Review: Shokz Openswim Pro

 I started doing more swimming again, and once again, swimming isn't like cycling. The scenery doesn't change (and in America, the scenery is particularly awful), and it's pretty much boring to do just lap after lap. Since I'm not a competitive swimmer, I can't even bring myself to push hard and do intervals and try to go faster. (Swimming speed is almost 100% technique --- no amount of thrashing about will speed you up --- you just have to get the perfect stroke in consistently)

I've tried plenty of swimming headphones in the past, and they've all failed. One possibility, however, is Bone Conduction headphones. I found a pair of Shokz Openswim Pros at a sub $100 price on eBay and jumped on it.

Openswim Pros are called Pros because in addition to having onboard storage and waterproofing, they can pair to a bluetooth phone and stream audio as well. At a public swimming pool I'm not going to have my phone next to the pool to stream music, so in retrospect I didn't need the pro.

The nice thing about the headphones is that they work. The sound quality isn't great, but they work both in an out of the water. The worst thing about them is that their in-water and out-of-water sound volumes are completely different. So if you adjust it so that you can hear the music at a decent volume, when your head's in the water you feel like you're getting music blasted at you at high volume. This is of no issue if you're doing the crawl or backstroke. If you're doing the breast stroke, however, this is very annoying.

Another problem with the product is that there's no display and no method for organizing songs. The device will either shuffle all or play them all in order. You have no way of playing an audiobook split into chapters in a reasonable fashion. That's OK. Music in the pool is better anyway, because falling asleep while swimming would be embarrassing.

All in all, I enjoyed the product and use it. It's good.