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OpenRock S: One minute review
Audio brand OneOdio is back with its second-gen air conduction headphones – the OpenRock S are more affordable and longer-lasting than their predecessors the OpenRock Pro, but include quite a few extra features that unfortunately don’t work too well.
Air conduction is a tech intended to let you listen to music while exercising without impacting your awareness of your surroundings, and it features heavily in our guide to the best open earbuds (often called the best open ear headphones). While the AirPods Pro 2 have Transparency Mode to intentionally boost the sounds of your surroundings and Shokz has its bone conduction, OneOdio’s solution is to dangle a mini speaker over your ear, so it’s not blocking out all your surrounding noises but instead traversing a bit of open space and still getting the job done.
While air conduction hasn’t historically leant itself to fantastic audio fidelity, the feature works for its intended purpose, and you can enjoy music while also being aware of vehicles, people, aggressive dogs or other hazards. Too aware, perhaps, as one of the S’ big problems is that its max volume is just too low. Lots of the time during my testing, music was all but drowned out by noises such as cars, treadmills or, as my parkrun testing will attest, the sounds of other runners!
That’s doubly true if you’re riding a bike or somewhere windy, as the sounds of gusts of wind rushing past your ears will all but drown out your tunes.
If you can get around this volume issue (if perhaps you listen during a yoga class, say), then you may well be impressed by the OpenRock S. Like their predecessors, the OpenRock Pro, they have an incredibly comfortable fit that keeps them secure on your ear; they’re lightweight too, and it’s easy to forget you’re wearing them.
Plus, the battery life here is absolutely incredible. You can listen to music for 19 hours non-stop before you need to charge the earbuds, and when you factor in the charge of the carry case itself, that number goes up all the way to 60 hours. You’d be hard-pressed to find a rival sports earbud that comes even close to that figure.
These are some of the most affordable sports earbuds too, costing roughly half the price of some of the best-known rivals from the likes of Shokz. A great pick for people on a budget.
As you can tell from that description, these are some solid sports earbuds at heart. OneOdio has added quite a few features which don’t work too well – the touch controls perform poorly and the EQ modes seem to have little effect whatsoever – but if you can ignore these, the OpenRock S are decent buds for fitness fans.
OpenRock S review: Specifications
|
Component |
Value |
|
Water resistant |
IPX5 |
|
Battery life |
19 hours (earbuds), 60 hours (total) |
|
Bluetooth type |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
|
Weight |
12g / Charging case: 132g |
|
Frequency response |
20Hz-40Hz |
OpenRock S review: Price and availability
- Announced and released in October 2023
- Cost $99 / £89 (roughly $150)
- Some of the most buds with this kind of tech
The OpenRock S was announced in mid-October 2023 as the newest entry to OneOdio’s line-up of over-ear sports headphones.
You’ll pay just $99 / £89 (roughly $150) for them, which is a competitive price compared to rivals within and without of the company. This is the price that OneOdio announced them for, and that they’re selling for, but Amazon US lists this as a discounted cost down from $129. As far as we can tell, they’ve never actually sold for this price.
At this price, the S undercuts OneOdio’s own previous entry into the running earbuds space, the OpenRock Pro, which cost $119/£119 (around AU$185). For the most part, those are more premium, though in some areas (like battery life) the S is the better buy.
Most rivals cost more, like the Shokz Openfit which sells for $179.95 / £179.99 / AU$289. So you could well consider these budget options if you’re looking for air conduction earbuds, though of course, you can buy fitness earbuds for much cheaper if you don’t need this tech.
OpenRock S review: Design
- Solid and light earbuds build
- Temperamental touch controls
- Carry case is big, bulky and heavy
There are two aspects to the OpenRock S’ design: the earbuds themselves and the carry case.
I’ll touch briefly on the carry case because you can’t miss it: it’s a big sturdy plastic shell that charges the buds and keeps them safe when you’re not using them. However, it’s pretty long and wide, so it may not slip into your backpack’s side pocket like most other buds’ charging cases will.
Now the buds: these are very comfortable. They’re lightweight at just 12g each, and have the hooked design common in sports earbuds that means they stay lodged on your ears whether you’re on a mountain bike or running around on an uneven surface.
The best testament to the design is to point out that not once during testing did they fall out. I will say, though, that the OpenRock Pro did feel even more robust on the ear, thanks to a tighter grip.
Ostensibly there are touch controls on the buds, but in testing these rarely worked reliably. You’re meant to be able to tap the OpenRock logo on the buds to control your music or calls, but I found it often failed to pick up touches. That was doubly the case if my hands were damp from rain or sweat, and I would sometimes end up just hammering at my ears trying to stop a track. I found it much easier to just use the paired phone to change tracks or hang up a call.
The OpenRock buds are IPX5 water resistant, which in theory means they’re protected from water jets and low-pressure streams. They’re certainly sweat-proof, which is the most important thing, but I wouldn’t recommend using them in heavy rain if you’re hoping to use the touch controls.
OpenRock S review: Features
- Air conduction makes sure you can hear your surroundings
- Possibly the best stamina on the market
- EQ modes have little impact
As was mentioned in the introduction, the OpenRock S are air-conduction earbuds. This means that a speaker on the bud hovers over your ear canal and ‘projects’ the music in – the whole point is that you can wear these and also hear surrounding sound, perfect for if you’re on a road or somewhere else where awareness is important.
For this purpose, the OpenRock S works really well – I could hear my music while also having situational awareness. The main issue would be that this is often too much the case – sometimes I couldn’t actually hear music, for reasons I’ll get into in the ‘Performance’ section.
There’s also fairly little audio spilling, so people around you aren’t going to hear you working out to an hour-long loop of Mambo No. 5 (unless you sing along, of course).
The best feature of the OpenRock Pro is back and even better for the S, and that’s the battery life. The Pro version of these sports headphones had incredible lasting power but OneOdio has turned that up to 11 for the OpenRock S.
The OpenRock S buds last for 19 hours straight of music or calls, but when you factor in the battery in the case, you can get a whopping 60 hours of use time before you need to power them back up. That’s an incomprehensibly long battery life when you consider that many sports headphones only last for 10 hours or less before needing a boost.
With this one feature, the OpenRock S make themselves invaluable for people doing long expeditions and trips, who want to listen to music but might not have reliable access to a charging point.
Not all the features of the headphones are this commendable though. One I’ll flag is OneOdio’s attempt to utilize adjustable EQ: pressing and holding both buds’ touch controls at once will toggle you between ‘Rock’ and ‘Relax’ modes. Sounds useful for whatever kind of exercise you’re doing, right?
Not quite right. Ignoring what I’ve already said about the messy touch controls, the difference between these two modes is incredibly minor. What’s worse, is that you can’t actually change the mode when you’re on a call or listening to music – you have to turn that off before you change the mode, making it harder to perceive the EQ changes. An app would work so much better for this function, but the OpenRock doesn’t have one.
OpenRock S review: Performance
- The design doesn’t lend itself to great audio fidelity
- OneOdio’s TubeBass only succeeds ensuring there’s any bass
- Max volume is very low
Given the nature of air conduction technology, it’s understandable if you’d expect the OpenRock S to struggle in the audio performance department compared to other fitness bud rivals… and you’d be right.
The biggest issue I faced during the testing period is that the OpenRock S was just too quiet, even at max volume. The point of the tech is to let you hear surrounding sounds, but sometimes that’s all I could hear – for example at the gym, it was sometimes hard to hear parts of a song over the sound of surrounding treadmills, and when wearing the buds near a road, traffic could drown out a song. To be clear, this isn’t an issue I had with the OpenRock Pro to the same degree.
Of course, you don’t want to be deafened by earbuds, especially since air conduction tech could easily disturb people around you if it were too loud. But OneOdio would only have improved the buds by letting them crank out a few more decibels.
When you can hear them properly, the OpenRock S sound just fine – audiophiles won’t be impressed but with the drivers dangled close to your ears instead of directly in them you’re not getting the same treatment as you would for in-ear earbuds or headphones. Yes, the tech is improving a lot, but these earbuds aren’t the best example of great sound in an open design.
OneOdio has a tech called TubeBass which offsets some of the issues of air conduction, as it’s designed to enhance bass. However its benefits can only go so far.
As I mentioned before, there are two sound profiles you can toggle between. Rock mode is the one I’d recommend – relaxed is just too tinny.
OpenRock S review: scorecard
|
Category |
Comment |
Score |
|
Value |
The OpenRock S are some of the most affordable air conduction buds out there. |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Though the case is a bit too big, the buds fit well and are very light. |
4/5 |
|
Features |
Lots of the extra features work poorly, but the super battery life makes up for it. |
3.5/5 |
|
Performance |
The low maximum volume makes it hard to trule enjpy your tunes |
3/5 |
OpenRock S: Should I buy them?
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
Also consider
|
Component |
OpenRock S |
OpenRock Pro |
Shokz OpenFit |
|
Water resistant |
IPX5 |
IPX4 |
IP54 |
|
Battery life |
19 hours (earbuds), 60 hours (total) |
19 hours (earbuds), 46 hours (total) |
7 hours (earbuds), 28 hours (total) |
|
Bluetooth type |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
Bluetooth 5.2 |
Bluetooth 5.2 |
|
Weight |
12g / Charging case: 132g |
13g / Charging case: 64g |
8.3g / Charging case: 57g |
|
Frequency response |
20Hz-40Hz |
20Hz-20kHz |
50Hz-16kHz |
How I tested
The full testing period for the OpenRock S ended up being well over a month, and while that was partly due to an illness which meant I couldn’t test these buds for exercise purposes for the entire period, it does mean I got to use them a lot.
I tested the buds in the following ways: while cycling through a city along roads, while running in busy and quiet areas, while in gyms on various pieces of equipment, and also when at home in an otherwise-quiet area. I really put the OneRock S through their paces, with different activities and in different environments.
Mainly I streamed music through an Android smartphone, but I did test calling and video calls with them too. I also tested them side-by-side with the OpenRock Pro, to fully test out how they compare.
I’ve been writing for TechRadar for almost five years now, for several as a full member of team and several more as a freelance tester. I’ve tried various pieces of fitness equipment including earbuds, headphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers and sleep headphones and also tablets, smartphones, ereaders, speakers, scooters and a lot more.
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tom.bedford@futurenet.com (Tom Bedford)
