By avoiding your ears, the Trekz Air don't do that at all, while still delivering decent sound quality. The AfterShokz Titanium’s design is impressive, with the two bone conduction transducers sitting just to the side of ears rather than going into the ear canal.

Except it’s not the brain (in the first instance) so much as the cochlea, with the whole process missing out the whole sound waves, ear canal and ear drum bit. They also do seem to leak a lot less at more moderate volumes, though it’ll still be the case when you crank things up to the max. Shokz quotes a battery life of around six hours for the OpenMove (the same as the Air, and two hours less than the OpenRun. The sound produced can be rather thin in the treble, with flabby bass and lacking any real energy or drive.I am a keen cyclist but one of the 11 million in the UK with some form of hearing loss – I’d guess mine is in the worst 3 million. Cue open-ear running headphones like the Trekz Air, which do away not only with noise isolation, but with intrusive earbuds altogether. With your ears exposed you’ll have to contend with some wind noise when cycling or running, but in my experience, it never proved too distracting. Following the same OpenFit schematic as the company's other headphones, they feature a pair of pads that sit on your cheekbones and transmit sound via vibrations to your aural nerve, leaving your ear canals open.

In addition, the rubber flap that covers the Micro USB point feels very much like the volume buttons when you’re blindly fumbling for the controls.When the OpenRun Pro begin to run low on juice, a voice will warn you that it's time to charge them. However, these are MP3 headphones rather than wireless, which means no Bluetooth for when you're out of the pool. As well as testing them in the gym and on a run, we took them through a busy city centre and found that volume and bass levels really weren't high enough when in a scenario where there's lots of chatter, or in a blustery wind. They’ll definitely see me right over a 1–2 hour ride and would probably work up to the limit of what I’d ride solo.

Now the skeptic in me reckoned that whilst they likely did do a bit of vibratin’ and conductin’, they probably had a few little speakers to help boost the sound and send a few extra decibels into the ear in the standard way. That said, I do sense that you have to set the volume towards the upper end of what the headphones are capable of (or what the iPhone – in my case – will send down to pipe). Add to that the battery issues that people who want to use these more widely, and you'll see they're not perfect.The mainly-rigid-but-slightly-bendy loop that links the two vibration-emitting bits sits off your neck by an inch or so. They are more expensive than previous models and deliver a noticeable, albeit slight jump up in sound quality. There are also frequently asked questions, a product rating and feedback from users to enable you to optimally use your product.

Right now, Shokz owns this space because there’s nothing really out there to give it some competition. Read on to find out how we found testing these bone conduction headphones in our Shokz OpenRun review below. However, for the newer model, Shokz has moved the charging port so it's no longer in line with the control buttons, making the cable easier to connect. The headphones should also function under a top-of-the-range Hansgrohe raindance shower head (a little pro cycling sponsor reference there). It’s not that they lack low frequency sound as such, but more that it’s felt more than heard – it reverberates through your jawbones.e. like eating at a decent restaurant but not fine dining, and great for letting you know about potential problems like double deckers (buses not chocolate bars). The AfterShokz Titanium are fun to use, and around an office, they’re just great, allowing you to listen to things when you need to while also hearing conversations from colleagues. Unlike previous models, there’s a better balance between letting you hear the real world and letting your hear music or podcasts with more satisfying sound. Whilst I attempt to keep the wires in place by wendling them through the straps on my helmet, the dangling earpiece has a habit of gradually slipping down and pulling the wire tight around my neck.