Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 review: Exercise headphones that have it all

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If you exercise whilst listening to music often, then you’ll know how annoying it is when your earbuds start slipping out due to sweat and movement. It’s infuriating having to keep shoving them back in every few seconds. Well, there’s a solution; the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 which, I’m pleased to say, have utterly blown me away.

If you’ve never used open-ear earbuds before then it takes a bit of getting used to, but they make running much more enjoyable and safe. After two weeks of using the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2, I’ve concluded that they are easily the best value earbuds for exercise that you can buy. 

Here’s why.

Design

The Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 are beautifully designed earbuds. From the weight to the build materials and colours, they look and feel premium and have obviously been designed with running in mind.

The casing for the bone conduction (more on that later!) parts and battery hub are made from a nickel-titanium blend which is reassuring to wear and offers a high degree of durability. There’s no hard plastic in sight which helps to justify the price.

It also adds to the weight of the earbuds. Normally, you want earbuds to be light but you need a bit of heft with running earbuds to make sure they stay in place. Shokz has got the balance between being annoyingly heavy and unstably light absolutely spot on.

With a weight of about 30 grams (1.06 ounces), the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 hang perfectly on your head, never bouncing around during a run, whilst feeling forgettably light. I’m honestly impressed with how Shokz has pulled this off.

The earbuds are kept extra secure using ear hooks and a Nickel-Titanium memory band that goes around the back of your head to provide a bit of clamping force. There hasn’t been an instance where these headphones have budged a single inch.

The OpenRun Pro 2 earbuds also have an IP55 rating so they are water resistant. I can attest to this because I took them out for a run during a recent storm in the UK and they were fine.

Sound quality

If you’ve never used a pair of open-ear or bone-conduction earbuds before, then it’s a bit of a weird experience. They almost sound like you’re listening to surround sound speakers that are a bit far away.

You aren’t going to get audiophile sound quality on any pair of open-ear earbuds. But that’s not the point. Open-ear earbuds are made to balance listening to audio with being able to hear the outside world around you.

With that disclaimer aside, the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 do a tremendous job of delivering a dynamic and rich sound profile thanks to the use of dual drivers; one for bone conduction, one for air conduction. The most impressive part is the bass.

These earbuds deliver relatively deep bass which actually booms thanks to those dual drivers, more so than other competitors like the Huawei FreeClip earbuds. You can feel it thumping your eardrums which is a revelation for this design

Mid-range and higher frequencies sound less crisp and a bit tinny due to the open-ear design but it isn’t terrible by any means. Listening to music is a good experience with the Shokz, just don’t expect them to deal with complex audio like you’re in a studio. Once you start exercising, you don’t really notice the deficiencies.

I love a podcast so was interested to see how these earbuds would deal with them, considering they are often quieter and less produced than music. I’m happy to report that the dual drivers once again come in clutch here. Voices remained crisp, clear and intimate.

Volume can be an issue with open-ear designs. To get the best out of the OpenRun Pro 2, I did have to listen near to or at maximum volume when outdoors. At half volume, things began to get lost in the wind and drowned out by other noises. But it’s a small gripe really; a feature, not a flaw. You’re meant to be able to hear the world around you.

Oh and that storm I mentioned? Well, there were gale-force winds and I could still hear my music perfectly well throughout. All I’m trying to say is that the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 sound great and are loud enough considering they’re open-ear earbuds.

A word for the microphone too. Shokz uses an algorithm to filter unwanted noise during calls and has positioned the microphone in the lowest wind zone to provide solid call quality.

Battery life and charging

Shokz states that the OpenRun Pro 2’s battery life is 12 hours. This is a bit of an overestimation in my experience, I think mostly down to the fact that I was listening at high volumes. Battery life rests at somewhere nearer to 10 hours I would say.

They charge very quickly though, up to full battery in an hour, via USB-C. The USB-C port is waterproof too thanks to a moveable silicon covering.

Functionality

The Shokz have three buttons.

Two of them are located on the casing behind your ear; one to turn the volume down and one to turn the volume up which is also combined with the power button. These are physical buttons too which I much prefer to touch controls.

The third button is located on the side of the bone conduction unit. This is also a physical button that allows you to control what you are listening to. A single press pauses a track, a double press skips to the next track and a triple press restarts the current track. When listening to a podcast, double-pressing skips you ahead a few seconds.

I like that Shokz has compressed all of these actions into one button, but I think an extra button could help to make this even more user-friendly, just to separate out the ‘next track’ function. I’m really nitpicking here though.

Price and Competitors

The OpenRun Pro 2 costs $179/£169. For this you also get a hard fabric carry case and a charging cable.

That places these earbuds in the mid-range in terms of expense. The Bose Utra Open costs $300/£300 and Huawei FreeClip £180 for comparison. And if you want bone conduction, then, well, there aren’t really many competitors worth your time. Let’s not even mention AirPods.

With that in mind, the price for the Shokz is very reasonable. If you’re serious about exercise whilst listening to music, I can’t see many better options.

Should you buy the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2?

If you’re like me and hate running with earbuds inside your ear canal because they get all sweaty and fall out, then these are ideal. Not only do they provide great sound quality, but they are also incredibly comfy and offer the safety of hearing stuff around you.

I was apprehensive before using the OpenRun Pro 2 but I’ve been blown away with just how well they deal with maintaining audio quality during louder environments and the weather.

For less than $180, you really can’t go wrong.

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