With ears free

Review: Shokz Openrun Pro 2 - More Comfortable Bone Conduction Headphones

If you find all headsets that sit in or on the ears uncomfortable, or want your ears completely free so you can hear your surroundings, Shokz's bone conduction headset is an option.

Published 7 April 2025 - 09:57

Bone conduction means creating sound by sending vibrations through the skull bone, which then propagate to the eardrum and sound is perceived. It is used, among other things, by divers for communication when regular headsets are impractical. Shokz instead uses bone conduction technology for sports headphones. It has two potential advantages. Firstly, it is more comfortable, at least if you prefer having a band behind the ear rather than something that sits over or in the ear and presses. Secondly, your hearing is completely unobstructed by having the headset on. If you are sitting in an office or working out at the gym, you might rather want a quiet bubble around you, but if you are out for a run, you might want to hear if a bike rings or someone shouts.

Shokz Openrun Pro consists of a band you have behind your neck and two hooks over the ears. The speakers themselves sit just in front of the ears while the battery and buttons are behind. There is absolutely no risk of losing the headset during use. The worst that can happen is that it comes slightly out of position. An unnecessarily large case is included, more like the case for a pair of on-ear headphones than the case for a True Wireless headset. The headphones are sold in two sizes with different length bands and can be seen as men's and women's sizes roughly.

To begin with, I am impressed by the sound of the headset. Sure, there is less bass and more treble than in an in-ear headset with rubber tips, but the same goes for AirPods, for example, and this is still bone conduction?

Not just bones

But is it really bone conduction? I find it difficult to get the headset to actually sit directly against the skin. Sometimes hair gets in the way, and if I lean my head against something, the band is pushed out of position, and the strange thing is that it doesn't seem to matter much. I try lifting the band so that it doesn't have skin contact and think it sounds about the same.

Shokz calls the Openrun Pro 2 bone-conducting with Dualpitch technology. This means there are also speakers that direct sound into the ears in addition to the bone vibrations. Certainly good for getting a full range of sound, but with the downside that the headset is quite loud. You can't sit in a quiet office environment with it without disturbing those around you.

I continue to experiment. If I put my fingers in my ears, I can still hear the music, but a bit more muffled, and if I then lift the bands at the same time, the sound disappears, so there is still an element of bone conduction in the sound. I also try pressing the headset while I have my finger in my ear, and then the sound from the bone conduction becomes much clearer. This suggests that the headset doesn't fit me particularly well and that I would get a greater effect from the bone conduction if the headset made better contact with the cheekbones.

It might not matter much how the sound is created, but as it is now, I often need to turn up the volume to near maximum, and then, of course, the sound leakage to the surroundings also becomes greater.

The sound during phone calls is tinny, both for me and the person I'm talking to, but the headset is reasonably good at handling disturbing background noise.

The battery life on a single charge is quite okay, and the headset has a USB connection used for charging it. If you can imagine a headset that is more cumbersome than a regular True Wireless to avoid having something that sits in your ears, Shokz Openrun Pro gets the job done, but don't expect miracles from the bone conduction technology.