Shokz OpenDots One reviewed: comfortable clip-ons

Not quite earbuds but also not quite jewellery, the Shokz OpenDot One deliver a sound to let you hear both the real world and your real tunes in a style that’s a little more open.

There’s a new style of earbuds working its way into the world, and your ears may never be the same again.

While earphones can annoy folks, particularly anyone who doesn’t want to put something in their ear, and earbuds clearly divide the room, open earbuds are becoming a category for everyone who doesn’t care for either of the two aforementioned styles.

Open ear devices come in a variety of styles, from the bone conduction models to those that just sit around the ear, but the idea is clear: audio you can hear alongside the world that may be a little comfier overall.

Shokz definitely has history in the open ear space, what with the assortment of truly wireless earbuds that go around the ear, as well as its excellent bone conduction breed that even won it a Best Pick from this publication last year.

But its latest pair is a little different again, and reworks earbuds to be a little more like a wearable of a different kind.

Design and features

Built less like earbuds and more like earrings, the OpenDots One are likely the first generation of a style Shokz is joining, first launched by Bose last year. That style is a pair of open-ear listening buds designed to clip over your ears and hold to them like earrings. (We expect the second-gen will be the OpenDots Two.)

Technically they’re not earrings, but they do kind of look that way, the titanium arm covered in silicone flexing around your ears with the speaker against your ear canal and the barrel with controls and Bluetooth receiver against the back of your ear.

Inside the OpenDots One, Shokz is using a two-driver system aimed at each other, a little like the position of the speakers in the Bose Music Monitor desktop speakers. Positioning two drivers against each other theoretically helps the airflow of the speaker system, and allows for better bass with less distortion. Or at least that’s the idea.

In Shokz’s marketing parlance, the idea is to emulate the sound of a bigger driver, one that is closer to 16mm in size.

In real life, the OpenDots One earbuds use two 11.8mm speakers in each ear, though as to whether the 16mm equivalence is nailed is anyone’s guess. However, the goal is bigger sound than the earbuds should be able to offer, something Shokz also offers with support for Dolby Audio in the app.

In-use

Grab the earbuds and stretch out the arm, and you’ll be able to sit them over the bottom of your ears, wrapping around them with a speaker at your canal and the barrel at the back. That’s the way you’re supposed to wear these things, though truth be told, finding the perfect fit may take a few times.

The Shokz Dots are lightweight at around 6 grams each. so they won’t tax your lobes too much, but you simply need to pair them with your phone, and if you want, grab the app where you can opt to use Dolby Audio to expand the soundstage, change controls, and mess with the equaliser.

Mostly it’s about finding the perfect fit. Once you’ve got that, you’re good to go.

Interchangeable design

If you can get that perfect fit where the speakers is in the sweet spot of right next your ear opening, the comfort is great. But one aspect worth talking about and hardly mentioned is something earbuds never offer. Literally never.

The Shokz Dots are interchangeable. In that there is no left and there is no right. Each bud will fit into either ear, because the design is universal.

In nearly 20 years of writing headphones reviews, that’s a first. And it’s a clever first, because it not only means there’s no wrong way to put the earbuds back in the case, and it also means there’s no wrong way to put the earbuds on.

Left. Right. It’s all the same. It’s clever, and surprising that no one else has considered this before.

Controls

The controls are a little different, though, and not as user friendly as Shokz probably expects.

On the one hand, you can tap the band in the same way can tap the barrel behind your ears, with a double tap pausing and playing audio. That’s easy. But you can also do a “two-finger pinch” on the barrel, and that will trigger different functions, like answering a call.

The problem is it’s not easy, and is more like trying to pull a hair off the back of your ear in the most cumbersome way.

You’ll probably master double tap to pause and play, but with the limited number of controls outside of that, we’d stick to pulling out your phone and using that. It’s just more reliable.

Performance

Testing with the Pickr Sound Test, which you can hear for yourself, we found a better sound than expected, with a reasonable amount of bass married to decent highs.

Take the sound in electronic with Tycho and Daft Punk: the bass offers oomph, but can feel muddled and lacking in detail. It doesn’t drive too high — there’s no obvious distortion — but it lacks the detail we like to hear. Despite this, the sound is comfortable, with a good blend of highs and lows, offering a bright but slightly booming delivery.

In tracks with a little more from the vocals, the lows can be bold, but so are the highs, blending together in a way that makes these buds ideal for pop and R&B. And in some tracks, the Shokz OpenDots One deliver almost the right sound.

In Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”, the bass is layered thick, almost like heavy paint, with the earbuds offering a good punch. This track surprised. By comparison, Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain” felt a little muddled, while FKA Twigs’ bass-testing “Two Weeks” showed the limits of the lows here: there are no guttural sounds, and some of the song’s instruments went walkabout.

Rock and jazz came across a little better by comparison, the real instrumentation delivering decent clarity without too much from the lows, though at times, it felt unbalanced. Older (and typically better engineered) tracks from the likes of David Bowie just didn’t nail the brief for us, while modern rock from Muse and Rage Against The Machine certainly got closer.

Overall, the Shokz OpenDots One earbuds are good enough for most music, but not as perfect as other pairs in the world.

Battery

Battery is one area where Shokz largely nails it, delivering around 9 to 10 hours of music playback, or closer to 6 to 7 if you decide to make a few phone calls in there, as well.

Wearing the OpenDots One for music, we found the ten hours is possible, though we’d invariably wear them for four or five hours, and then place them back in their little charging case.

If you do decide to wear them all day, they will likely keep on delivering sound to you throughout the day. That’s not something many pairs of earbuds can deliver on, and the case is wirelessly charged, too.

Value

However the price can be a little unappealing. It’s not that it’s a bad price, it just seems higher than it should be. Bose’s pair is more expensive, but the audio quality is better overall, and you also get a bit of spatial. And we thought Bose’s earring-approach to audio was a little overpriced, too.

By comparison, the $339 cost of the Shokz Dots should be closer to maxing out at the $299 mark, and probably lower. Given their direct competition is more likely to be a pair of AirPods, somewhere in the midst of $279 would probably be better value overall.

What needs work?

Ultimately, the biggest problem with the Shokz Open Dots One is how much sound they let in. These are open-ear earbuds, which means you’ll hear both your music and the outside world. That’s both good and bad.

It’s good if you’re going for a run, because you’ll hear the road and the world and people talking to you as you listen to your tunes. It’s bad, however, if you’re anywhere with more than one person, like on a train, in a cafe, a gym, or walking around the city. Lots of people means lots more ambient noise for the earbuds to compete with, and that means turning the volume up on the Shokz Dots to compete.

Granted, it’s a problem most open styles of earbuds have to compete with anyway, but some are getting better because noise cancellation is beginning to work in more open form-factors. Not these, though. These will make your ears compete for volume, which may mean turning up the sound which isn’t great for your ears otherwise.

What we love

Despite the odd niggle, Shokz gains points for the ambidextrous nature of the OpenDots One. We’re not kidding that this is something we’ve not seen before, and Shokz wins points here.

It also wins points for the sound, which while it could improve, is a lot better than we expected overall. The fact that there’s any bass here at all is a total surprise in the best way possible.

Shokz Open Dots One vs the competition

But in terms of what these earring-inspired earbuds compete with, the answer is two-parter.

On the one hand, there’s only one true competitor, coming in the form of the Bose Ultra Open, the first pair of earbuds to adopt this earring design, and a better sounding pair at that. Shokz has a lower price on its competitor, but Bose has better sound.

However, the Shokz also compete with just about every other pair of earbuds out there, and that can make the $339 cost a little difficult to swallow. Bose’s was always pricey enough, but it’s Bose, so you kind of expect it from a premium brand.

Shokz still carries some premium quality to its name, but the Open Dots One don’t quite have the same sense of balance, or even as solid controls. And while they’re definitely open audio earbuds, they also let a lot of audio in, so their competition may as well be the AirPods 4 with ANC, which do the same thing, but also support a remarkable level of noise cancellation while being less expensive.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

We’ll admit that we came out of this review more surprised than we expected.

It’s not that Shokz hasn’t produced quality gear in the past, but for a first-generation idea, the OpenDots One work better than they probably should. They’re not perfect, and the price could easily be fine-tuned, but there are some good ideas here that will be even better in version two.

What’s more, Bose has competition here, with Shokz offering something else in this fairly new category. It’s kind of exciting.

Frankly, if you’re someone who likes to hear the world and doesn’t want either earbud or earphone, the Shokz OpenDots One are worth a look, if only because of how ear-friendly they are. The bass could be better and you might need to turn the volume up, but these are comfortable clip-ons for sure.