The well-known leading brand of osteophony Shokz has announced a new pair of bone conduction earphones (7th generation) which, in the guise of OpenSwim, are dedicated to those who practice sports in contact with water.
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As for smartwatches, even for earphones it is easy to find specific models dedicated to particular user targets: this is the case of the OpenSwim, the new earpods that the Shokz brand, versed in osteophony, has dedicated to the world of swimmers.
The earphones in question (30 grams), a sort of neckband, are IP68 waterproof so that they can hold up to 2 meters deep in water for 2 hours: on the right area, there are 3 buttons, including two dedicated to volume and one when the product is turned on, with prolonged presses that allow you to move between the tracks. Technically, they host perfectly isolated drivers, with 98 ± 3dB sensitivity and 20Hz ~ 20KHz frequency response, which transmit sound not to the eardrum but – through low intensity vibrations – directly to the skull, reaching the ear without blocking the ear canal. .
It follows that the user can wear the Shokz OpenSwim earphones even “on the surface”, perhaps while running along the roadside, perceiving traffic noises for safety purposes, or being able to talk to their interlocutors without having to take them off.
In terms of connectivity, the Shokz OpenSwim lack Bluetooth, but can use the cable (20 cm) with USB Type-A to load music into the internal 4 GB storage (sufficient for 1,200 songs), equipped with a player for main music formats (MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, FLAC), played sequentially or in shuffle, randomly, in the name of a sound that improves a lot when underwater wearing the earplugs included in the package.
On the autonomy side, the bone conduction earphones (according to a 7th generation technology) Shokz OpenSwim use a 183 mAh battery, which can be charged using the aforementioned cable with magnetic attachment to the magnetic pogo pins, visible on the right side inside the structure, located at contact with the skin: at the end of the charge, the autonomy can reach up to 8 hours, thus covering a week of training in the pool. At the distribution level, although recently announced, the Shokz OpenSwim earphones can already be purchased, on Amazon, at the price of 159.95 euros, in the only official color, Black Diamond.