Most earbuds seal off the outside world. The Shokz OpenFit Air does the opposite: it sits outside the ear canal entirely, held in place by a flexible nitinol hook, and pipes sound in through an 11mm dynamic driver pointing at the ear rather than inside it.
The upside is genuine situational awareness. Running a busy road or cycling and want to hear traffic? These work. The trade-off is that bass is lighter than a sealed design at the same price point, though Shokz’s OpenBass algorithm does recover a reasonable amount of low end.
At 8.7g per side, they are light enough to forget about. The hook design holds securely during exercise without clamping pressure, and they sit neatly alongside glasses frames. IP54 water resistance covers sweat and light rain. Bluetooth 5.2 handles multipoint pairing across two devices.
Battery runs to six hours per charge, 28 hours total with the case. Ten minutes in the case returns two hours of playback. USB-C charging only, no wireless.
Available in black, white, and pink direct from Shokz UK at £119. The original OpenFit costs £60 more and the difference is hard to justify for most use cases.