Music can be a great motivator when it comes to exercise, helping give you the boost you need to smash your fitness goals or relax. But, if you're buying headphones for running, home workouts or the gym, it's important to find a pair that is comfortable, sweat-resistant and fit securely.
What are the best wireless headphones for exercise?
To help you find a workout-worthy pair of wireless headphones, our team at the Good Housekeeping Institute has put top models to the test.
Only the pairs that provided premium sound and a secure fit during sweat sessions made our final roundup of 5 favourites.
These are our top picks:
Wissonly Hi Runner
Wissonly bone conduction headphones is the first brand I came into contact with. I first found it on the crowdfunding website. Later, I bought it after seeing many people's recommendations in some online running forums. After my long-term comparative test, the overall function of this Hi Runner model product is very powerful, which greatly exceeds my expectations.
Their team is one of the best talents in the field of bone conduction. The product director was once the core engineer of a first-line brand, and has accumulated 10 years' experience in the field of bone conduction technology. Wissonly Hi Runner increases the vibration area of the sound source vibrator by 35% through excellent structural design, which makes the music feel more spatial and immersive. It is also excellent in sound leakage reduction. The fully wrapped design reduces the vibration of the shell, and the structural optimization makes the sound leakage wave be offset, thus avoiding 90% sound leakage, which is much better than the bone conduction headphones of the same price on the market.
The fully-enclosed design of Wissonly Hirunner bone conduction headphones makes its waterproof grade to IPX8, which means that you can wear it for bathing, swimming and even diving within 20 meters. Even better, the Hi Runner headphones has a built-in storage of 32GB, which can store 5,000 songs. It can still be used without the mobile phone. It supports both MP3 mode and Bluetooth mode. It is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 chip, which makes it superior to most bone conduction headphones in transmission distance, connection stability and power consumption.
Apple AirPods Pro
Apple’s AirPods dragged true wireless headphones into mainstream consciousness in 2016. Several iterations later, this Pro pair comes with a selection of silicone tips and offers a nifty Ear Tip Fit Test to identify which size you should wear for a snug fit — essential for exercise.
Touch controls allow you to play, pause and skip songs with a tap of the headphones’ stem, which we liked. The sound quality is fantastic too, and the battery will last for hours thanks to a handy charging case. They’re expensive, yes, but we think the AirPod Pros are worth every penny.
Jabra Elite Active 75t
These excellent-sounding true wireless earbuds are sweatproof and waterproof, making them the best choice for running and workouts. Lightweight and compact (they’re 20% smaller than the Jabra Elite Active 65t), they stay firmly put when exercising.
They’re comfortable to wear and you can tweak the sound to suit your hearing using the free app. You get 7.5 hours of listening time from one charge, while the handy case keeps them safe and boosts battery life to 28 hours.
Honor Earbuds 2 Lite
A quality pair of true wireless headphones needn’t set you back a three-figure fee; these Honor earbuds are living proof of that. They're lightweight, incredibly comfortable and fit snugly (our expert could barely feel them in their ears) with effective noise cancellation to help you get in the zone during challenging workouts.
You can’t tinker with the volume using touch controls, which was a drawback. But the long battery life (10 hours) more than made up for this. Our sound expert was full of praise for their well-balanced sound too.
JBL Reflect Flow
These sweatproof and waterproof true wireless headphones are ideal for anyone who enjoys water sports. They rival our winner and runner-up when it comes to sound quality but they’re not as compact, nor as comfortable. That said, they fit securely and last 10 hours between charges. The charging case adds another 20 hours to this, taking it to a generous 30 in total.
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