Bone conduction on 111km ultras, keynote stages, Zone 2 bike rides, and calls at 40km/h headwind. Two hacks that transform the device. The long-term Shokz test no sponsored reviewer can write.
Shokz OpenRun 2 is the best headphone for trail running and ultra endurance sports because it keeps your ears open. You hear the trail, the cars, the other runners. In mountains, open ears are safety — not a preference. I've gone through 3–4 pairs over six years. I would not spend a single day without one.
Plus: two hacks below that make the device dramatically more useful — neither is in any Shokz documentation.
Bone conduction doesn't seal your ear canal. You hear your environment — cars, other runners, the sound of the trail. In the mountains, this is not an audio quality discussion. It is a safety decision. Cancelling out your surroundings on technical terrain where one misstep matters is a real risk. Shokz eliminates it.
The other side of open ears: you hear yourself. You stay aware of your breathing, your footstrike, your body. In a 110km race this is meaningful — you want the feedback loop, not to disappear into headphones.
The Shokz microphone is the voice interface to my entire AI agent stack. When I have decisions queued — meeting summaries to review, action items from calls, choices the agent needs input on — I call it via voice. Shokz on my neck, speaking into the mic, hands free, walking anywhere.
No screen. No typing. No desk required. The full decision loop: agent processes overnight, queues decisions by morning, I clear them during a walk while my AI stack handles execution. The Shokz is the input device for this system.
When you close your ear canal with a standard earplug while wearing Shokz, the bone conduction gets louder — significantly louder — and audio quality improves. This is physics: the plug traps the vibration instead of letting it escape.
Two modes in one device: earplug in = enhanced audio (louder, fuller, more bass). Earplug out = full spatial awareness of your environment. The earplugs cost cents on Amazon. The improvement is the equivalent of a headphone upgrade.
Bonus: earplugs in without Shokz playing = silence mode. Focus mode in public spaces, no white noise app needed.
The problem with Shokz on a bike: microphone wind noise at speed makes calls unusable above ~25km/h. The solution: a standard microphone windscreen foam cover — the kind used on TV broadcast microphones — placed over the Shokz microphone port.
At 40km/h headwind: crystal clear audio. Zero wind noise. The call sounds like you're in a room. The windscreen costs cents on Amazon, standard size fits the Shokz mic port.
This hack effectively makes Shokz a professional-grade outdoor communication device. Not a consumer headphone.
Multiple independent people — in Vienna, in Buenos Aires, in Silicon Valley — have asked me: "Is that part of your body?" It is seen at keynote stages. On bike rides. On trail runs. In meetings. It never comes off.
I don't know how many people have bought Shokz because they saw mine and asked about it. I estimate it's in the dozens across Austria, Argentina, and the US. The conversion rate from "see it on my neck → ask about it → buy it" is higher than any product I own.
I should have started this commercial partnership ten years ago. The organic sales were already happening.
Shokz OpenRun 2 is the default headphone for anyone who trains seriously outdoors. Not because the spec sheet says so — because open ears are safety in mountains, and because the bone conduction + earplug hack gives you better audio than most sealed headphones.
Add the wind muff hack and you have professional-grade outdoor call quality for cents of additional hardware. I've been through 3–4 pairs. The device has never been the failure mode. I would not spend a single day without one.
The full experiment — gear, agents, agentic living.
51,468km of data. The full system at agentic-living.com.
Follow the experiment →