If you want a pair that survives real swimming and keeps playing with no phone anywhere near you, choose MARLALL Soft Liquid Silicone; if you need open-ear earbuds that carry you through a full work from home day of calls, focus blocks and case-top-ups, choose Boytond Open Ear Earbuds. That's the short version, and I'm happy to defend it. The longer version matters because these two products are built for genuinely different jobs — one is a water toy with an office sideline, the other is an all-day desk companion with a gym habit.
• MARLALL's biggest strength: a genuine IPX8 water rating plus 32GB of built-in storage, meaning you can swim, snorkel or surf with music and leave the phone in a locker.
• MARLALL's biggest trade-off: the clever part only works offline — Bluetooth does not function underwater, and playlists have to be loaded from a computer over the magnetic cable, not copied from a phone app.
• Boytond's biggest strength: staying power. Up to 10 hours per charge, another 40 hours in the case, and a five-minute top-up that buys an hour of playback.
• Boytond's biggest trade-off: its water protection is described as a waterproof build with no immersion rating stated, so sweat and rain are reasonable but laps in a pool are not.
• Who each pick is for: MARLALL is for swimmers, water-sports people and anyone who wants phone-free listening; Boytond is for the home-office crowd who sit in calls all day and still want their ears open.
The MARLALL is a bone conduction headphone first and a general-purpose headset second. The design is an ear-hook that sits outside the ear canal, wrapped in a soft liquid silicone overmold that MARLALL describes as skin-friendly, at a listed weight of 22.68 g. Nothing goes inside your ear, which is the whole point of bone conduction: you hear your music and the room at the same time. For open water or a busy gym floor, that awareness is not a gimmick — it's the reason to choose this style over sealed buds.
What makes it unusual is the combination of IPX8 sealing and a built-in 32GB MP3 player. That storage is the real headline. Load it from a computer using the magnetic charging cable, and the headphones become a self-contained music player with no Bluetooth and no phone required — which is exactly what makes swimming possible. Playback runs up to 7 hours on a 1.5-hour charge, and the magnetic connector removes the usual port flap that wears out on wet gear. In dry use it's a normal Bluetooth headphone too, and the microphone means calls are on the table.
How We Research
We compare products from their published specs and features; the verdicts below are our independent editorial opinions.
Who should buy it: the swimmer who is tired of leaving music on the deck. The open-water swimmer, snorkeler or surfer who wants a soundtrack. And — this is the less obvious one — the work from home person who wants an open ear all day and likes the idea of a loaded 32GB library for head-down focus blocks where notifications can't interrupt. Who should skip it: anyone who wants to stream from their phone while in the water (Bluetooth simply doesn't work there), anyone who dislikes managing music files through a computer, and anyone who wants a charging case or an on-device touch panel, because none of that is listed here. One honest caveat straight from the specs: dry the microphone after swimming, or call quality suffers.
The Boytond is the more conventional product of the two, and I mean that as a compliment. It's a clip-on, over-the-ear open design in Obsidian Black using a bone conduction driver, with 16.3mm drivers behind the sound. Boytond leans hard on call quality and stereo separation in its own description, and the hardware list backs up the daily-driver positioning: Bluetooth 5.3 for lower latency and a more stable link, smart auto-pairing the moment you lift the buds out of the case, and touch controls on the earpieces instead of physical buttons.
The numbers that matter most for a home office are the battery ones. Up to 10 hours of continuous playtime on a single charge, plus roughly 40 more hours stored in the charging case. Then the fast-charge trick: five minutes in the case gives you an hour of playback. That's the difference between "I'll take this call on speaker" and "give me sixty seconds." The case also solves the storage problem — nothing to remember except grabbing it off the desk, and the hook shape with flexible clips is designed to stay put when you stand up, pace the kitchen during a long call, or head out for a run after work.
Who should buy it: the person whose calendar is back-to-back and who wants to hear a knock at the door mid-meeting. Remote workers who hate the plugged-up feeling of in-ear buds after hour four. Runners and gym-goers who want the case in a pocket. Who should skip it: swimmers, since there's no immersion rating stated — this is a waterproof build for sweat and weather, not a pool headphone. People who want active noise cancellation should also look elsewhere; noise control is listed as none, and that's inherent to an open design. And if you dislike touch controls — gloved hands, sweaty fingers — this is a touch-only interface with no headphone jack as a fallback. Boytond does back it with 365 days of no-reason return and warranty service, which is a generous safety net for a control scheme you might not love on day one.
Side-by-Side: Which Should You Choose?
• Best for swimming and water sports → MARLALL Soft Liquid Silicone. IPX8 plus 32GB of onboard storage is a combination the Boytond simply does not offer.
• Best for all-day work from home calls → Boytond. Call clarity is its stated focus, and the five-minute fast charge keeps a busy day from stalling.
• Best for phone-free listening → MARLALL. Load the 32GB player once and you never need a connected device.
• Best for gym, running and outdoor workouts → Boytond. Clip-on hooks, a pocketable case and a waterproof build aimed at sweat and weather.
• Most skin-friendly long-wear build → MARLALL. The soft liquid silicone overmold and 22.68 g weight are aimed squarely at extended wear.
• Best warranty terms → Boytond. 365 days of no-reason return and warranty support versus a stated one-year warranty on the MARLALL.
• Easiest pairing and controls → Boytond. Bluetooth 5.3 with auto-pairing and touch controls; the MARLALL lists Bluetooth without a version and no control type.
For the work from home use case this comparison is built around, I'd buy the Boytond Open Ear Earbuds. Ten hours plus a 40-hour case, Bluetooth 5.3, touch controls and a call-quality focus line up with how a remote workday actually runs, and the 365-day return window takes the risk out of trying them. The MARLALL is the better product for one specific job — swimming with your own music — and if that's your job, buy it without hesitation. But as a daily desk companion I think the Boytond is the smarter pick, and I'd only push you toward the MARLALL if water is genuinely part of your week.
It carries an IPX8 rating for water immersion, so yes — but only in MP3 mode. Bluetooth does not work underwater, so the audio has to come from the built-in storage, and you should dry the microphone afterward to keep calls clean.
The MARLALL lists up to 7 hours of playback from a 1.5-hour charge. The Boytond lists up to 10 hours plus about 40 more from its case, with five minutes of charging yielding an hour of playback.
Which one is better for crystal clear calls at home?
On paper, the Boytond — call quality is an explicit design focus and Bluetooth 5.3 helps stability. The MARLALL has a microphone and works for calls, but its manual warns that the mic needs drying after swimming, which tells you calls are secondary to its water sports role.
Value depends on the current price, which you can check on Amazon from this page. Judge it against fit: if you need a charging case, fast charging and Bluetooth 5.3, the Boytond earns its keep; if you need IPX8 and a 32GB player, the MARLALL is doing something the Boytond can't do at any price.
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