We compare products from their published specs and features; the verdicts below are our independent editorial opinions.
Updated: 2026-10-01 · 7 min read · Independent comparison
If you want an open-ear headset you can talk through all day — with a boom mic you can actually position and active noise cancellation for calls — choose AYI Open Ear Air; if you need headphones that survive full underwater swimming and carry their own music storage so Bluetooth never has to reach you in the water, choose MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction.
• AYI Open Ear Air — biggest strength: A rotatable boom mic plus a dual-microphone array and active noise cancellation, which is a combination built for voice work, not just listening.
• AYI Open Ear Air — biggest trade-off: IPX5 means sweat and light rain only. It is not a swimming product, and there is no built-in music storage to fall back on.
• MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction — biggest strength: IP68 waterproofing plus 32 GB of internal MP3 memory, so you can swim with music and never rely on a Bluetooth signal underwater.
• MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction — biggest trade-off: Its underwater mode is MP3-only. Bluetooth does not function in the water, so you must load your own audio first.
• Who each pick is for: AYI Open Ear Air suits commuters, runners, and anyone on calls all day. MARLALL Swimming suits lap swimmers, snorkelers, and water athletes first.
AYI Open Ear Air is the "work and talk" pick of the two. The design is open-ear air conduction, which means nothing plugs your ear canal — you keep situational awareness while you listen. That matters more than people expect: on a bike path, in a warehouse, or walking a busy street, hearing traffic and surroundings is a safety feature, not a compromise. AYI pairs that with Bluetooth 5.4, which is the current generation of the standard and brings faster pairing, a more stable link, and lower power draw than older versions. Battery life is rated at 10 hours, which covers a full workday of listening with a little room to spare.
Where AYI pulls ahead of most open-ear headphones is voice. The rotatable boom mic can be swung into position near your mouth instead of relying on a tiny mic buried in the earpiece. Add the dual-microphone system and active noise cancellation, and you have a headset that treats phone calls as a first-class job. ANC here blocks ambient noise so you can focus on music or a conversation — an unusual feature in an open-ear design, where the whole point is usually to let the world in. The push-button controls are simple and glove-friendly, and the impedance is listed at 140 ohm with a frequency range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, so it will reproduce the full audible band.
Who should buy it: remote workers, drivers, delivery riders, runners, and anyone who spends hours on calls and wants their ears left open. Who should skip it: swimmers and heavy-sweat athletes who need more than IPX5, and anyone who wants to leave their phone behind at the pool — there is no onboard storage here. If you want a headset that doubles as a call tool, this is the one I would point you to. Check the current price on Amazon before you commit, since that is the number that decides most of these purchases.
MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction is a specialist, and it is honest about that. The headline spec is IP68 waterproofing — the highest common ingress rating, covering water immersion, sweat, rain, and dust. The build uses a nano-coated sealed design and premium liquid silicone that conforms to your ears without pressure points, and the whole thing weighs 22.68 g, which is light enough to forget you are wearing it. For swimming with a cap or goggles, snorkeling, or boating, that combination is exactly what you want.
The feature that changes how you use it is the 32 GB of internal MP3 memory. Bluetooth signals cannot travel through water, and MARLALL says so plainly: underwater you switch to MP3 mode, not Bluetooth. So the real workflow is load your playlist onto the built-in storage, leave the phone in your bag, and swim. Above water, Bluetooth 5.4 works normally with a stated range of 10 meters (about 33 feet), with stable connections, strong interference resistance, and hands-free calling on iOS and Android. A magnetic charging cable also gives you computer access to that internal storage, which makes updating playlists painless.
Two practical notes worth flagging. First, dry the microphone after a swim to keep call quality clean — the brand calls this out, and it is the kind of habit that separates a working mic from a muffled one. Second, this is not the headset for all-day calls in a noisy office; it is built around water first and audio second. Who should buy it: lap swimmers, open-water swimmers, snorkelers, and anyone who wants music in the pool without a phone nearby. Who should skip it: desk workers who mostly need a boom mic and noise cancellation. A one-year warranty is listed, which is a reasonable safety net for a pool product.
Side-by-Side: Which Should You Choose?
• Best for swimming → MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction. IP68 and a sealed nano-coated build are made for immersion; AYI's IPX5 is not.
• Best for leaving your phone behind → MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction. 32 GB of onboard MP3 memory means no Bluetooth link required.
• Best for all-day wear at work or on the move → AYI Open Ear Air. 10 hours of rated battery and push-button controls suit a full day of mixed listening and talking.
• Best for noise control in your environment → AYI Open Ear Air. Active noise cancellation is listed on AYI and not on MARLALL, which prioritizes water safety and awareness.
• Best for the lightest, lowest-pressure fit → MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction. 22.68 g with liquid silicone and a stated zero-pressure-point design.
• Best for sweat and light rain → AYI Open Ear Air. IPX5 covers workouts and weather; just keep it out of the pool.
• Best for durability around water and salt → MARLALL Swimming Headphones-Bone Conduction. The spec sheet explicitly calls out resistance to pool and saltwater damage.
In my opinion, AYI Open Ear Air is the headset I would buy, because it does the widest range of everyday jobs well: open-ear listening, a boom mic you can actually aim, dual mics, ANC, Bluetooth 5.4, and a 10-hour battery. Most people are not swimming laps — they are commuting, working, and taking calls, and AYI is built for exactly that. The exception is real, though: if swimming is your main reason for buying, MARLALL wins outright, because IP68 and 32 GB of onboard music solve a problem AYI cannot. Buy MARLALL for the water. Buy AYI for everything else.
how to wear bone conduction headphones
Bone conduction drivers sit against the bone in front of your ear rather than inside the canal, so the earpieces rest on your cheekbone and leave your ears open. MARLALL's liquid silicone tips are designed to sit there with zero pressure points, and AYI's open-ear design follows the same principle while adding a boom mic that swings toward your mouth.
how to use bone conduction headphones
Pair over Bluetooth 5.4 for normal listening and calls, then use the on-device controls — push buttons on AYI, and a magnetic charging cable on MARLALL that also lets a computer read the internal 32 GB storage for playlist updates. For AYI, rotate the boom mic into position for calls.
how to bone conduction headphones work
A bone conduction driver vibrates and sends sound through the bones of your skull to the inner ear, bypassing the eardrum and leaving the ear canal open. That is why both of these keep you aware of your surroundings — and why MARLALL can be worn while swimming, when a normal in-ear seal would be impractical.
Only in the right mode. MARLALL explicitly states Bluetooth cannot transmit underwater, so you switch to MP3 mode using the built-in 32 GB memory; above water, Bluetooth 5.4 works up to 10 meters. AYI Open Ear Air is IPX5, rated for sweat and light rain, and is not intended for swimming.
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