Shokz - OpenRun Pro 2 Bone Conduction Sports Headphones - Black

Since they were released, AirPods Pro have been my go to earbuds. They’re compact, conveniently turn on and pair to my iPhone right out of the case, and boast excellent sound quality and noise isolation. Now that temperatures are cooling down here in the Midwest, I’ve been doing a lot more walking/running, biking, house upgrades, and getting back to working on my project car. Even though AirPods have tranparency mode, I prefer to have my ears completely unoccluded while I’m in public or anywhere there is vehicle traffic, especially when I’m walking my dogs. When I’m working on my project car, I noticed that my AirPods would constantly get bumped out or start to slip out as I get sweaty and dirty. I picked up the Shokz Openrun Pro 2s for these applications and they fill this role perfectly. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my AirPods for general daily use, but now I grab for my Shokz any time I’m doing any of the aforementioned activities. I was a bit skeptical about sound quality and adequate volume with open air headphones, but the Shokz do not disappoint. They get plenty loud, have clear vocals, and plenty of bass. It feels like you have your own private concert going on with the benefit of it not bothering anyone else who might be in your immediate vicinity. Because the Shokz wrap around the ears, I’ve had no issues with them slipping due to sweat or falling off if bumped. They feel well built and have nice clickly manual controls right behind your right ear. They pair quickly every time. The hard shell case they come with is compact and can easily be stored in or clipped to any bag. The Shokz app is pretty basic, but allows you to see batttery percentage and change EQ settings. Long story short, if you’re an active person who wants to maintain complete situational awareness at all times, these are the headphones for you.

My experience with Shokz goes like this. In 2019 my wife got us each a pair of Shokz “AfterShokz” for Christmas and we loved them. This past Christmas Best Buy had the Shokz OpenRun Pro on sale and we upgraded. I literally wore the paint off of my pair of AfterShokz during that time. Well, kind of. The select button stopped working on mine sometime while they were still under warranty (2021) and Shokz sent me a new pair which has worked without fail. My wife wears hers from the time she gets up until she goes to bed. I do not. But I do wear them around my neck at work and on my head only when in use. I’m not going to requote specs that are already listed in the product overview above. I’m going to concentrate on performance and how they compare to the Open Run Pros. For anyone not familiar with how bone conduction works, the headphones sit in front of your ears and transmit the sound through your bones under them. Shokz says it a bit better and more technically: “Bone conduction technology converts sound into mechanical vibrations transmitted through the skin and temporal bone to the cochlea, bypassing traditional air conduction transmitters like the external auditory canal or eardrum.” What it means is that you can hear ambient sound around you and what’s coming through the headphones as if you weren’t wearing any headphones. I love them for phone calls and when listening to music. The OpenRun Pro 2 perform far better than the OpenRun Pro for listening to music. They are getting into the range of HiFi headphones. I was impressed! Where the Shokz headphones excel, is with their open ear design in quiet to moderately noisy environments. However, these are not what you want to wear when mowing your lawn with a gas-powered lawn mower or when in an environment that has a similar level of noise. You will want something that’s noise cancelling that cover your ears or seal up in the ear canal for high noise levels. That last sentence also applies to true high-fidelity sound. While the Open Run Pro 2 are Shokz’ best so far for high fidelity sound, they cannot compete with high end headphones or ear buds designed for HiFi sound. Shokz are primarily bone conduction headphones are not designed to do that. As ambient sounds get louder, the bass response will seem to get weaker, but the mids and highs will still come through pretty good. But when the ambient sound gets even louder, it will reach a point to where you will need to increase the volume to hear the mids and highs. But when listening to music in a quiet environment, they do an excellent job. Especially when compared to the OpenRun Pro they are the successor to. The larger rear firing drivers make a Big difference in bass response and the dual driver design improves the highs dramatically too. Going a little deeper on sound quality. Shokz says: “OpenRun Pro 2 redefines open-ear audio with DualPitch™ technology, blending bone conduction for clear mids and highs with air conduction for deep bass.” Yes, the bass response is much better than the previous OpenRun Pro and the highs are way better too. The drivers are firing backwards into your ear. This works conjunction with the bone conduction tech to give enhanced frequency response. Downloading and using the Shokz app lets you select EQ presets or create a couple of your own via a five band graphic EQ. Note: there are only 2 EQ presets available on the OpenRun Pro. Since they are open ear, they have a certain amount of sound leakage. Especially with the rear firing drivers. Shokz claims it’s “leak-free”, but it isn’t totally leak free. In fact, I think they have slightly more sound leakage than the previous model. My AfterShokz have even less leakage, but they don’t have rear firing drivers either. But don’t let this scare you. Someone will have to be pretty close, say under a foot from your head, in a quiet environment to eavesdrop on a conversation with success, and with the volume set at a moderate level. The OpenRun Pro 2 has dual mics with AI noise reduction and wind resistance. My take, once you get past the over-worded sales pitch. Performance wise, it does make the background pretty quiet for the person you’re talking to on a call. My wife noticed a difference between the OpenRun Pro and OpenRun Pro 2 when I was talking to her coming home from work. She said it sounded kind of boxy at times. When talking to her while I was at work in different environments, she didn’t notice it sounding odd. Just very quiet between talking and not talking. They look so much like the previous model I have, nobody at work noticed the difference and I didn’t tell them. 😉 Battery life is very good. Up to 12 hours when listening to music, talk time is stated at 6 hours, but I’d say maybe 8 hours tops. Charge time options are 1 hour for a full charge, or 5 minutes to get 2.5 hours of use. I assume that’s from when it tells you to charge it. One thing I was glad to see was a USB-C connector to charge it. The OpenRun Pro has a proprietary magnetic charging attachment to charge it them. Cool? Yes, but not practical if you need to take them with you or they run down and you don’t have it with you. USB-C solves that problem. It has a rubber cover that you need to peel back to insert a USB-C connector. If your fingernails aren’t long enough to peel it back, use the USB-C connector to. 😉 All of the Shokz headphones I have used have fit very well and been comfortable to wear for long periods. Remember what I said about my wife? 😉 An IP55 water-resistant design to resist rain, splashes and sweat. The only thing that is a problem with fit is inherent by design. You can’t lay your head down on a pillow in bed with these on. The band will push them too far forward to work. The Mini version on the “right” sized head might make this a non-issue. Other things to note is 33 feet BT range, I think it got that and then some, a 2 year warranty. Comes with a nice case and short USB-A to USB-C cable, warranty card and setup guide. BT was easy to pair with my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 12, work phone. The app works the same on both phones too. And when you get the app, check for firmware updates. There was one there, even for this new of a product. Start-up time is faster than OpenRun Pro too. Conclusion: I used the OpenRun Pro 2 in many environments: In a vehicle, at work, outside, on my E-Bike, running and at home. They performed much better than my OpenRun Pros sound wise. Especially when listening to music. As I stated earlier, these are not my first Shokz products. They are very well made and, in my experience, Very Durable. Very Highly Recommended. My wife is waiting to see what colors they come in!

I have a few different pairs of Shokz headphones, all of which have been excellent outdoor activity friendly options. The Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 sports headphones do not disappoint for both feature and function specific to sports and outdoors use.  In the box is the headphone, USB-C charging cable, protective carrying case, and paperwork.  Setup is straight forward, there is a Shokz app to control firmware updates, EQ settings, and turn on or off the MultiPoint pairing feature.  While the app is not required, I prefer having it to be able to adjust EQ based on activity and music. To pair, press and hold the power button, pairing status will be announced via the headphones, which you can proceed to connect to a Bluetooth device.  There are two buttons on the right side behind the ear, the power / volume up button, and the volume down button.  There is also a multifunction button on the left ear piece which allows for play / pause music, answer / end calls, previous / next song.  The good news is that the multifunction button works as expected, no accidental double taps or accidental hang ups. One downside is that there is no reprogramming of buttons, so you get what you get with this build.  As a lefty, I'd prefer the buttons to be on reversed sides, but not a deal breaker.  As far as the design, the headphones fit everyone due to the flexible, lightweight style of the coated nickel-titanium frame. The design and weighting is well balanced, so I don't get any movement during running or strength training. The speakers sit just outside of my ears, comfortably, and provide an immersive sound that feels three dimensional.  As far as sound goes, overall I'm surprisingly impressed. The DualPitch technology combines bone conduction for high ranges and air conduction for bass ranges. The crazy thing is how well this works, the audio quality is crisp and has depth.  One really interesting thing is that my husband, who has mild to moderate hearing loss at high range, can hear exceptionally well with these headphones, which was a very nice design bonus.  The sound depth is balanced, it doesn't feel over driven, and the dynamic range compression ensures that high volume listening isn't distorted and the soft tones are heard.  Other things to note, the call quality is phenomenal, better than any ear bud I've tried previously.  No more echo-y audio, the dual positioned microphones pick up very well, and the calls are clear, even with background wind noise. There is a MultiPoint pairing function, so you can be paired to two devices at once. The headphones are water resistant and easy to keep clean.  The battery life is good, so far I'm at 8 hours of use with 40% battery left. The only complaint I have is that the EQ doesn't do the audio justice.  The presets are ok, and the customizable EQ leaves some to be desired.  As these are sports headphones, I won't say that's worth taking off a star, but it is slightly annoying that the EQ is the worst part of the sound experience.  Overall if you're outdoors, especially if you need an open ear design for safety, I'm not sure I could recommend anything else above these headphones. Great call quality, immersive sound, and the fit and balance are on point, even on the most challenging terrain.