Headphones with Noise Cancelling that Don t Stick in your Ear Shokz OpenFit Pro Showcase

If you're anything like me and you need to listen to music or something while you're working out, it can be frustrating how many headphones struggle with this use case. Ergonomics aside, some over-the-ear and even in-ear headphones can isolate you too much from your surroundings, not to mention get sweaty and nasty. And bone conduction? It's great for when I'm swimming laps, but makes compromises on sound quality that I'd rather not have to deal with when I'm not Thankfully, Shock sent over their OpenFit Pro, an open-ear headphone with active noise cancellation that doesn't rely on physically plugging your ear, which is great because it means you don't have to worry about that zombie sneaking up on you in the final kilometer. I know I worry about that. So how do they work? Well, the principle is the same as other active noise cancelling headphones. To oversimplify it a lot, an array of microphones listens to the sounds around you. Then the headphones add the inverse sound to their output, which cancels out the ambient noise. Because they're open-ear, however, they don't get the benefit of a physical seal, which helps other headphones block out even more noise. But that's a trade-off that Shock's made knowing that the like... Of course, this advantage would be kind of worthless if they didn't actually cancel out any noise. So let's try these out with a pink noise machine, which admittedly is a very ideal scenario for active noise cancelling. But we'll get to some other things later, and this should at least give us a baseline for how they work. So that you guys can experience what I'm experiencing, we're going to be doing something a little unusual. I'm going to shove a mic into his ear. We can't screen record and playback music at the same time on iPhone, so I guess we're stuck just holding this up. But basically, that's what it sounds like. We can actually give her a little bit more. Cool, right? You do get a little bit of the pressure sensation that's typical of ANC, but if you've ever experienced it before, then you'll know what to expect. That's pretty trippy to have your ear just open, but still have noise cancellation work. Huh. It's a weird sensation. I've never had anything quite like it. It really is. Say that again now that I've opened it. I've never had anything. It's a weird sensation. I've never had anything quite like it. Okay. Once more at the exact same volume if you can. It's a weird sensation. I've never had anything quite like it. Yeah. Toward the very end there, it kicked in, and it's like, oh, oh, okay. Oh, you can find your earbuds by paying them and stuff. Wow. That's pretty cool. Here, check this out. Can I take the mic out now? I guess so. Okay, cool. Part of why this implementation of ANC works without sealing your ear is thanks to what Shox calls their feed-forward mics. Mic 1 is here and is used as the primary microphone for monitoring external noise. Mic 2 is here and is a secondary microphone that captures the noise to enhance noise reduction. And mic 3 is here on the inside to pick up the remaining noise that makes it toward your ear canal. It's a pretty trippy sensation to be able to hear the sounds around you really clearly while also having the noise floor just drop out from under you. But noise cancellation only matters if the sound you're getting is any good. First up in the sound quality category, we're going to talk about the mic and how it sounds for call quality. Oh, I guess I should throw them back on there. Shox claims that the three mics working together with their AI voice recognition will reduce 99.4% of background noise. It's unclear exactly what that number means, but what we can do is record the audio that I'm speaking right now, flip on some background noise, and let you guys decide how you like it. Want to hit the white noise machine? So I'm talking right now. We've got the white noise going in the background. We'll give you some using these and some using my lavalier microphone that's on my chest. And maybe hit me with some traffic, David, and crank it. Okay, there's a more obnoxious traffic background noise. Talking over this, having a cool conversation with my YouTube beer peeps. I think we're good on that. But we still haven't answered the question of how they sound as, you know, headphones. Because this is a sponsored video, and sound enjoyment is pretty subjective, even if we can measure response curves, I don't want to get super deep into my personal impressions and preferences. But what I can say is that they are good enough to enjoy a wide variety of content without the quality being distracting. Whether it's jamming out to familiar favorites, hearing most of the details in new beats, or clearly identifying which character is speaking in an audiobook, they are solid. Definitely the best Shox that I've ever heard. Now, open-ear headphones have their pros and cons, like practically eliminating the problem of length modes that we all experience with IEMs, as well as having a very low acoustic Z, or specific acoustic impedance, which means that your individual listening experience should be much closer to the person next to you than with sealed earbuds. On the con side, though, open-ear headphones are usually at a slight disadvantage when it comes to giving you full boomy bass. However, Shox claims a 50% improvement in the low-end versus their last-gen open-ear models, and from what I've seen, they have made significant progress there. Now this is the part where we get into Shox's messaging for how they did all of this. Their dual diaphragm and high-quality dome cap are designed for dynamic and distortion-free sound, optimized for Dolby Atmos. Now, regular viewers here probably know Dolby Atmos as the audio standard that enables better surround sound in movies and includes vertical speakers, but this is not that. Unlike that Dolby Atmos, this is specifically tailored to enhance the listening experience on earbuds. On top of all that, you get five EQ presets and a custom EQ in the Shox app. Always appreciate that. But what about the tired elephant in the room? Turns out he's not that tired. Shox claims that at 50% volume, if you have the ANC off, these puppies will last 12 hours on a single charge and up to 50 hours with the case. Maybe more importantly for us absent-minded folk, though, a 10-minute charge will provide four hours of playtime, and the case includes Qi wireless charging for your convenience. Now, naturally, ANC does reduce these times, but I also found that with the ANC active, I didn't need to push the volume as high. As for fit, Shox designed these to be comfortable for a long run. Now, every ear is, of course, different, but their UltraSoft Silicone 2.0 really is UltraSoft, which minimizes chafing, a common runner problem. And their open-ear design keeps your ears pressure-free and comfortable. The earhook design is designed to ensure a stable fit under even the most intense workouts, so much so that I've been asked to do our patented head shake test. Okay, I finally got it. I also got a headache. And on top of everything we've seen so far, little dizzy, they're rated for IP55 water and dust resistance, which, no, no, we don't need to test that. Thank you, though. Thank you, David. Since you're here, by the way, you've been using the Oakland Fit Pros for about a week. Any thoughts to share? My first thought was, finally, headphones I can share with people without feeling deep, immense shame. I think sharing earbuds, disgusting. These, totally, totally acceptable. This solves my major earbud problem and allows me to go for runs while having a pretty ideal balance of isolation and focus and awareness and safety. I was also really impressed with the multi-point pairing. I've had really bad experiences with other devices in the past, and this, possibly thanks to its Bluetooth 6.1, worked really well across my PC, Steam Deck, and phone without any real issues. What I also really like is that it has a physical button for controls as opposed to a capacitive touch sensor. Because when I wear hoodies in the gym, it often gives false positives, because I'm getting so sweaty. And so I get my music pausing in the middle of an intense workout, and that really sucks when I'm in the groove. Okay, cool. It doesn't have the most pocketable case, but it's a lot smaller than some other gym bud cases. So, you know, your mileage may vary. And the extra size is wide, not thick. So I think most people will probably find a place that they can kind of slip it into. One of the best features, though, is that everything we've said is fully compatible with both Android and iPhone through the Shox app. So nothing is locked into a specific ecosystem. The Shox OpenFit Pros are available right now for $250 in both black and white. And you can check them out at the link in the video description. Shox has a whole array of fitness forward audio products for a wide range of uses and prices. So you can check those out too. Thanks again to Shox for sponsoring this video. And if you guys want to see more headphone content, maybe go check out our Short Circuit channel, where we do more unboxings. That's where we usually unbox this kind of tech.