Tozo Open Buds
Summary
Tozo Open Buds deliver outstanding audio and brilliant call quality, but most importantly, they adjust to individual ear shapes using the biaxial rotation. IPX6 rating and up to 12 hours of play time per charge.
Tozo Open Buds Review
Sports earbuds usually don’t fit my ears. They always ride much higher than my ear canal. Even the beautifully engineered Cleer ARC IIs, as good as they sound, still sit well above the location shown in their marketing literature.
Well, Tozo has solved the problem with a clever feature called Biaxial Rotation on their $99 Tozo Open Buds. This means that they don’t just turn in toward ears as the Cleer’s Arc IIs do, but they also ratchet down at an angle, aligning to the owner’s ear in a customized way. And they sound incredible.
What we like
Pros
- Biaxial Rotation for a custom fit
- Outstanding audio
- Long battery life
- Solid Call Noise Cancellation
- IPX6 water resistance
- One button reset
The Tozo Open Buds’ Biaxial Rotation feature makes for great fitting open earbuds. The openness and lightness of the earbuds make them truly all-day listening partners. They are light on the ears, don’t put pressure on the earlobe, nor cause irritation from inserting a tip into the ear. Besides the clear audio, they become almost invisible to the wearer.
And the sound. The open design and customized fit combine to deliver outstanding audio streams from the 14.2 mm dynamic driver. Bluetooth® 5.3 also helps with clarity and connection. The sound stage is wider than on in-buds. They apply their proprietary ORIGIX acoustic technology to create expansive audio vistas that capture the entirety of the audio being streamed. Just a great listening experience.
And if you like listening to music, streaming podcasts or watching video, the Tozo Open Buds will be there for you with 12 hours of playback time. Unlike Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) headphones that reduce battery life when ANC runs, this 12-hour timeframe isn’t affected by features but may be reduced by the volume level of other conditions.
Tozo includes a footnote that the playtime testing was done by using the left and right earbuds in turns, which I think means not as a stereo pair but as individual earbuds—when one dies, put in the other. Although this is the “What we like” section, I would like to see them test playtime in a more common-use fashion.
The 650 mAh case adds another 30 hours to the 70 mAh battery in each Open Bud. The case uses USB-C for charging. A full charge takes about an hour and a half for the buds or the case.
While open earbuds cannot offer Active Noise Cancellation for playback, they can incorporate noise cancellation into the microphones. The Tozo Open Buds employ digital signal processing to remove ambient noise during calls. On several calls I have been told the Tozo Open Buds produce superior voice clarity to other earbuds I have tested.
IPX6 water resistance is good and with an IPX6, sports, rain, even showers shouldn’t interrupt the listening experience.
Some earbuds require multiple buttons or holds on buttons to reset them. Tozo makes this easy with a button in the case that makes it easy to reset the earbuds for repairing with a different device.
The accompanying app provides personalization of touch controls, firmware downloads and EQ settings. I suggest avoiding the EQ settings for those who use a device or service that already modifies the sound profile of streams, such as Apple’s Spatial Audio.
What could be improved
Cons
- The missing X in the IP rating
- Focus the app on the device not the next transaction
- More environmentally friendly packaging
For sports earbuds, I’d love to see Tozo fill in the middle X in their IP rating so future versions of the Tozo Open Buds are as resistant to dust as they are to water. I personally have dropped my earbuds, often on dusty trails, as often as I’ve found myself splashed while wearing them.
Look, I’ve been a CMO. It’s hard to resist placing enticements that move buyers toward purchases and calls to action that close the deal everywhere the potential buyer can be found. I would draw the line at an App that already acknowledges ownership. I don’t need the Tozo store in my app, just the firmware, sound shaping, and earbuds feature controls. For those who just purchased a pair of headphones or earbuds, the in-app link to purchasing options can be annoying.
While the attractive cardboard box makes for a nice box-opening experience, the design can’t make up for a box completely wrapped in non-recyclable plastic, and a device cradled in a non-recyclable foam insert.
Tozo Open Buds: The bottom line
The Tozo Open Buds are a pleasure to wear and offer an outstanding audio experience. Yes, the driver and the audio components are great, but if I couldn’t get them close enough to my ear canal to hear them well, then that’s just wasted tech. The Biaxial Rotation is not just clever, it should be the new essential in sports earbuds because I can’t imagine I’m the only one who finds one-size-fits-all sports earbuds with loops difficult or even impossible to wear properly.
Tozo provided the Open Buds for review. Images courtesy of Tozo unless otherwise noted.
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