These... are the Aftershokz Aeropex. They’re Bluetooth headphones designed primarily for
sports, but what makes them different is how they work. They’re bone conduction headphones,
and instead of little loudspeakers inside your ear like you’d have with a pair of earbuds,
these use a transducer to lightly vibrate your skull just in front of your ears.
The effect is a bit like holding a loudspeaker next to your head so you can hear your music,
but also still hear the world around you too. The theory is, that that keeps you
safer because you can still hear everything around like traffic, emergency vehicles and
other noises whilst enjoying your music. It’s for this reason that bone conducting
headphones are the only kind permitted in races on roads which are open to traffic,
I was immediately interested because I don’t like wearing earbuds when running or cycling for two
reasons - firstly, the wind going past my ears sounds utterly terrible but more importantly it
can be dangerous as you’re not properly aware of your surroundings and connected to the real world,
so you might not hear other traffic until it’s too late.
The Aeropex come nicely packaged - I love a box with magnets in! - and have a good premium feel
to them with a nice carry case too. They’re very lightweight at only 26g but still feel
sturdy and like they could probably take some abuse, including in muddy and wet conditions
as they’re IP67 waterproof. And once you’ve finished abusing them they’re easy to wipe clean.
If you have really sensitive ears or you’re prone to ear infections these
could be much more comfortable and given the fact that they don’t actually go in your ears,
they’re more hygienic than traditional earbuds so that also means you can share them with others
and it’s not gross because you won’t end up mixing ear wax! This is also made easier by
the fact that they support multipoint pairing, so you can pair them to two devices at once
and not have to keep unpairing and re-pairing whenever your significant other goes for a run.
The procedure to do that is a lot more fiddly though than on,
say, the Sony WH-1000XM4s where you can do things via the app,
so that brings me onto my first slight criticism and that’s that this has no
companion app to do things like customise the controls, change EQ settings or update firmware.
But anyway, that’s all the theory and what they promise... what are they like to use?
When you put them on, they leave your ear wide open so it’s just as if there’s music playing
around you and you can still hear everything else. So specifically ZERO noise cancellation.
They’re really comfortable and it’s easy to forget you’re even wearing them because they’re so light,
much more comfortable than earbuds or headphones. The downside is that
they don’t also double-up as ear warmers in the winter, though...
I took them out for a run first and they’re really good, long gone were any worries about
earbuds coming loose and they stay firmly put even when you’re sprinting or bouncing around
all over the place, and most importantly I could still hear and feel aware of my surroundings.
Sound wise, there was no “thud thud” in my ears as I ran and no horrible wind noise either. I wasn’t
expecting to get the same sort of sound quality experience as when I’m sat at home wearing high
end headphones but for running, they get a thumbs up from me. I had to avoid the temptation to turn
them up so loud that my music drowned out the surroundings anyway, which would defeat the object
of this technology! With some frequencies, and especially at higher volumes, you can feel them
buzzing on your skin a bit which is quite a funny feeling. Not an unpleasant one, just... bizarre.
There’s a Multifunction button on the left ear to control music and answer phone calls.
It’s quite easy to use with single, double or triple clicks but the only issue I had
was that pressing it accurately to skip songs back and forth was a bit difficult whilst running so
I had to slow to a walk to do that but that’s fine by me, any excuse to stop for a rest ;)
Next up cycling, and my first question was how will they fit with my bike helmet? And the answer
was... no issues at all. The headphones didn’t get in the way at all of the straps going either side
of my ears and there was no issue at all with the headphone strap round the back of my head, even
when wearing ear warmers. I’m trying to think of some criticisms as I don’t want this just to sound
like an advert! But I was even more impressed with them when cycling than I was running, because
obviously you cycle faster than you run but they stayed solid, sounded perfectly good and I could
still hear everything around me and stop to talk to people without having to take earbuds out.
Aside from sports and exercise, another place you could use these would be at work in an
office environment, if you want to listen to music or other audio from your computer
but still be able to hear what’s going on in the office and talk to colleagues.
The multipoint pairing makes that even more useful because you can have them
paired to your phone as well as your computer, so if a call comes through
you can seamlessly answer the phone on your headphones without having to take them off.
I tested out the call quality by calling up an old acquaintance and former neighbour. I could
hear *him* very clearly but he did immediately notice that I was using some sort of headset
and there was a definite air of mechanicalism to my voice. When I switched to using my phone
directly he said my voice sounded much richer by comparison and was warmer with more bass to it.
I wondered how much that was down to the placement of the microphones up near my ears so we then
switched to the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones which have similar microphone placement and although
not better than my phone, the sound of my voice was still deeper, richer and more pleasant to
listen to than from the Aftershokz which came in 3rd place in this deeply unscientific test.
That said, they work just fine for calls and in any case it’s more of a bonus feature,
you’re not going to be buying these to use primarily as a headset,
but if a call comes through whilst you’re listening to music, they’ve got you covered.
If you’re going to be wearing these in the office or on public transport,
you’ll want to be sure they don’t irritate others around you so how much sound leakage is there?
They claim to a) keep your privacy intact b) mean you’ll never worry about bothering others,
so I’ll test this out by playing some music first at a sensible volume level,
and then at full volume and moving this mic around so you can see how the volume level changes.
So first up I'm playing some music at about 50% or 60%
and we're gonna switch to this mic and see how much you can hear it.
OK now the music's playing at full volume on them
and I can feel them buzzing and vibrating here
a bit more, so once again let's switch to this microphone
So that’s all well and good... but what do they actually sound like? Well... these definitely
aren’t what you’d wear when you want super high fidelity, crystal clear audio with rich bass,
clear midtones and distinct highs, blah blah blah. But they don’t intend to be:
if you want to be able to listen to music, or a podcast, comfortably and reliably when
running/cycling or at the gym and also stay aware of your surroundings then these definitely do that
and they do it well. You can change the EQ setting by holding both volume buttons for 3s,
but I wouldn’t bother: it seems to go from “a bit tinny” to VERY tinny!
They actually sound better if you put your fingers in your ears or use earplugs,
if you’re somewhere where that’s safe to do, and they come with a pair of foam
earplugs so you can use them on, like, a plane or train. To be honest though,
I wouldn’t use these in those scenarios - I’d use either my Sony headphones or some earbuds.
The box claims 8 hours of music and calls on a single battery charge, and although I’ve not
scientifically tested that with a stopwatch... or by doing as much as 8 hours of exercise for
this review... it seems believable as so far the battery life seems very good.
That’ll be helped in part by the Aeropex using Bluetooth 5.0 which is less power hungry,
if the device you’re using them with is also new enough to support that.
They come with two USB chargers which is nice to see - you could keep one at work and one at home,
for instance. I was impressed with the magnetic mechanism for the charging port;
it snaps into place very firmly and the magnets are really strong so there’s no way you can put
it on the wrong way, the poles oppose really forcefully. It also has a clever system to
detect moisture and alert you to dry them before you charge which is a nice touch too.
Size wise, these are a bit too big for both my wife and daughter’s heads, although they’re fine
for mine. I must just... have a big head? They’re not adjustable but you can get a mini version and
there’s a size guide on their website, so if you’ve got a small head I’ll put a link to
their website in the video description right underneath the Like button. Having said that,
being a bit big for my wife and daughter’s heads doesn’t actually affect the operation
of them at all, they’re still comfortable on smaller heads and aren’t likely to fall off.
Cost wise, they’re not dead expensive but they’re certainly not cheap.
You’ve gotta pay for good quality and useful features though and I think they’re worth it.
Especially if they keep you safer when you’re working out, you can’t put a price on that.
Being able to hear cars and other hazards is utterly priceless.
So these are great when you DO want to hear the world around you. But if you’re after some great
sounding noise-cancelling headphones then next up, watch this video here!