Despite working as a fitness editor and reviewing some The best running headphones As part of my job, I’ve always been a little skeptical about bone conducting headphones. I’m not sure if it was the idea of the volume traveling through my cheekbones, or the fact that it was always too big for my head when I tried it on. But so far, my confidence Powerbeats Pro I’ve been running most of my marathons.
That is, until the Shokz Openrun Pro Mini arrived. They feature Bluetooth connectivity, up to 10 hours of battery life, and a new, shorter headband that’s 0.83 inches shorter than the regular Shokz Openrun Pro headphones to accommodate smaller heads. I no longer had to deal with the back of my headphones bouncing around my neck while I ran, so I plugged in my headphones, dug in my audiobook, and started running. Read on to find out what happened.
I replaced my Powerbeats Pro with a Shokz Openrun Pro – that’s how I like it
How much I could hear around me
Harassment is sad, but it’s typical for me as a runner who often runs alone. I’ve been stalked, called upon, photographed, and freaked out more times than I’d like to recount. Every time that happens, I scream defiantly, cry, and, more often than not, walk home, leaving my training for the day. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told not to listen to music — a well-meaning comment, but one that never fails to make my blood boil. Why should I run in silence when my friend and brothers can run, with the music loud, without any care in the world?
Running with the Shokz Openrun Pro allowed me to hear everything around me as if I weren’t wearing headphones. I could hear the traffic passing by, but also heard the quiet electric car crawling down a side street as I ran to cross the road. I felt much safer being able to hear everything around me, and even though I still didn’t feel safe running in the dark, and I have no doubt these headphones wouldn’t stop guys from bothering me while I was running, I was impressed with the difference these headphones made .
How quickly they charged
The Shokz OpenRun Pro is rated for 10 hours, and the battery can last up to 10 days with the headphones off. The postman dropped the OpenRun Pro headphones on my doorstep about 10 minutes before I headed out for a run, so I set them to charge and liked finding a five-minute charge would leave me with an hour and a half of playback—not bad.
I also liked how easy it was to connect. A big problem for me with my Powerbeats Pro is that nine times out of ten, only one earbud plugs in when I take it out of the case. I’ve owned two different pairs of the same headphones (I’ve killed one pair with my race-gross), and it happened a lot with both.
How easy it was to control them
I was concerned that it would take a while for me to get to grips with the controls on my headset, especially since I tend to pause music or an audiobook when I grab a coffee, yet I found the Openrun Pro easy to navigate. A single multifunction button sits on the left driver’s housing facing out, while the volume rocker (which integrates the power button) sits on the underside of the rectangular section behind the right ear hook.
How light and comfortable they were on my head
I tested these headphones at a distance of eight miles, wearing a hat where (again) it was raining. The Openrun Pro is rated IP55 sweat-resistant, so I didn’t need to worry about falling into the shower with them, and I was impressed with how comfortable and light they fit on my head. Shokz has a handy sizing chart on their website, so I was able to pre-measure the distance between my ears and select the smallest size. They fit really well, and you hardly even notice they are there.
I really enjoyed not having headphones in my ears while I was running. It’s a disgusting (yet dependable) issue many runners struggle with, but on a three-hour long run, the earphones can leave me with somewhat sweaty ears.
I replaced my Powerbeats Pro with a Shokz Openrun Pro – that’s what I didn’t like
They gave me a slight headache
As I mentioned before, I’ve never run with bone conduction headphones before and found that while trying to listen to an audiobook, I had to turn the volume up really loud just to be able to hear it. This caused the buds to jiggle on the side of my head and left me with a bit of a headache by the time I took them off an hour later.
I tried them again a few hours later when walking the dog and playing music, which I didn’t need to get anywhere near as loud, so I won’t write the Openrun Pro headphones just yet. However, the vibrations of bone conducting headphones can give some people headaches, so I’ll probably save them for better weather conditions.
The sound quality was not good
I tested these headphones on a particularly windy day—according to my iPhone, there were winds of up to 40mph when I was running. My route took me along a main road, then along the Thames for about six miles, so I was not quite sheltered from the wind. Due to the nature of the headphones, I struggled to hear my audiobook when the wind was really blowing. However, when I couldn’t hear well.
Sure, the sound isn’t as good as my noise canceling feature AirPods Pro, or my Powerbeats Pro, but I’d argue they’re not designed to be. By their very nature not having an earbud in your ear, bone conducting headphones will always compete with outside noise, but when you’re running on your own, that’s fine. Bone conduction specifically caters to those who want to be able to hear what’s going on around them, and as females, this is a must-have. It’s also worth noting that a lot of race runs don’t allow runners to wear headphones, but do allow the bone-conducting kind, so even if you spend a lot of time running with a group, it might be worth investing in a race. day.
