 So, headphone reviews. Usually when you think of a headphone review, you think about sound quality and noise isolation and battery life and comfort and those are your priorities, you know, headphone stuff. But I have been testing out a whole different kind of headphone. I've been testing out open ear headphones, headphones that are designed to let you hear the world because they leave your ears open. Now, why would you want something like this? Well, here's an example. Riding a bike. When you're riding a bike, you need to be able to hear the environment around you because it's kind of super dangerous to be riding your bike with your ears closed, especially in the city where there are two ton cars that can run over you at any second, even though there's a white line for bikes that are dedicated to you. They're not supposed to drive over it, but it's not real infrastructure because if your city had real infrastructure, they'd have some pylons or something in between there and that's a different video. What this video is about is open ear headphones and specifically that open ear headphones have a completely different set of priorities than regular headphones. With regular headphones, you care about sound quality, right? With open ear headphones, sound quality is kind of low on the list because you're kind of not going to get great sound quality because, again, your ears are open to the world and that bird over there and whatever else there might be. Instead, what you care about is comfort, you care about volume, can it get loud enough for you to actually hear them, and you care how they actually attach to your head. Because it turns out there are a bunch of different ways to get sound next to your ears instead of in your ears and some of those things are really good and some of them are kind of bad. So what I want to do is talk about the half dozen or so different kinds of open ear headphones that I have tried out and pick a winner, at least for the context of riding a bike. Actually, maybe we'll pick two winners because everybody's ears are different, especially mine. Mine are really big. Now the headphones that got me into this whole journey are these right here. These are the Bose open ear buds. They cost $200 and the headphone part is sort of right here and it sits just above your ear hole and it hooks over onto your ear like so. Now the thing that I like about these headphones is they sound remarkably good for open ear headphones. They're pretty loud. They've got a speaker just really close pointing right into your ear and I think Bose is pretty good at shaping the acoustics and so they do a pretty decent job here. But this is where I come to the part about priorities because it turns out that the space behind your ears is really valuable real estate. My glasses temples, they kind of go back there and they get in the way of these things. If you're wearing a mask, that'll get in the way of these things as well. So for me, these don't really work because I often am finding myself fiddling around and they feel like they're going to fall out because of my glasses. The other problem I have with them is they do this thing that a lot of headphones do where if they're connected to your computer and you want to switch them over to your phone, they won't let go of the connection to the computer. So you have to disconnect it from the computer and then you can reconnect it to your phone. So put all that together and these really aren't for me. But if sound quality is your most important thing and you're not worried about them falling off and you're willing to pay 200 bucks, then these may be our good choice. Now for the next category of open-ear headphones, I'm going to let these Bose sunglasses sort of stand in for the whole idea of taking speakers and batteries and Bluetooth and stuff and sticking them in the temples of your eyeglasses. Now I've tried this before. I just reviewed the Amazon Echo Frames and I really like the idea of just always having Bluetooth headphones sort of attached to your head and you can still hear the world around you or the office or you're at home or whatever, but they're conveniently there when you want them and nobody else can hear them when they're around you. Now for Bose, these 250 sunglasses, they come in a bunch of different styles and these are the biker glasses and you can see, just look super aero. I mean, I know I've got a bicycle kit on and I look like a nerd, but this is just not my style. Other than that though, they're fine. I wish they were 250 bucks. The other problem I have with these is I want headphones that I can wear in other contexts. So I want to wear them when I'm sitting at my computer or, I don't know, on a cloudy day. And unless you know that you're only going to wear them on your bike and you're only going to be riding your bike on sunny days, then these just probably aren't very convenient options for you. Now speaking of taking Bluetooth stuff and putting it in another thing, my bike helmet here has all of the things built into the helmet. So there are a couple of little speakers here and some buttons for controlling it and it can connect to your phone and do podcasts or music or phone calls. It's got an FM radio in it. It has a little blinky light on the back if you want a blinky light for at night, although it's not very bright. It even has mesh intercom. So if you're within about a half a mile, a little bit less and you've got line of sight with the people that you're riding with, you just talk to each other with walkie talkies and it's just an open channel and it's really, really convenient. Of all the features that I just rattled off of this $160 helmet, the only thing that actually works really well is the mesh intercom. That is a killer feature. If you're riding with somebody else or in a group and you can all get the same helmets, then man, it's just really, really nice to be able to just talk to each other instead of having to ride up and catch up and get within shouting distance and keep talking. The rest of it though is meh because the speakers are way up here and they don't get that loud and so if you're in any kind of traffic or there's any kind of noise whatsoever, these just get drowned out. They're just not very loud. So I'm going to keep using this helmet because I love the mesh intercom but as an open ear headphone solution, not so good. The next category of open ear headphones that I tried were bone conduction headphones because my name is Dieter Bone. Whatever. These are the Aftershocks Aeropex. They're $160 and the way that they work is you kind of wrap them around your head here and then they kind of tension onto your skull right in front of your ears. And then these little pods here are actually speakers but instead of having speakers that transmit the sound through the air, they transmit the sound by your head through the bone, bone conduction. I kind of like these a lot. They are funny looking but I'm funny looking. They stay on my head. Having glasses on and a mask on around them can be a little bit annoying but for the most part they're pretty good. The big knock is of course it's weird to have little vibrating pods in front of your ears. You can start to feel that after a while and the sound quality is... look, it's not great. I mostly just listen to podcasts with these things and they're not so loud that you don't hear the world around you or they can't get drowned out. These things aren't magic but for the most part they're one of the better solutions, at least for riding a bike. Now there's one more kind of open ear headphone that I tried and that is don't have a headphone in one of your ears. Just get a pair of regular old earbuds. These are the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus. Put one in your right ear, not your left because that's where traffic is when you're riding on the road where it's totally safe and you can hear cars through this one and then you can hear your music or your podcast through this one. So sound quality, well, you know, you're getting half a stereo so it's not great but it does a better job of sealing out the world if you wear a proper earbud so you don't have to turn it up quite as loud to hear whatever it is you're listening to and it's slightly more likely to be able to let you hear your music when there's still traffic noise around you. Now if you're picking out an earbud that's convenient to use with a bike, I gotta say the AirPods aren't it. Those little stems that stick out of them get caught on bike helmet straps for me all of the time and they go flying off and I don't feel comfortable with them at all. So I stick with something that kind of goes in my ear and doesn't stick out too much and I really do like the Samsung Galaxy Buds for that. There's also the Buds Live which kind of fit in there but they're just a little bit less secure. So those are all the open ear headphones that I've tried. The Bose that go on your ear, the sunglasses that go next to your ear, the helmet that goes over your ear, the bone conductors that go in front of your ear, and the single earbud that goes in just one ear. Which one do I like the best? Well, for me and for biking and for not feeling bad about looking like a dork, I think the Aftershocks AeroPacks are my pick. They hit all of the boxes of keeping my ears open so I feel safe when I'm riding my bike but give me enough sound and enough sound quality and, most importantly, enough convenience of staying in my head. So these are my picks but I don't know that I would recommend them to anybody that isn't riding their bike a whole lot because it's really nice to have stereo sound but they're a little bit weird to use at home. I mean, I am, but it's just a little bit weird. I think for most people that are just doing the occasional bike ride, the headphones you already got, they're pretty good. You probably already like them. You're already using them with your phone, your computer, and whatever else. Just when you're on your bike, make sure you only use one of them and that you put it in the ear that faces away from traffic so that the other ear is open to listen for the world around you, hear cars, make sure you don't run into people, whatever else. Also, you should wear a helmet. I'm not going to turn this into a whole safety PSA but the bottom line is make sure that you find something that keeps your ears open and if that's just using the thing you already got, no problem. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. I didn't plan to be all like camo. I just happened to own green bike clothes and then this was the best shot I could find out on the trail so I hope that I didn't just look like a weird floating head. Like and subscribe.