Every so often, I like to write up a “late” review. One that summarises my thoughts and feelings of a device a couple of months later and provides a place for further discussion by those who might have been considering the device for a while, or for fellow owners to share their opinions.
I did one for Ear(Stick), and I’d been considering doing similar for Ear(Open), but the decision was made when I spent a day moving house and Ear(Open) were there to make one of the most stressful days of my life that bit more comfortable. This isn’t a review as such, but rather a retelling of my experience.
January 15th at 5:30am. I woke up, a similar anxiety to that of catching a flight in the early hours of the morning. The house was bare, I put on some cargo trousers, filling my pockets with my phone, keys, wallet and typically a pair of Ear(1), Ear(a), Ear(Open) or whatever is catching my mood. As you can imagine I’d already packed most of these comforts, except my Ear(Open), who’s case slipped nestled against my phone as they so often do.
After loading up the car yet again (we’d done a couple of car loads over the past 2 days since we had the keys to the new house but no van), my emotions were peaking. I needed a moment to calm down, the cold air against my skin, I reached for my beanie and thought about being in the exact opposite place. What if these emotions I was comparing to a flight could take me to being besides the pool, mellow house music playing from the hotel speakers and warm air against my skin? I’ve found myself listening to Ibiza/Chill poolside mix to emulate being somewhere I’m not, so on went my Ear(Open) with the beanie, a chilled playlist went on and a deep breath of the cold January air. This was obviously not a relaxed day by the pool, but if I could remind myself of days like that and make things easier, well I was hoping it would help.
I typically don’t like wearing anything under my beanie, stemmed earbuds often are pressed uncomfortably by the additional layer and to be honest, Ear(Open) suffer a similar fate of being not as comfortable due to the beanie, but with how the body protrudes from my ear slightly above the tragus this took the brunt of the additional pressure, making it more comfortable than other earbud type products. The cold had clearly got to Ear(Open) as well, the metal casing of the batteries tingled against the skin but as usual this would subside.
Under the beanie, with the backing track of an Ibiza poolside, I travelled in/out the house, lifting and moving boxes, getting things ready for the day ahead. This is where Ear(Open) shone for me, sure, runners need to hear their surroundings and be aware of being vulnerable, but in this instance, I was surrounded by a similarly stressed wife, father, uncle, and many members of my family all asking what, where, how, when things were moving. Not one of them knew I was secretly bopping along sipping a Pina colada in my head, all they saw was a relatively calm Dylan, cracking on with the task at hand.
The backing track provided by Ear(Open) was exactly that, a backing track. People could ask me any question and I’d hear them just as clearly as ever (though slightly muffled by the beanie), my dad could bark a task at me and I’d not need to question what was said, my wife could query where I wanted something and I could immediately respond,
One gripe I have with my car is it’s entertainment system. I drive a Mk6 Golf, with a stock entertainment system which takes a while to connect to my phone, in fact, it takes as long as it takes for me to drive about a third the distance I was moving house. (I really wasn’t moving that far which made things easier, but meant more smaller trips were made between the houses). I do not advocate for distracted driving by any means, and typically this entertainment system pairs up well and enables me to be hands-free, but on this day, it wouldn’t provide that brief respite of music, instead it would try and take the music from my ears to play out loud almost a third the way through driving causing more of a distraction. Instead, I opted to turn off the car’s entertainment system, and rely on the sounds provided by Ear(Open), I felt comfortable doing so given how little Ear(Open) distracts from the world around me and the short drive.
So, around about 9am, I’ve done several trips back and forth, Ear(Open) keeping my morning relaxed and things are relatively calm. Most boxes are moved to the new house and now it’s time for the heavier items of furniture now that we have the van. A change of tempo in the work I’m doing so the playlist changes, I think I went to a rock mix put together from Spotify with a lot of the band “A Day To Remember”, the irony of the band name and my situation wasn’t lost on me.
While carrying the wardrobe down the stairs with my uncle, my dad called to me to ask about the order we were taking these items; had heavy rock been blaring throughout the house from a speaker, it would have been a challenging moment of putting the wardrobe down, pausing the music, listening to my dad complain about my music choice, re-asking the question and then responding. Instead, Ear(Open) provided a private listening experience to keep my energy up without distracting me, this became especially handy when my dad was up a ladder, my uncle was on a phone call and he was calling for a screwdriver. As I’m sure others here are aware, this is yet another moment that could go wrong if people aren’t paying attention, yet Ear(Open) enabled me to be on-point and take action when it was needed.
I think it was around 11am when we finally had 99% moved to the new house, by this point my phone had told me my daily fitness goals had all been met and my body was absolutely aware of that fact. Being in the new property, another soundtrack was needed, switching to a more up-beat garage mix fuelled lifting boxes up 2 flights of stairs to my office space.
In the warmth of the house the beanie came off and my wife did a double take, I was busted. “How long have you had music on?!”, her question wasn’t one of anger, but more of jealousy (She’d later confide that she had missed the comfort of music through out such a busy day), this confirmed that while I had been so busy throughout the morning, no one was none the wiser and Ear(Open) continued to support the day.
I think it wouldn’t be fair to say that Ear(Open) kept up with me on that day, instead, they fulfilled their role perfectly. They got out the way, kept my world open and provided a creature comfort on a day where one was so sorely needed. How about everyone else, has anyone used their Ear(Open) in an unconventional fashion? What was your experience like?
