When it came to making this review, I had a really tough time trying to decide what to do. I first went out to make some content with Ear (open) and get some action shots to make a little compilation with. But when I put them all together, it didn’t feel like I was doing the earbuds justice, and writing a long essay to go with the action shots didn’t seem right.
I’ve actually been using bone conducting headphones for years now, which use a different approach for the same goal. And for most of those years, I’ve been explaining what they are to people, advocating for how good they are and convincing people to give them a go.
I therefore felt like I needed something more in depth, to try and share some of my experience with them and share some of my use cases, both in terms of sport and in my normal everyday life. And so, I decided to expand my action shots video into a more thorough review. I’m no content maker mind, and I’m certainly not going to quit my day job 😂 but please find my review below!
It’s quite long and I don’t have the most captivating of voices, so if you’re here and you just want to watch a short video or two featuring Ear (open) without my speel, then here are my original videos as well.
These are also in my main review (they’re just surrounded my lots of footage of me talking) so if you watched the above you’ll have seen these already, but they’re a lot more fun than my review is so I wanted to give you the option of watching them separately too!
The short of it all is, I’m really enjoying these headphones.
I’ve been a fan of open ear and bone conducting headphones for several years now. There’s definitely a misconception with this type of headphones though. While they were made with sport in mind, and are essential in my opinion if you have to wear headphones while doing sport, that wasn’t the reason I first got a pair.
I got my first pair to be a personal and portable pair of speakers, that I could play music through without disturbing anyone else but that didn’t isolate my hearing either. Like my own personal radio that no one else could hear. It’s more polite than putting on a radio or playing music through speakers, especially at work or in an office, but it also means I don’t need to isolate myself either. I could listen to my own music and engage with others. I use them every day and for most occasions, with sport being the minority.
I know most people may just be reading this out of interest and have never really considered getting a pair, dismissing them as a fitness thing. But if you do get the chance to try a pair, please do. I don’t get any commission from saying this, but I genuinely believe that this style of open earbud is the way forward, even if (dare I say it) you opt for another brand like AfterShokz. You might suddenly find your world opened up even if you haven’t put on a pair of trainers for 10 years.
And if I have convinced you to try open ear headphones (of any kind), then these Ear (open)s from Nothing are definitely a solid choice, what with the premium comfort, quality and battery life they offer. I think the only thing I’m finding myself wanting for is an auto-volume feature to adjust the volume based on the noise in the surroundings so I don’t have to adjust it as frequently when I’m moving between different environments.
Otherwise, these things are ticking all the boxes!
