[Music]
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
four 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
that's a different video
[Music]
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 your 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 mine are really
big
[Music]
now the headphones that got me into this
whole journey are these right here these
are the
bose open earbuds they cost 200 bucks
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
you know really close pointing right
into your ear
and you know i think bose is pretty good
at uh shaping the acoustics and so they
do a pretty decent job here
but this is where i come to the part
about priorities because
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 make 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 bows these
250 sunglasses they come in a bunch of
different styles and these are the biker
glasses and you can see
just looks super aero i mean i know i've
got 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 other people that you're riding with
you just talk to each other with
walkie-talkies and just 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
um man it's just really really nice to
be able to just
talk to each other instead of having to
like 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
they're not very loud
so i'm gonna keep using this helmet
because i love the mesh intercom
but as a open ear headphone solution
not so good
the next category of open your
headphones that i tried were bone
conduction headphones because
my name is dieterbone whatever these are
the
aftershocks arrow packs they're 160
bucks 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
[Music]
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 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 the time and they go flying off 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 bows 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 arrow pecks 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 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 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 i 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
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