These new earbuds solve the biggest problem with in-ear headphones

One of the latest trends in headphones is open-ear earbuds. Regular earbuds use a silicone or memory foam tip as a seal that contributes to audio quality – but that seal can cause a feeling of pressure in the wearer’s ear.

By contrast, the best open earbuds have speaker drivers which sit at the edge of your ear canal. The result is no pressure while also delivering a feeling of connection to the outside world.

That connection can be useful if you need to hear your surroundings, such as on the street or in the office. There are other benefits: because they don’t poke into your ears, they can help avoid earwax build-up.

Open-ear earbuds can either rest on or around the ears or offer a clip-on design that may look more like earrings and are more convenient if you’re a specs-wearer, for instance, than earbuds that sit around the ear.

The latest release from Shokz is the opendots 2, which combines earclip design with compact shape, multiple microphones for calls, including one bone-conduction mic, and AI noise reduction. I’ve been testing them – and here’s my verdict.

David Phelan has nearly three decades of experience reviewing smartphones, audio products, wearables and emerging technologies. Known for his rigorous testing and unbiased analysis, his reviews combine technical expertise with real-world usability. When it comes to headphones and earbuds, Phelan has tested countless models, giving him a unique ability to evaluate sound quality, comfort, design, battery life and value.

The Shokz opendots 2 earbuds have a two-part design. A tiny spherical piece sits inside the ear with the speaker through which you hear the music. Then, a thin band of nickel-titanium, encased in silicone, reaches to a barrel that contains the battery.

The barrel sits on the back of your ear, and the tension of the band holds the earbud in place comfortably but securely. That’s important because if you’re planning to use them as workout buds – a major use case for earbuds like these – you need to know they’re not going to end up on the ground during a run.

The fit here feels reassuringly safe, but not so tight that it’s cramped. The barrel is solid enough to hold the earbuds in place, but doesn’t feel heavy. And the frame is flexible so that it will fit a range of ear shapes. Not everybody’s ears are as perfectly proportioned as yours, you know.

The contoured silicone cover material for the earbuds is soft and smooth, which adds to the comfort levels. The earbuds are sweatproof, rather than fully waterproof, but the ingress protection level has risen from IP54 on the previous-generation model to IP57 on this version.

Personal taste will decide whether you think the earbuds look good or not. Familiarity is also important: there are plenty of earclip-design headphones now, so they no longer look strange as they might have done a couple of years ago, before more brands got involved.

I think they strike the right balance of chic and technological, jewellery and audio device. There are two colour choices. Black is understated, and grey is more earring-like. Both combine a metallic finish with the soft matte look of the silicone with elegant discretion.

Because they’re open-design, they feel comfortable for extended wear. Not only is that useful to ensure your ears don’t feel under pressure, but because the outside world is audible, too, you can wear them in the office, for instance, and still hear when a colleague speaks to you.

Comfort becomes all the more crucial if you’re going to be listening to them extensively. I’ve worn them all day long, with no issues of pinching, no need to adjust the fit and no concern that they might go flying, whatever I was doing. Shokz provides a guide to explain that the barrel goes behind the ear, not underneath or in front, which confirms that the earclip design is not yet completely familiar to everybody.

But does the open design affect how the music sounds?

The lack of a natural seal indeed means the world is much more present, and in noisy environments, you need to turn the volume up to hear everything. But the design doesn’t feed through into poor audio quality in your ears. Features like Dolby Audio and enhanced bass are on board to ensure that music sounds good, and both are improved from the previous Shokz opendot one.

Overall, the Shokz opendot 2 sounds tremendous, with real fidelity to the musical source, and the enhanced bass is effective, especially in quieter environments.

The barrel isn’t just the home of the battery. By tapping, squeezing or pinching and holding, you can adjust the volume, play or pause and so on. Some users prefer physical buttons, but the system here works well.

Another convenient extra is that the buds work in either ear, so that you can plonk them back into the case in either left or right position. These are interchangeable buds, in other words, and they use dynamic ear detection to determine which ear they’re in. It’s a small thing, but it’s useful.

You can also connect to two devices at the same time, and switch between them effortlessly. Making calls is easy and sounds great, thanks to three microphones – one more than in the last-generation model. There are two air-conduction microphones and one bone-conduction microphone. Along with AI noise reduction, they enable the earbuds to sound great for phone calls even in noisy situations.

In total, the earbuds and their case offer 40 hours of listening. That’s 10 hours in the buds and another 30 in the case. If the buds run out of juice, a five-minute charge can deliver two hours of playback. These levels are twice as fast as on the opendots one.