- Secure, comfortable design
- Good sound quality
- Long battery life
- Work poorly in loud environments
- On bud controls are unreliable
Shokz' OpenDots One are a rather interesting take on open earbuds. Rather than use one of the two conventional earbud designs - stemmed or pod - the OpenDots One "clip" onto your ear.
The "speaker" sits in your concha, while the battery is tucked away behind your helix. While Shokz isn't the only manufacturer to have tried an earbud implementation like this, it's far from common.
It creates a surprisingly secure fit without relying on a protruding tip or a wing. For some, this could make the OpenDots One the right kind of compromise.
What we like about the Shokz OpenDots One
Light and secure design. While the OpenDots One design may look a little odd, it's surprisingly functional. After the initial learning curve of working out how the buds clip to your ears, they get out of your way. More importantly, they're secure. I've had no issue with them coming loose, whether I've been out running or vigorously headbanging.
The OpenDots One aesthetic may not be for everyone, but it is also a nice point of difference. They're secure earbuds that don't rely on wing tips, which don't always play well with glasses. Shokz's take is also much subtler than Bose's Ultra Open Earbuds, which use a similar principle but look a bit more bulky.
Excellent battery life. Shokz says the OpenDots One last up to ten hours per charge. From our testing, that seems about right. Ten hours per charge is similar to what you can get from much bulkier earbuds like the Powerbeats Pro 2.
When you use the included battery case, you'll get up to 40 hours before you need to plug the Shokz in.
Mostly great sound quality. The OpenDots One sound great for open earbuds. There's more bass than you'd expect, and there's even a healthy amount of sub-bass. It's enough that songs like Childish Gambino's "3005" don't lose their character, even if some of the oomph is missing.
While the OpenDot Ones certainly don't raise any red flags with sound, they do fall short of the best earbuds around. You'll get better overall audio quality from alternatives like the AirPods Pro 2, the AirPods 4 with ANC, the Pixel Buds Pro 2, and Sony's WF-1000XM5s.
One audio-related area where the OpenDots One miss is microphone quality. While it certainly isn't bad, the audio isn't anywhere as clear as what you get from similarly priced alternatives.
What we dislike about the Shokz OpenDots One
No noise cancellation. I know the open fit is the entire point of the OpenDots One, but open sure means open. If you try and use these in a noisy environment, you really have to crank the volume to hear what you're listening to. Using the OpenDots One at the gym was a sound bleed nightmare, with the sound of the treadmill, gym speakers, and fan all competing against my music.
The OpenDots One would be just a little bit more versatile with optional noise cancellation. Apple has proved you can have good noise cancellation with an open design, and it makes buds like the AirPods 4 with ANC a flexible middle ground. They can let the world in without a transparency mode when you want that, but there's also noise cancellation when you want to dampen your surroundings.
Not cheap. $339 is far from what top-end earbuds go for these days, but it still doesn't make the OpenDots One cheap. The aforementioned AirPods 4 with ANC - one of Shokz's biggest rivals in the open space - sell for $299. The basic model is cheaper at $219.
At the same time, the AirPods naturally don't have the same kind of design as the OpenDots One. If you're looking for clip-on earbuds, Bose's take sell for $449.95.
Finicky controls. While the OpenDots One have touch controls on each earbud, they're a little unreliable. You can use a tap, double tap, or long press to trigger different actions.
By default, long press adjusts volume - up on the right bud, down on the left bud - but sometimes the earbuds would register my press as a tap instead and pause my music instead. At times, my tap and double tap weren't registered, and I had to perform the gesture multiple times to actually trigger the action.
It's also worth noting that there's minimal customisation. The long-press gesture is the only action you can remap.
Shokz OpenDots One - Final Thoughts
The OpenDots One are open-ear buds that actually feel secure. If you prefer an open design or just value still being able to hear what's going on around you, these are earbuds that aren't going to fall out on you, even during vigorous exercise.
You're really buying these because you like the form-factor, though. You can get cheaper open-ear buds, and you can get better-sounding options for similar money. But the OpenDots One certainly aren't a bad buy, and I can see certain users falling in love with them.
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Alex Choros
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