Shokz OpenFit Pro: Open Earbuds with Noise Reduction!

What's up? Josh here. Most earbuds these days do one thing really well. They shut the world out. And sometimes that's great. You can put in your earbuds. You can lock into whatever you're doing and disappear into your own little bubble. But most of the time it kind of sucks. Whenever someone comes up to you, you have to take them out and then you maybe put these in your pocket or on the table and then you have to put them back in. It's a little bit repetitive. Enter the open ear earbud. These types of earbuds don't actually plug up your ears. They go around your ears, which make them great for awareness. But historically they haven't really sounded that great and they definitely won't offer active noise cancellation. That is until now. These are the Shox OpenFit Pro, a pair of open ear earbuds that not only sound good, but actually offer noise cancellation. But are they any good? And how well does the active noise cancellation actually work? Well, here's everything I learned over the past few days. Big thank you to Shox for sponsoring this video. Let's get into it. So right out of the box, the first thing you'll notice is the case. Now just a quick size comparison compared to other ANC earbud cases. The Shox case is slightly bigger, and that is due to the earhook design. As far as thickness goes, it's also slightly thicker than the AirPods case, but not by much. Immediately, though, when you hold the device, it actually feels way more solid than any of the other ANC earbud cases I've held. It just feels really nice and dense and really premium. You can see the metal finishing on the sides and the soft touch silicone material on the top. Compared to both Bose and Sony, these feel like more hollow plastic, whereas the Shox case feels a little more dense and premium. On the back, we've got USB-C for charging, and on the bottom we've got a wireless charging pad as well. Also in the box, you've got a type C cable, some paperwork, and this stability kit, which goes on like this and fills the gap between your ear and the earhook a little bit better. It's also worth noting that even with the stability band attached, you can still close the case just fine. Now getting into the buds themselves, they have a really familiar shape that Shox has been pretty much perfecting over the past few years. The design is really sleek, clean, and minimal. I like that there's this metal accent right here, that's this matte finish, as well as this really soft touch silicone along the earhook, as well as the body of the earbud. And then right up here, you'll notice a little protrusion, which is actually a physical tactile button that you can click, which I really like. I like the tactile buttons. I don't like to tap on my earbuds. In my experience, I didn't find it hard to find that button. It's actually very intuitive. These ones are a single click to play and pause, double click to skip track, three clicks to go back, and then a press and hold to toggle on noise cancellation. And then for volume adjustment, it's a click and then a click and hold on either the right or left earbud to go up or down. Now real quick, I want to touch on comfort and fit, because I know for a lot of people, seeing something like this may be a little bit intimidating, or maybe you've never used something with an earhook, so you might generally assume that it's hard to use or uncomfortable because of how big it is. But actually, I think it's the opposite. Because these don't actually go into your ears, I actually think that these are more comfortable and less prone to falling out of your ears than traditional earbuds with silicone tips. And really, these are super comfortable. From a comfort and fit perspective, these get pretty much a perfect score. Okay, by far the most interesting aspect of these earbuds is the noise cancellation. So supposedly, these earbuds have noise cancellation, despite your ear being fully open to the world. So you're probably wondering, how does that even work? And how well does it work? Now how it works is exactly the same way as traditional ANC, except instead of it happening inside of your ear, it's happening outside or around your ear. In certain cars, this type of tech actually already exists. Like in the Tesla Model S, I believe there are speakers next to the headrest that basically cancel out unwanted road noise. It's pretty much doing the exact same thing here with these earbuds, just at a much smaller scale. Now the way that you activate it is you press and hold on the multi-function button, you'll hear a little chime, and now I'm in noise cancellation mode. In the Shox app, you can also tune how much of that noise cancelling you want from reduced to default to enhanced or anywhere in between. Now the first time that I turned it on, I was unsure if I even activated it because the effect is very subtle. Now you can actually feel a little bit of pressure when you turn it on around your ears, which I think some people might find some discomfort in. But then I started just going around my house and testing it in my everyday environment. And what I found is that it's really great at cutting down noises that are constant. So for me, just living with these earbuds, I found that for stuff like the air fryer running or maybe the hum of my fridge, my washing machine, or some road noise happening outside, it essentially just cuts that noise in half. Even when I'm at my desk and I'm working on my keyboard, it kind of just cuts that noise down or it takes the edge off of those noises. So it sort of goes from, oh, I can definitely hear that noise to, okay, now it's in the background. I can still hear it, but at a much lower volume. Now for literally everything else, like any other type of sound or noise, it will take the edge off of those noises, but you're not going to notice that big of a difference. You probably aren't going to take these on the plane, expecting it to cancel out the engine noise. The reality is your ear is still exposed to the world. So it's not like it's going to completely block those noises out. But yeah, even right now, as I'm sitting at this desk with the noise cancellation turned up to max, it is raining outside. And before I could hear all of the water droplets pretty clearly, but now it's just taking that down to kind of like a background noise. So the sound quality. With open ear earbuds specifically, bass has always been the biggest challenge. And what the OpenFit Pros have achieved here is actually pretty mind blowing. Now it's still not going to be as much bass as a traditional earbuds, just because those earbuds have the advantage of creating a tight seal in your ears. But with these, I would say you're getting about 50 to 60 percent of that performance. And what the OpenFit Pros are using is called a dual diaphragm driver, which isn't two separate drivers, but one driver that uses two different materials that are calibrated for different frequencies. Without getting too technical, it creates a less muddy sound, which typically with open ear earbuds, that tends to happen as you increase the volume. With these, though, I can actually hear and appreciate the bass and really get into the music. And I think they actually sound pretty good. The vocals are clear. The treble has detail and overall it sounds pretty balanced. Now, of course, it's not going to sound as immersive as a traditional earbud because you don't have that seal. But for open ear earbuds, I think this is a massive step forward. Now, at this point, you may be wondering, who are these buds actually for and what use cases do these buds actually shine in? So personally, I think these are the perfect gym earbud. They have a little bit of noise canceling, which allows you to cancel out some of the music that the gym might be playing. I could hear my music very clearly with these buds. Maybe you're the type of person that is working at an office or you're out running errands. Maybe you're returning stuff, buying stuff. You need to talk to the cashier. But at the same time, you like to enjoy your music. You want to maybe take a call. In those scenarios, because this bud doesn't actually plug up your ears, you don't need to take them out to talk to people. You can simply just have them in your ear all day and just go about your day with these buds. OK, now, last but not least, before we wrap this video up, I want to go through some quality of life features, just general stuff that you should know about these earbuds. First up, battery life. So these have a 12 hour battery life, which is pretty insane considering that AirPods Pro 3 only get eight. You also get 50 total hours on the charging case as well. Also, these buds do have on ear detection. So if you're playing music and you take one bud out, the music will automatically pause. And then when you put them back in, the music will resume. You can also turn this off in the settings. Also in the app, you can configure your EQ settings. It's also got multipoint connect, so you can connect two devices at once and even spatial audio and Dolby Atmos optimization. Oh, and these buds are also IP55 rated, which means that they are going to be sweat and water resistant. So that's it. These are the brand new Shox OpenFit Pros. For me, these have replaced my gym earbuds. I'll be using these moving forward. And then for any heads down work or for flights, that's when I'll grab my ANC headphones. But let me know down below, what has your experience been with open ear earbuds? And what do you think about these? Subscribe to the channel if you aren't already. Leave a like on your way out. And I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.