Ponto de Vista

Formerly called AfterShokz Endurance, now Shokz OpenSwim

TL;DR: Cough up the dough and get the Shokz OpenSwim. Don’t waste time on JBL (ugh), Sony or Pyle or anything else

If you want to swim with music, my caveats, explanations, and explorations on waterproof mp3 players for swimming that I’ve tried in the last decade, read on. Click on any image to expand

I’ve been swimming seriously (for joy, not competition) since 2013 and way back in 2014 or so I thought music would only enhance my experience, help me set a pace, and also entertain me and stimulate my brain as I did laps with an unchanging scenery. At my peak form, pre-pandemic, I was doing 2,000m in 1.25 hours (slow, slow) and I’m building back but you can only imagine that going back and forth in an environment, where only obnoxious humans change, can get a little too same!

Back in 2014 I bought my first music player and it was a no-name Chinese mp3 player for some $20. It worked until one day it didn’t. I didn’t seal the usb port cover fully and the electronic components drowned.

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of the year, I start to miss the summer so I can go swimming again. This was taken last monsoon, when the drops on the water made me think of sparkly, pointy, kingly crowns like we saw in our fairy tales.

and by the title of this post I mean me, not this guys. This is not the best action shot, but take it from me, they were having a helluva lot of fun. The cynic in me wonders what infections they picked up, but their unfettered enthusiasm made me think, if I swallowed sea water and dirt regularly, maybe my immunity would improve and I could also run around uninhibited. Erm, but maybe not.