As you probably all know, bone conducting headphones sit just in front of your ears: the sound is piped direct to your inner ears via your cheekbones, so ear canals stay open and unobstructed, so you can hear what’s going on around you. I’ve found if I put the volume up really high and someone is talking quietly, it’s less easy, but that’s the same as listening to music in a room without headphones.
It took me a little while of moving the back band - that goes round your head - up and down slightly to get them totally comfortable. But strangely I don’t worry about that now but chuck them on, with the headband (which is very thin and light weight) under my hair. I had a conversation with Mr IDS yesterday with music playing, and he didn’t even know I was wearing them. All normal noise is clearly audible, and there is no way you would miss traffic noise or somebody coming up behind you.
I haven’t run outside with them yet, but I did 25 minutes fast (for me) treadmill run yesterday and they were brilliant. They are so lightweight and comfortable that, without the music, I wouldn’t have known they were there.
Sound quality is pretty good. It’s not quite as bass rich as some people would like but, as a previous HIFI buff, I’ve learned to enjoy music the way it was recorded, and the listening experience with these is similar. You can always fiddle with the equaliser settings if you want more bass. An interesting trick is to put your fingers in your ears when wearing the Aftershokz: you will get very full bass then. The phones come with a pair of foam ear pieces if you want to listen at home with the usual ear buds bass experience. I also haven’t tested with any downloaded music I own, so that might sound better still. Edit, now I have and it’s definitely a richer sound than Spotify, but not enough to matter hugely, especially when you’re running.
I’ve switched my Spotify settings from automatic to high. Just switching between normal and high makes an audible difference, so it’s worth it if you have enough data. How 4g will cope with that little bit of extra bandwidth I’ve yet to find out as I’ve mostly used them via WiFi round the house. I will test today outside and report back. I have also managed to change my plan to From 1GB data to 4GB for the same price, so I’m covered. Brilliant: unlimited calls and texts and 4GB data for £11.25 a month on Vodafone. Yes Virgin Mobile users, I know you can probably get that for half as much, but Virgin uses the EE network which doesn’t give nearly as good call reception in some places. Mr IDS, an EE user, has been sneaking outside for years to take his calls on that pretext 😂
Talking of phone calls, I took one yesterday and it was clearly audible, plus easy to answer and end.
The controls are on the headband, are easy to use and are very accessible. The Aftershokz pair very quickly with my phone. The only problem I have is that I have to forget them and re-pair when I switch them on. That’s an iPhone XS issue though. With my watch, I have to restart my phone before the phone will recognise the watch and let me synch.
These are attractive, invisible under long hair, can be worn with glasses, and are lightweight and comfortable. Well worth the money on the current £55 offer just about everywhere (unless it’s gone back up - haven’t checked today).
As an aside, I’ve yet to hear a Spotify ad on my free account, but that might be because I haven’t listened for an uninterrupted half hour because I’ve been adding tracks to playlists and playing tracks individually a lot of the time.
So, there it is. If you have any questions, fire away 😊 (I should write reviews for a living! 😂😂😂)
Edit: I have now done a 25 minute run outside with them. I could hear both music and surrounding noises very easily. The only time I had to turn the volume up was when traffic was passing me closely at speed, and it was easy enough to access the volume switches. Likewise, when I left the house it was easy to start the playlist then immediately pause it till I was ready to start running, this saving having to fiddle with my phone to start playing. The Bluetooth connection never faltered with my phone in its leather pouch in my jacket pocket. I used 37MB of data streaming Spotify set on high quality. My 4GB if data should easily cover running 7 days a week doing Marcothon, even with some longer runs.
Listen up - the HUHM & 10K playlist and soundtrack need you! 🏃🏃♂️🏃♀️🎵🎧
Ran 3K today, great improvement!
HU10K/10 MILES EVENT: WE NEED YOUR MUSIC CHOICES 🎶🎶
