Shokz OpenFit Pro reviewed: better than they should be

Noise cancellation almost always means blocking your ears with earphones, but what if it doesn’t? The Shokz OpenFit Pro shows a different take on ANC, and it’s a great start.

Technology can do some pretty clever things, but if you’ve taken a flight in the past few years, you probably know that blocking out the sound of the aircraft engine is one of the more comforting things tech has been made to do. You can thank Bose for the clever maths and science behind noise cancellation, and a category with lots of players in it, not just the bigwigs from Bose.

Noise cancellation is great at sealing you in a bubble of sound, and can be particularly handy outside of an aircraft, as well, working with other varieties of sound you don’t want there. The choir of human traffic or the bus or train, and so on.

It can be the exact type of isolation so many of us crave.

It can even work when you need to go for a run, sealing you in a world where your focus remains on the task at hand: exercising, because that’s what matters then and now.

But what if that technology could be used with open earbuds, and could let you hear the world while also cancelling out some other parts of what you can hear?

The Shokz OpenFit Pro has been built with this in mind, and offers a play on noise cancellation you might find preferable, if not for the price.

Design and features

Designed rather like Shokz’s other truly wireless offerings, the OpenFit Pro appear familiar, and yet also built to surprise.

The wrap-around earhook design we’ve seen on other Shokz models returns, but with different innards and an entirely different approach.

While previous Shokz models have either been split between tiny speakers and bone conduction, they’ve all been unified in their approach to open audio, delivering sound to your ears while you hear the world.

But the Shokz OpenFit Pro are different. They deliver sound, but they’re also designed to cancel some of it out.

To do this, Shokz has given the OpenFit Pro a complex driver and diaphragm system married to three microphones and processors handling adaptive algorithms to hear the world, but also remove aspects of it from what you hear.

You’ll wear the earbuds as they slot over your ears, resting against the opening to your ears, and the combination of speakers will recreate aspects of the outside slightly differently, while still playing sound altogether.

It’s complex and cordless, and arrives in an IP55 water resistant design, while also coming in a charging case with a built-in battery to recharge the earbuds, which can also be recharged on a wireless charging pad or via USB-C.

They’re also very different from the earring approach Shokz offered on the Dots. You wear these, but they’re more like regular earphones than that fashion-centric pair.

In-use

There may well be a lot inside the OpenFit Pro earphones, but clever controls aren’t really it. Instead, you get a button on each side, even if it feels like the earphone arms would be better with a touch controller.

That button can have its controls tweaked slightly with the app, though you’ll get more control with your phone, as well.

Using the app, there are controls to change the noise cancellation level, which doesn’t do much overall, but you can also turn on head-tracked spatial, see which Bluetooth multipoint devices are connected, and even play with an equaliser complete with presets or a custom mode.

Shokz’s app isn’t bad, and that’s good.

Performance

Whether you use the app or not, you’ll definitely end up using the OpenFit Pro to listen to audio, and probably music.

To test this out, we turn to Pickr’s Sound Test, which you can try out and listen to for yourself.

That starts with electronic, where we’re treated to a relatively balanced and surprisingly dynamic sound, but not with a heap of bass. Some is there and these aren’t bass-less like some other earphones, but the bass can go a little fuzzy at times, as well.

Diving into Daft Punk, for instance, the punch of the bass line and drums on “Contact” was just enough to let us know it was there, with that feeling echoing on other tracks.

There is clearly a big jump between “slight bass” to “fuzzy bass”, and that happens when you adjust the fit.

Wearing the OpenFit Pro is fairly easy — loop them over your ears, and you are practically done — but you may find you want to press the earphones closer to your ears to feel the low-end, and that’s where the sound goes a little fuzzy. It won’t distort entirely, but it’s also not super clear, and that tells you just about where the limits are.

Outside of this, the sound is fine. Evidenced in a variety of genres, the highs are punchy and the mids are nice, too. The lows are a little like their namesake — low — but some is better than none, and the design likely inhibits better bass in general.

For instance, there’s no guttural bass on FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks” nor is there a massive drive from Rage Against the Machine’s “Take the Power Back”, but the sound is still a lot better than you’d otherwise expect.

It’s a good, fun, and vibrant sound.

It’s a good and fun sound that also comes with a few other features, such as Dolby Atmos spatial audio, which doesn’t use a proper Atmos soundtrack, but instead emulates it as you move your head, the same approach Bose and other manufacturers use.

And then there’s one other feature worth talking about.

Noise cancellation

Open audio earphones don’t normally see noise cancellation, but this pair of earbuds kind of does because it has it onboard, or something that’s near enough for jazz (or any other type of music you listen to).

It’s not technically active noise cancellation, though. It’s something else that’s similar, but clearly not the same.

Noise reduction

Instead of active noise cancellation, the Shokz OpenFit Pro offers something more like active noise reduction, or even active noise isolation. But even so, the noise reduction capability of the Shokz is surprising.

Sure, it’s not true cancellation — you’re not blocking the regular hum and drum of the outside world — but it’s more isolation than this style of earphone normally sees. It feels like the earphones are latching onto some of the basic sounds and spectrums it can detect, and reversing the sounds like a pair of noise cancelling earbuds would.

It’s a cancellation effect not unlike how the Apple AirPods 4 work, only with more sound coming in. Apple’s AirPods 4 ANC do a better job with noise cancellation because they’re clearly blocking more sound than these open ear options. But you’re still getting some of the sound collapsed here, almost as if it’s being defeated and silenced with a big finger shush.

The result is a more isolated and quelled sound, and one that feels like you’re still getting what you need from a pair of open earbuds. You’ll hear people talk to you, and cars honking nearby, but the hum of life takes a backseat as your ears get a bit of a reprieve.

It’s like the whistling ear of having tinnitus disappearing as you listen to something else, and feels almost other-worldly. Everything is just that little bit quieter.

We could get used to this, that’s for sure.

Battery

There’s also a decent battery life on offer, with virtually no trade-off from owning any other pair of earphones, though the life varies based on how many features you take advantage of.

For instance, if you can go without the noise isolation, there’s up to 50 hours of battery life on offer. Basically, the Shokz OpenFit Pro will just be working as decent open earbuds like any other kind, but without the neat isolation technology. Fine.

Switching on the noise isolation cuts the battery life in half, getting you closer to 20 to 25 hours all up, offering 6 hours in use and a further 18 or so all up. Shokz gives you head-tracked spatial, as well, but you have to turn it on. Do that, however, and you can expect the battery life to drop for that feature use.

The overall math is that you should see anywhere between 18 and 24 hours depending on how much use you get out of the earbuds, though you can achieve more if you scale that feature use back.

Technically, that’s not a bad result, though also could still be better.

Mind you, we’ve never seen active noise isolation in a pair of open earbuds, so this is clearly all a starting point with room to grow.

Value

The price may throw you, however, because Shokz has priced the OpenFit Pro like another pair of noise cancelling buds. Earphones and earbuds that block out the world typically arrive for around the $400 mark, and that’s exactly how much Shokz retails the OpenFit Pro for, or a dollar under even.

They’re definitely interesting, but whether they’re worth what you pay, that leaves a bit of a question mark lingering over our ears.

Technically, they’re a noise cancelling earphone, even if the cancellation is fairly weak. They don’t block much noise out, even if they block some. And what the company is doing to achieve that is impressive, we won’t deny that.

But you won’t want to wear them on a flight, because they’re not proper noise cancelling buds. Meanwhile, walking around the day-to-day is a treat, and going for a walk or run means you’ll be left alone with your thoughts just that little bit more.

These aren’t your normal noise cancelling earbuds, so it’s difficult to argue that they should be priced like other ANC offerings.

What needs work?

Beyond the price, the controls could also do with some attention.

It’s not really a comfort thing, nor is that little button on either side really a bad thing. Nor is it terrible that Shokz has opted to use both sides of the earpiece as a speaker of sorts.

This is a complex pair of earbuds, so forgoing a touchpad in the obvious place — across the bridge of the ear — isn’t a total shock.

But the ear hook would have been a great place for something, and could have meant volume controls that made sense. Swipes and taps and all sorts of things at the back of the ear, rather than the awkward button press that just ends up dislodging the earpiece as you use it.

It means pressing the controls can run counter to physically wearing the OpenFit Pro, and like us, you’ll probably lean on your phone or wearable to control the volume, or even just skip a few songs that way.

What we love

Despite the meh controls and the questionable value, the sheer cleverness in the approach is something to be admired.

The Shokz OpenFit Pro aren’t quite noise cancelling earbuds, but they’re a hell of a lot better than they should be, as Shokz shows what it knows about sound.

It’s a rather intriguing concept, and one that can be quite addictive: earphones you can hear through that block some unwanted noise.

The idea still needs work, but you can really see Shokz’s concept is in its early stages, and already works a treat.

Give it a few years, and it’ll probably be a proper noise cancellation competitor in an almost unbelievable kind of way.

OpenFit Pro vs the competition

The biggest problem, though, is that for $399 Shokz is technically competing with noise cancelling earbuds and earphones, and that is a problem. They’re not quite in the same category, but they still compete, and that weakens the value and the noise cancelling capability.

For instance, at $429, Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 offer some of the world’s best noise cancellation and sound for iPhone owners, and they’re only $30 more. While the $449 Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2nd-gen are only $50 more, and handle the best noise cancellation on Android. Truthfully, it is tight between the both of them.

That might seem like this reviewer advocating spending more money, but when you’re talking about $30 to $50, it’s not much more when you’re talking about buying earphones that can cancel the world out, versus some that only get you some of the way.

And that’s before you look at other surprisingly capable models for less than what Shokz is offering.

The $279 Apple AirPods 4 with ANC does a better job with noise cancellation while also letting some sound in, while the $109 CMF Buds 2 Plus were our value earphone choice of last year, and are less than a third the price of the Shokz OpenFit Pro, offering noise cancellation that also could be better, but being so much less expensive.

Really, the problem with the Shokz OpenFit Pro is that they’re competing with other noise cancelling earphones, even though they’re not technically noise cancelling earphones. That puts them at a disadvantage, and it’s one that shows up in the price.

At $299, the Shokz OpenFit Pro would be a solid buy. At $399, they’re more of a wish for people who have spare change and want to run with a touch of isolation from the world.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

Not even two weeks into 2026, the Shokz OpenFit Pro is one of the most intriguing devices we’re likely to play with, and a pair of earphones that will clearly be worth coming back to use all year round. The price isn’t crash hot, but the technology is, and you can really see what Shokz is thinking, and where it’s going next.

If you have $400 spare and need that little bit of isolation as you walk and run and jump and generally just be fit and active, the Shokz OpenFit Pro is a fantastic pair to consider.

The makings of active noise cancellation in an open ear design give Shokz an edge in a category that really doesn’t exist. They’re a genuinely clever pair of active earphones.

We wish the price was a little better, but if you need to hear the world while you go about doing your things, the Shokz OpenFit Pro are worth a look and a listen, and let’s be honest, you’ll be able to do both with ease.

These are better than they should be, and worth checking out for sure. Especially if you can find them for less.