When we think of Bluetooth headphones, or ear pieces, one typically thinks of  earbuds or over the ear headphone styles. Even most Bluetooth headsets that are mono sit in the ear. This method of delivering sound to your ear works, and works quite well. However, putting buds in your ears or cups over them takes you into your very own world where the things around you don’t even matter. That is great at home in a safe environment,  or even at work when you want to ignore your boss and his boring lecture, but if you are a runner, cyclist or dad shutting off the world can be troublesome. That is where Aftershokz comes in with their Bluez 2 open ear design headphones. I am not even really sure I can call them headphones, but that is what I can use to best describe them.
The Build
The Bluez 2 are an open ear design that utilize bone conduction in order to deliver sound to your inner ear without needing to be in your ear or covering your ear. This design alone means you can still hear what is going on around you while you are listening to music or taking calls. The unit wraps around the back of your head with two hook like arms that sit over your ears, this places the actual speaker just in front of your ear.
On the right hang side, under the arm, you have a set of buttons to control volume levels as well as turning the device on and off. The volume buttons can also be pressed simultaneously to change the equalization of the sound when listening to music. They are fairly easy to find once you get used to how the unit sits on your ears and head. The volume up button offers a small raised nodule to keep you from needing to pull them off to figure out what is what.
The opposite side, on the outer edge, is your multifunction button. As the name would suggest, this small silver key does a variety of things for you. You can answer or end calls, reject incoming calls, mute and unmute the mic, redial the last number, activate voice dialing or pause and play your tunes. All are pretty straight forward with a few small long holds for some of the tasks depending on the situation. For instance, long pressing it for 2 seconds will activate the voice dial function where as long pressing for 2 seconds while on a call will disconnect it.
The physical plastic band that wraps around your neck is a hardened plastic material. It does offer a fair amount of flex to open it up for wider heads, but the somewhat shallow depth of them could pose issues for those with larger skulls. Aftershokz does include a rubber insert that makes the inner section fit a little firmer on smaller, more delicate heads.
The unit is also coated in a nanotechnology coating to protect it against sweat and water during heavy workouts or rain storms. This doesn’t mean you should go swimming with them though as they aren’t rated to handle full submersion.
The Sound
Bone conduction technology isn’t a new thing out there. Panasonic has a set of headphones that use the technology in their RP-BTGS10-K and their RP-HGS10-W. I can’t speak to how those sound or perform though as the Aftershokz Bluez 2 are my first experience with the technology. The sound on these is much better then I initially was thinking they would be. I can clearly hear my music at moderate to high volumes and the clarity of phone call conversations was equally surprising, in a good way. Depending on your tunes or the person you are speaking with, the bass can rattle your cheek bone, and therefore be a little ticklish. Simply turning down the volume slightly solved it for me.
While the technology isn’t new, they still haven’t perfected it. The headset does leak a fair amount of sound when cranked up, as suspected.  Aftershokz notes they use LeakSlayer technology to reduce sound leakage and compared to the sound you get when you are wearing them to the amount of sound produced externally, I’d say it helps a fair amount. It would seem the most leakage occures with rock, metal, hop hop and rap styles, where as Jazz and classical styles seem to be much quieter. If you are looking for an open ear silent option these probably aren’t your cup of tea. However, at ultra low, nearly zero, volume in silent situations you can still hear fairly well with minimal to no external sound production.
Comfort
A common issue I have with headsets is their comfort for long periods of time. With in-ear earbuds you typical face a few hours before fatigue sets in and your ears start to prompt you to pull them out for a while. It is actually not really a good idea to keep things in your ears like that for a long period of time either. On the over the ear front you generally run into the fluctuation of fit to your head and being able to move about without them falling off. Sometimes the fit is to tight and clamps your ear and head which is uncomfortable, or they are too loose and a quick turn will make them slip. With the Bluez 2 it is a bit more complicated. We are moving from the traditional fit to ones that hover just in front of your ears and wrap around behind you neck. This makes the biggest fear the amount of pressure that they place on your head at the point of contact. I have worn these for a few full days of use, either just pared for potential notifications and calls, to streaming music to kill the battery. While my ears don’t have issues, the area just outside where they rest as well as the location they rest over the ear do warrant a little re-adjustment every couple of hours.
The fit is one of the more concerning aspects to the Bluez 2 though. I am a sizeable guy, but the physical size of my head is rather small. I currently wear a small/medium flexfit hat to give you an idea of my head size. This is an important factor because the Bluez 2 are a ‘one size fits all’ style without any adjustable pieces to make the arms longer. I visited the booth with Alex Hernandez and Justin Jelinek from Techaeris, and neither of them could use these because their heads were too large. Not in terms of width as the Bluez 2 do flex open quite a bit, more so in terms of depths from the front of the ear to the back of their heads. This seems to be a fairly major design flaw in my opinion that excludes many individuals.
Something like this also raises the question about comfort or use with glasses, be that prescription or just sunglasses in the summer. In the image of the side of my head my glasses are perched on my hat. That is how generally wear them when I am out regardless of the Aftershokz being on my head. I snapped another picture with the shades tucked under the Aftershokz. (yes, I need a haircut desperately) They slid under just fine since they are a straight-arm style pair of sun glasses.
However, I imagine a traditional hook style arm could get in the way or be rather uncomfortable as the arms to the Bluez 2 do press in slightly at that point on the head and do have a slide hook aspect that curls over the back of your ear.
Battery life
Aftershokz rates the Bluez 2 for 6 hours of continuous playback with 10 hours of standby time. Not outstanding, but should suffice for a full day depending on your uses. Streaming tunes all day and you won’t make it, but mix it up and you should be able to pull through. I feel they are more designed for your workouts and half day endeavors then for an all day Bluetooth accessory. During my tests I averaged between 5 to 7 hours of actual use time before needing to charge them back up. Charging is pretty straight forward though. Simply pop the plug that covers the micro USB port and plug them in. The Bluez 2 take about 2 hours to go from dead to full charge and a quick 15 minute charge should get you through the remainder of a day, so they say.
Overall thoughts
I love music and headphones greatly. I am an over the ear type of person or one who wants a huge set of speakers shaking the whole house. I also have 3 kids and get limited with life around me if I am rocking out. That leads to irritation when I have to keep pausing the music or taking the headphones off to hear what my son, daughter or wife needs. These really do alleviate that aspect by letting me listen to tunes while I cook, clean or am at the park with my son but still be able to hear what is going on around me.
The Bluez 2 are certainly slick and sleek-looking and often time garner a set of looks and questions when out and about. They sound much better than I was expecting, especially while on calls. They certainly aren’t going to appease a hard-core audiophile who is looking for the perfect match of mids, highs and lows, but a music lover will appreciate the ability to hear a wide range of notes with ease thanks to a number of technological factors that Aftershokz is using such as PremiumPitch stereo sound and LeakSlayer.
The Aftershokz Bluez 2 bone conductive open ear headphones are currently available on the market and come in at $99.99 in most cases and offer up the traditional black reviewed above or a neon green  accent variant.
