Aftershokz Aeropex first impressions

I couldn’t sleep one evening so I was randomly¹ browsing the internet. One thing led to another and I landed on a review of “bone-conducting” headphones, designed for safe listening to music or talking on the phone during sports.

I was intrigued. I’ve written before that proper music really motivates me when doing high-intensity efforts, so this seemed quite interesting. After reading more about it, and after finding that one can buy such things from local shops, I ordered a pair of Aftershokz Aeropex headphones.

To my surprise, they actually work as advertised. I’d say, they work despite the fancy company name :) There is a slight change to the tone of the sound (music) as compared to normal headphones, and the quality is not like one would expect from high-quality over-ear ones, but that’s beside the point - the kind of music that I’d like to listen to while pedalling up a hill doesn’t require very high fidelity².

And with regards to environment awareness, there is for sure some decrease, but I’d say minimal (especially if you don’t listen on high volume). There is no “closed bubble” effect at all as you get with normal (even open) headphones, and definitely not the one with in-ear ones. So I’d say this kind of headphone is reasonably safe, if you are careful.

So, first test, commute to work and back. On the way to work it was very windy so that’s why I was hearing mostly (especially during cross-winds), but it was still OK. Enjoyed the ride, nothing special.

On the return though… it was quite glorious. Normally (in Garmin speak) I get a small training effect: 0.8-1.0 aerobic, and much less anaerobic, around 0.5. It’s a very short commute, but I try to push as I can. Today however, I got 1.3 aerobic, and 1.6 anaerobic, because I went quite a bit standing on the uphills. Higher anaerobic than aerobic on my commute is very rare… Also the “intensity minutes” that I got for today were ~50% increased compared to usual commute days. Max HR was not really changed, but the average HR was ~10bpm higher, which confirms I was able to motivate myself better. No Strava segments achievements though, since I was on a slow bike, but still, it felt much better than same bike on other days.

I don’t know how the headphones feel when wearing them for a few hours at a time; they might be somewhat unpleasant, especially under the bike helmet, but on my short commute they were OK. But a 2-3-5 hour race is something entirely different.

Anyway, it seems from my first quick test this is an interesting technology. I guess I’ll have to see in a real effort how it helps? And if it doesn’t work well, I can blame the choice of music :)