a public transport. I watch oppositional figures every time I commute to and from work, so I guess it’s okay.
It’s safe privacy-wise. But as I said, you need to control the volume, because the max volume can exhaust your brain even if you don’t really hear it. But everything lesser than 70% isn’t heard by others even in silence.
but I’m impressed with how nice IDM and metal plays on them
Industrial Doom Metal?
Ire-inducing Depeche Mode?
Irish Derpy Music?
Instructional Defense Material?
Intelligent Dance Music. You know, the tag that got stuck with Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher and others, although they collectively hate it. I love their weird experiments.
Like this one: https://youtu.be/GlhV-OKHecI?si=LM7dA3P0cVrO-k9x But be aware, there’s a lot of bright flashes and both sound and video can cause a headache.
Guess I can’t go wrong with Rory in the early 20s, Igorrr, Shackleton, Moon Wiring Club, Moi, Spresso & Mika Levi and others, using bone conducting headphones…
Thanks for the heads up, i need to buy new headphones soon
Thanks for reco-s. From your list I only listened to Igorrr. Seems like I’m in for a ride (:
I use cheap-ass ones I bought on AliExpress when I need to wear earplugs like mowing the lawn or using the snowblower.
They’re doing the job at least.
What else we need from them anyway? (:
How is the microphone for phone calls?
I guess it varies widely. The one in mine is a complete piece of shit, so I have it set to use only as headphones.
Yeah, probably makes sense to have s standard check for each model. I had a nice pair, but something else can be a completely different story.
I asked my friends a couple of times when we had calls and some Discord conversations. No problems reported even when I was on a windy street at that time. I’m yet to see the spectrogram of their input, but I listened to my voice messages and they were fine. Obviously, not an all-purpose mic that can record music, but with a range of freqs that covers our speech it works no worse than industry standard, with airpods, dots and others. I even used it, stealthly, to record some IRL talks, just in case, and the result was clear. Their not-very-noticeable nature helps it.