Shokz OpenComm Headphones are Awesome
6 months ago I bought SHOKZ OpenComm2 Open-Ear Bone Conduction Headphones and I’m very happy with them! I wear them all the time. I use them to give my life a nice soundtrack, chat on the phone, listen to podcasts while doing chores, and rock out. 
Key reasons they are awesome:
– Excellent situational awareness – Since they don’t go over my ears or in them, I can hear my surroundings perfectly.
– Excellent for telephone use – No one tells me they have trouble hearing me on the phone. I hear people on the phone perfectly.
– Very good speakers – Music sounds nearly as good as with excellent over-the-ear headphones, with good bass. I’ve gotten used to their slightly-not-perfect sound and have zero qualms with how they reproduce music.
– Easy to wear – They don’t fatigue my ears like over-the-ear or earbuds do!
– Great battery life – They last at least one full day, I haven’t tried more.
– They aren’t gigantic on my head so I feel I can wear them when talking to people and they won’t feel like I’m a space alien or ignoring them.
– The controls are simple and work well. It’s got a context sensitive “stop/start” button (pickup/hangup phone call, play/pause music), mute microphone button, 2 volume buttons that double as bluetooth connect and power buttons. And that’s it! I was initially disappointed it didn’t have as many bells and whistles as, for instance, the Google Pixel Buds. But after playing with the Google Pixel Buds, I realized that none of the settings actually did anything I really needed!
The Cons really isn’t that significant, most of these are things that I don’t think the makers could actually fix. But for completeness, here you go!:
– The case is bigger than an earbud case. I can just barely stuff the case in a jacket pocket. And since it’s got a boom microphone, It could definitely break it if I stuffed it in my jacket without a case.
– The speakers push lightly on the tragus of my ear, bending them in toward my ear. Adjusting the headphones lightly fixes that.
– It’s hard to lie down while wearing them with the strap that goes around the back of my ear.
– They don’t have active sound cancellation, but I tried all of the fanciest earbuds January 2024 (Google Pixel Buds Pro, Jabra Elite 10, Apple Airpods Pro, and Poly Voyager Free 60) and all of their noise cancellation systems seemed kindof kitchy. At best, it “kinda” worked, at worst it made me feel trapped in a sonic vacuum.
– Proprietary charger jack. It plugs right into USB, so they could have put a USB-C jack on the headphones. But granted, that would have made the headphones a bit larger.
– If I’m connected to my phone via bluetooth and nothing is playing and a short alarm rings, the first 1/2 second of the alarm doesn’t play so instead of hearing a “Ba Ding!” I only hear a quiet “ng” which I sometimes miss. This is a common problem with bluetooth taking time to power up vs battery saving. I solved this by making my default alarm sound a 3 second sound instead of a 1 second sound. :-)
I was very skeptical about spending $170 on headphones, but these make my life better. I chat on the phone and listen to music, and still feel connected to my surroundings. The SHOKZ OpenComm2 Open-Ear Bone Conduction Headphones are great!
PS. Thank you PPG for the initial recommendation! And to Ilan for showing me his set!