Bone-conducting headphones were a gamechanger for me when running, as I mentioned in my Suunto Sonic headphones review. Too many pairs of Bluetooth running headphones had become casualties to rain, sweat and/or breakage, while I loved the fact they allowed me to hear what was going on around me. I use my Shokz Openrun Pro 2 headphones so frequently that they’re now rather like sunglasses, in that I usually forget I’m wearing them when I walk into a shop or pub.
The OpenRock X should not, however, be confused with bone-conduction headphones. Instead, this is effectively a hybrid between traditional in-ear buds and 'bonephones'. Rather than sitting in front of your ears and transmitting sound to the eardrum via your skull, the speakers in these air-conduction headphones rest over the auditory canal, held in place by small adjustable arms that loop around the back of the ears. And, because they don’t require an alice band-like strap to anchor them to your noggin, they’re small enough to fit in your pocket when not in use.
