Expert's Rating
Pros
- Very comfortable to wear
- Lightweight
- Open, stress-free sound
Cons
- Microphones distort
Our Verdict
The Openfit Air lives up to its name and convinces as good sports headphones. The sound is stress-free and suits the application, as does the wearing comfort. If you want a party in your head, you’re in the wrong place, but if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you should give them a listen.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$119.95
Best Prices Today: Shokz OpenFit Air
Open-ear earphones don’t have a seal between your ears and the device, allowing outside sounds to be heard. That might be preferable in some instances, like if you’re running or riding a bike alongside traffic or on a trail where you want to be aware of what’s around you. Also, the fit of an open-ear earphone might be more comfortable.
The Shokz Openfit Air has an open-ear design. It uses a well-shaped ear hook made of a nickel-titanium alloy to ensure an ideal fit on the ear. It is covered with soft silicone so that it is also comfortable to wear during sporting activity. They look big, but they weigh just 8.7 grams and are correspondingly light to wear. As with all headphones with ear hooks, people who wear glasses can also have problems with the Openfit Air, though I didn’t have any problems. Otherwise, the wearing comfort is good, which is also due to the soft earhook. Certified to IP54, it is resistant to water and sweat.
Shokz offers a lineup of bone-conduction earphones, but the Openfit Air isn’t one of them. It uses a conventional mini loudspeaker with Shokz’s own Directpitch and Openbass technology that should ensure a full sound. While using the Openfit Air to listen to my favorite music while running, the earphones produced no abysmal bass and a pleasant sound without stress. The sound is right, with a tuning that is more on the airy side. It’s also nice that the vocals aren’t too harsh and the bass has enough depth for a well-rounded sound.
Four integrated microphones can track your voice precisely thanks to their adaptive beamformer. However, I found phone calls and voice recordings muffled and distorted.
The Openfit Air connects via Bluetooth 5.2 with multipoint pairing, which means that it can be paired with two devices at the same time. The built-in battery lasts for around six hours, which Shokz claims can be extended to a maximum of 28 hours with the charging box–that’s what we experienced in our testing. A ten-minute quick charge is enough for a maximum of two hours of music enjoyment.
A charging box with USB-C connection is included. The charging box is a real hand flatterer, both in terms of the curves and the soft-touch surface. The charging box cannot be recharged inductively. Shokz offers the Openfit Air in black, white, and pink.
The Shokz app can be used to set the buttons or update the firmware. You can select one of the four presets in the equalizer in the app, activate multipoint pairing, or check the battery status of the earphones and charging box. The app is clear, but it cannot adopt the system language of the iPhone when it is first started and the user has to do this manually.
Should you buy the Shokz Openfit Air?
The Openfit Air lives up to its name and convinces as good sports headphones. The sound is stress-free and suits the application, as does the wearing comfort. If you want a party in your head, you’re in the wrong place, but if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you should give them a listen.