Earfun OpenJump: Two minute review

Now that open-ear headphones have evolved from a simple fad to a fully-fledged new kind of headphone (and a hugely competitive one, at that), two rough groups are emerging. On one hand you've got the open-ears designed for fitness use, offering long battery lives and hardy builds so you can run and cycle around traffic; on the other you've got lifestyle open-ears that provide decent music and some useful additional features.

The new Earfun OpenJump seem to want to straddle that divide, landing loosely in the second camp, but offering features which will appeal to the first. Unfortunately, poor timing has hampered what could have been a warm reception.

I associate Earfun with making cheap and cheerful audio tech, but the new OpenJump cost roughly the same as, and came out at the same time as, the Huawei FreeArc. These rival buds trump the Earfuns in myriad ways, with another contemporary (the Honor Earbuds Open) also eclipsing the OpenJump. So it's hard to recommend Earfun's proposition given that you can easily buy those alternatives – and I think, depending on your priorities, you should (although that's a different piece, isn't it? This is about Earfun).

But forgetting its rivals for a second, how do the Earfun OpenJump hold up? Well, they're... decent, but I don't think they'll be remembered for ushering in the new age of open earbuds as much as their H-branded rivals.

The buds are fairly lightweight and comfortable to wear, though some design issues made the fit and gesture controls a little unreliable. There's a decent feature set, particularly with a long-lasting battery life and an in-depth equalizer, and this is almost certainly where the OpenJump stands out.

Unfortunately, the audio quality just isn't there, and I mean that despite some bass tech from Earfun plus the aforementioned equalization options. Until very recently, you couldn't expect top-notch audio from such a design. But times have changed, and although the OpenJump are decent, that isn't quite good enough any more, even for this money.

Something to bear in mind: already in my testing period, Earfun has reduced the OpenJump by a noticeable margin. So there's a good chance that you can find these buds for a significant discount over the price listed below, firmly placing these into cheap earbuds territory. If that's the case, you can ignore a healthy chunk of my criticism here, since you'll be picking up a useful bargain. But at retail price, perhaps it's worth waiting for these to come down.

I really didn't mind using the OpenJump through the testing period, and I see myself continuing to use them until my next pair of open-ears come in. Nothing about them offends or annoys, but also, nothing delights or wows. And in the end, a tech review is meant to be an appraisal of which option is most worthy of your hard-earned cash. It's just too hard to point to the OpenJump as being that, given the competitive state of the market right now.

Earfun OpenJump review: Specifications

Earfun OpenJump review: Price and availability

• Announced in February 2025
• Costs $79.99 / £99.99 / AU$149.99
• Price is variable

The Earfun OpenJump was announced and released in February 2025, ready for everyone who put ‘exercise more’ on their list of New Year’s Resolutions (but didn’t start straight away, for whatever reason).

You can buy the earbuds for $79.99 / £99.99 / AU$149.99 – Earfun’s website has them listed as costing more in certain regions (£129.99 in the UK, for example), and the prices I’m going by are the RRP on Amazon.

In an odd break from Earfun’s modus operandi, that means that these are priced in the mid-range of the open earbuds market, not at the super-cheap cutting edge of it. At that price they’re the same price as the Huawei FreeArc, and there are a fair few open-ear options on Amazon for less – though don’t expect reliability and quality if you don't pay for it.

It’s worth noting that, unlike competitors, Earfun’s open-ear buds are already subject to price cuts and discounts. I found them at $20 off in the US and £40 off in the UK, just one month after their release. So it seems money-saving deals come thick and fast on these buds, however it wouldn't be fair for me to treat these prices as the default, since you may not be so lucky.

Earfun OpenJump review: Design

• Cheap-feeling plastic charging case
• IPX7-protected buds
• Slightly unreliable fit and gestures

From a distance, the Earfun OpenJump’s case looks like most other open-ear buds’: a medium-sized clamshell. And that’s certainly true, but when you get up close and get the thing in your hand, you realise how cheap the plastic material feels. It didn’t feel very robust either, and I’d be curious to see how durable the case is over a longer amount of time. Even over a relatively short testing time of two weeks, it picked up a few scratches.

Of course, the case is simply for holding and charging the buds. It does that, with a USB-C port for powering up and an indicator LED on the front. On to the buds themselves then, and these look how you'd expect for open-ear designs: they have a bud which is held just over your ear by a sport loop, with a counterweight (and a very little battery pack) tucked behind your ear.

They mostly fit well, and I went on several runs and workouts without issue, but now and then there was slight wobble and which made me worry that they'd fly off at any moment. This was nowhere near as bad as with some other rivals I've tested, mind you, but I've also used other buds without issue.

The buds have an IPX7 rating, meaning that they're protected from immersion in water up to a depth of a meter for up to thirty minutes. Given that the new athletically-minded Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 (although these are in-ear, rather than open-ear) only list a splash-proof IPX4 rating, it's good to see that the Earfuns will handle a puddle drop and survive.

Both buds support gesture controls by tapping once, twice, thrice or tapping and holding. They picked up my taps reliably, but the angle of the sensor meant I kept whacking my ear antihelix when trying to tap them. In a telling move, I soon relied on my phone or smartwatch for music control instead of these sensors.

Unlike some rivals, there's only one color option for the Earfun OpenJump: black. They weigh 8g each so they're pretty light, and they never felt a burden to wear.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Features

• Pairing issues
• Versatile EQ
• Long-lasting battery

I had some troubles during my initial pairing with the Earfun OpenJump, in which my phone wouldn't find the buds it'd paired to, and throughout the testing process the Earfun App listed a profile for phantom OpenJumps which were simply a leftover from the first time I had tried to connect. After a while I got them to connect, and didn't have problems after that, but it's worth bearing in mind. I test earbuds constantly, and I rarely have these issues.

Talking of the Earfun app: it's worth downloading, because it brings a plethora of extras. These include various modes for gaming or streaming movies, the ability to customize touch controls and, most importantly, an equalizer.

Earfun fans will know that the company offers a fairly robust (possibly to a fault) equalizer. There are countless presets to pick from plus a 10-band equalizer and also a listening test to provide a custom sound profile.

A slight issue with the latter is that, like most other companies' versions, it requires you to listen to a sound until it fades from your hearing... all well and good except that these are open-ears. So by their very design, it's especially hard to tell when audio is soft, or when the sounds of the world are simply creeping in (unless you own a hermetically sealed subterranean bunker in which to conduct these tests).

The OpenJumps have some of the best battery life of any open earbuds that weren't made by OpenRock. The buds themselves will last for 11 hours according to Earfun, and my testing backed that up. The case itself offers a total of 42 hours of listening time before it needs to be charged and if anything, I'd say that my actual listening time seemed to surpass that slightly, up to nearly 44 hours, meaning stamina is one area where these buds are genuinely competitive.

• Features score: 4/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Sound performance

• 14.2mm driver
• Music is slightly lacking in energy and detail
• Bass redemption tech

The Earfun OpenJump came out at a poor time, released simultaneously alongside the two best-sounding open-ear headphones I've ever used (more on that in the Competition section later), so it was always going to struggle in the sound department. And they certainly do, though not to the extent I was expecting.

That's not a huge surprise given that the open-ear form factor naturally means that the drivers are hanging over your ears with no seal. This form factor still isn't for audiophiles and the OpenJump don't change that.

You're getting a fairly forward sound profile with the OpenJump, but music lacks energy or detail. There's little separation between instruments or any expanse to the soundstage, and it doesn't help that the treble lacks sparkle in a congested, compressed-sounding mix.

I had hoped that the Theater mode, which is meant to improve the soundstage, would help. While it did seem to spread out the music a little more, it also sadly made the overall performance quite tinny.

Earfun has added a feature which it's cryptically calling 'BassSurge Bass' (I wonder what that does?) and this goes some way into providing a little kick in certain songs, but it's hardly a surge of juicy and impactful low-end frequencies. You could argue that bass-heads should still look for over- or in-ears rather than an open-fit design, but other rivals have managed to deliver better bass, despite the inherent shortfalls of a design that doesn't fully cover or go into your ear canal.

The other bit of tech of note is a 14.2mm driver, which is a fairly standard piece of tech for this kind of bud, and I remember the Nothing Ear (open) had the same.

The OpenJump have quite a lot of noise bleed – again an inevitable part of open-ears given the design, but it was a little more pronounced here than on some other buds I've tested.

• Sound performance score: 3/5

Earfun OpenJump review: Value

I'm going to use the Amazon price to judge the Earfun OpenJump's value rating, because it seems that the buds are readily accessibly at that lower cost.

These are reasonably affordable open-ears for this price, undercutting some more expensive rivals though not quite offering the refined design, or sonic prowess.

They're certainly not alone at this price point though...

• Value score: 4/5

Earfun OpenJump review: scorecard

Earfun OpenJump: Should you buy them?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Also consider

How I tested

I tested the Earfun OpenJump for two weeks prior to writing this review, and before them I'd tested two similarly-priced contemporaries: the Honor Earbuds Open and the Huawei FreeArc.

I used the earbuds paired to my Realme phone for listening to music and podcasts, and the testing took place when I was at home, at the office, cycling through the city, going on runs and working out at the gym.

I've been reviewing gadgets for TechRadar since early 2019 and have used a huge range of tech. This includes other open-ear buds as well as audio offerings from Earfun.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: April 2025

Anker Soundcore AeroClip: review

If you’re the athletic type or maybe just a regular gym goer, the Anker Soundcore AeroClip could be the perfect set of open earbuds for you. These clip-on buds have the basics down: solid sound, a secure and comfortable fit plus nifty companion app functionality. And although they’re not perfect, their more-than-fair price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) makes them an option well worth considering.

Generally, my problem with open-ear headphones and open earbuds is that they don’t offer a proper seal and let in a lot of ambient sound. That means you’ll hear all sorts, from squawking gulls to wailing children. As you can imagine, that can make it difficult to indulge in a high-quality listening experience. But after putting my anti-open-ear bias to one side, I discovered that the Anker Soundcore AeroClip pleasantly surprised me in a number of ways – especially in terms of their audio performance.

From the off, I was met with clean, impressively immersive audio and an airy, ear-filling quality brought out the best in Não Tem Nada Não by Marcos Valle. Similarly, when tuning into Remind Me by Patrice Rushen, I was delighted to hear clear, distortion-free vocals, layered with smooth, tonally accurate bass and controlled percussion. Even at higher volumes, vocals didn’t sound muddied in the overall mix and higher pitched percussion didn’t get tinny either. That sort of performance is exactly what I’d expect from a pair of the best open ear headphones.

Sure, there are no fancy audio codecs, like LDAC, for a more detailed sonic experience, but the AeroClip were still pretty well-rounded, considering some similarly priced rivals struggle to even manage clean, balanced sound.

When listening to wyd? by wev, I encountered a couple of sonic shortcomings, though. First up, the track’s deep bass was a little much for the AeroClip to handle at times. I could almost hear the drivers overextending themselves to manage the tune’s low-end, something you’re not going to experience when using a pair of the best earbuds, for instance. Secondly, I felt that the excitable treble was a little understated, meaning the record’s energy was sapped out slightly.

There wasn’t much I could do about that first point, but help was at hand for my treble trouble. I took to the Soundcore app and created my own custom EQ – one which put a bit more emphasis on high-end frequencies, while also bumping bass and slightly lowering mids. That gave the AeroClip a far more colorful, charismatic sound profile than the balanced, yet sometimes slightly unexciting Soundcore Signature tuning.

On top of custom EQ options, you can also pick from a small selection of presets: Bass, Treble, or Volume Booster (all pretty self-explanatory), or Classical (big dips in the mids, large bumps to bass, sub-bass and treble) and Podcast (essentially the opposite of that). With the right tuning, you’re going to get energetic, yet crisp highs, clean mids and relatively rich bass – just don’t expect these to reach into the depths of sub bass with too much skill.

However, one characteristic of the Soundcore AeroClip that will either make or break your listening experience is their open design. As I mentioned earlier, their lack of a proper seal means that a lot of noise from your surroundings will creep through. Now, if you’re someone that loves a good run and you want to keep an ear out for traffic or people around you, that could be ideal.

But personally, I prefer to focus on my tunes and the lack of external noise nixing really did prevent that at times. Chatter in public, wind and even typing in my office were all very much audible – there’s no ANC or anything to counter that either, something the Edifier LolliClip open ears supply. These Soundcore headphones are also prone to leaking sound to those around you, especially above 50% volume.

There might not be any ANC, but what features do these open ear headphones offer? Well, if you head into the very slick Soundcore app, you can mess around with the aforementioned EQ options, toggle multi-point or customize touch controls. And the touch controls were really responsive in my experience. You can double tap to pause or triple tap to skip – the absence of a single tap option means you’re unlikely to make accidental, unwanted adjustments too.

What’s here works very nicely, but I would have liked to see a more fleshed out feature-set, in honesty – even just the addition of auto-pausing media when you remove the buds from your ears. Another aspect that could be better is battery life. You get a respectable eight hours of playtime per charge, which I found to be accurate during my testing. But with the charging case, you only get a maximum of 24 hours – not that much compared to the 40 hours from the Honor Earbuds Open, for instance.

Before I put an end to my moaning, I want to point out a couple of slight design shortcomings. Firstly, these are only IPX4 waterproof rating, meaning there’s no guarantee on dustproofing and you’re only getting resistance against sweat and water droplets. A lot of rivals outdo the AeroClip here – the splendid Huawei FreeArc, for example, are IP57 rated, meaning they can survive submersion under a meter of water for 30 minutes.

Secondly, I’d argue that these aren’t the prettiest buds around. I quite like the look of the batteries and buds, but the clips do appear slightly cheap-looking. On the other hand, these are still highly comfortable and secure on-ear, so you’ll never have to worry about them flinging off mid-workout.

Having said all this, I want to end on a real positive note: mic quality. These open ears claim to deliver AI-enabled clear calls. And I found them to be plenty clear – though I’m not so sure how much of that is thanks to AI. During a phone call, I was told that my voice sounded “crisp”, even at lower volumes – something that I also felt when listening back to a voice recording.

So all in all, are the Soundcore AeroClip worth a $129.99 / £129.99 outlay? I’m not 100% sure. If you’re only after an open design, I’d say yes – you get great sound for this headphone type, as well as impressive calling capabilities. But if you want noise cancelling and a more premium design, I’d suggest pursuing a pair of the best wireless earbuds instead, for awesome audio and ANC.

Edifier LolliClip review: specs

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: price and availability

• $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210)
• Launched in March 2025

The Anker Soundcore AeroClip released in March 2025, marking the manufacturer’s latest foray into the world of open ear headphones. They launched with a list price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) and are available in three colorways: Midnight (black); Rosy Brown (pink and brown) ; and the variant I tested, Champagne Mist (white and gold).

These are very similar in price to the Nothing Ear (open), which launched at the tail-end of 2024. And they’ll set you back far less than a premium option like the wonderful Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which carry a sizeable list price of $299 / £299 / AU$449.95…woah!

Should you buy the Anker Soundcore AeroClip?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: also consider

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: How I tested

• Tested for one week
• Used in the office and while out and about
• Predominantly tested using Tidal

I put the Anker Soundcore AeroClip to the test over a one week period. I predominantly listened in the office, but also made use of them at home and when out and about. I tinkered with each and every feature, engaged in both casual and critical listening and compared them with the Edifier LolliClip for on-ear comfort.

When listening to music, I tapped into Tidal on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. And as per usual, I flicked through the whole TechRadar testing playlist, which includes tracks from a wide range of genres and is optimized for judging sound quality across the frequencies. In addition, I played a bunch of tunes from my personal library.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test

JLab JBuds Open Sport: one-minute review

The JLab JBuds Open Sport are affordable wireless earbuds that, as the name implies, offer an open-ears design. What this means in practice is that unlike in-ear buds, they don’t have tips that block your ear canal, instead leaving your ears free to hear the world around you. That makes them a great option if you prefer to be able to hear oncoming cars on your daily run, or if you hate having to stop your music simply to hear what someone’s saying.

For such affordable buds, the JLab JBuds Open Sport offer genuinely decent features. Not only does their app offer a couple of sound profiles to amp up treble and bass, but it also includes a 10-band EQ, something that even more premium products don’t offer. While not necessarily essential, hearing protection features and ambient sound generators for relaxation are definitely nice to have.

According to JLab, these buds should last you a full nine hours off a single charge, with the case bringing this up to a combined 26 hours. Wanting to put this to the test, I drained the buds from 100% to 0% by streaming music continuously until they died – I found JLab’s prediction was pretty much bang on. So the Open Sport should easily see you through a full-day's use before needing to be put back in the case.

The JLab JBuds Open Sport aren’t a huge departure from the template adopted by many of the best open-ear headphones – they’re made of smooth matt plastic with a flexible hook that holds them in place in front of your ear canal. But they certainly do the trick: they’re secure, even if they wobble a little during vigorous exercise, and their open-ear design meant I could hear oncoming traffic even when running along busy roads. In addition, their IP55 water-resistance means you don’t need to worry about a bit of sweat or the occasional shower.

Unfortunately, their sound does display some compromises. The Open Sport’s soundstage was genuinely impressive; listening to Grown by Kiasmos, the track’s shimmery trebly synths swayed noticeably from left to right, while the strings had a decent width. But I found their balance across the frequency range a bit uneven: treble occasionally gets a little brittle, while mids didn’t really have enough room to breathe, forcing some elements to compete for your attention. It isn't bad per se, but you are sacrificing some fidelity on the altar of situational awareness, so it’s worth being aware of this.

Ultimately, opting for cheap open-ear buds such as the JLab JBuds Open Sport will involve some tradeoffs. To get a pair of earbuds that not only leave your ears open but that also come in at a budget price, you’ll likely have to drop your expectations when it comes to sound. If you do, you’ll find these buds do a perfectly adequate job. But if you’d rather not scrimp on audio quality, paying more for a pair of open-ear buds such as the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds or opting for a closed-ear pair from the best wireless earbuds might suit you better instead.

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: specs

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: features

• Decent EQ settings and listening modes
• Good, if average, battery life
• Not a huge fan of the controls

Getting started with the JLab JBuds Open Sport is straightforward, even if the process is a little idiosyncratic. Triggering pairing mode is as simple as removing the buds from their case: their lights will immediately begin flashing, allowing you to connect them with your prime device. However, utilizing their multi-device connectivity is more unorthodox – to retrigger pairing mode, you’ll need to switch off Bluetooth on your prime device and then once the JBuds are paired with your second device, you can you reactivate the first. It’s an odd dance to have to sashay your way through, but it works and connectivity seems stable.

Once you’re set up, most of the features you’ll access will be through the JLab app, which offers a decent selection of settings, even if it isn't quite as comprehensive as you’d expect from a more premium pair of earbuds.

First off, the app offers access to the JBuds’ EQ settings. This comprises two preset profiles: Balance, which lightly boosts the bass and treble; and the more aggressively sculpted JLab signature, which ducks frequencies around 500Hz – 2,000Hz to significantly boost bass. You also get a single custom profile – while that doesn’t sound like much, it’s a full 10-band EQ, something even some pricier buds don’t offer. There’s also a couple of dedicated listening modes bundled in – Music mode and Movie mode – that further tweak the sound to suit your source.

There’s some more unusual features bundled in the app as well. Safe Hearing mode allows you to set limits on playback volume according to the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 85dB (for a max listening time of eight hours) or 95dB (max listening time of one hour). As someone who has already ruined his hearing attending many clubs and gigs, I appreciate the thought here. The app also offers an Ambient Sounds mode, where you can choose to play anything from bird song to fan noise. Admittedly, this isn't anything you can’t find on most streaming services these days, but I welcome not having to do all the legwork in finding decent quality soundscapes.

Each of the Open Sport buds has only a single-touch capacitive button on it, meaning that control is through tapping out those morse code rhythms to play / pause music, increase and decrease volume, skip tracks or adjust EQ. I’ve been upfront about this before: I'm not the biggest fan of these kinds of control systems, as I think it’s too easy to mis-tap and I hate skipping tracks when I just wanted to crank up the volume. However, the Open Sport soothe my ire somewhat by allowing you to customise which functions are programmed to a single-, double- and triple-tap or a long press, making it marginally easier to set them up in a way that suits me.

JLab estimates the JBuds Open Sport’s battery life to be nine hours in the buds and over 26 hours in total with the case. My battery tests seemed to bear this out – playing music continuously until the battery dropped from 100% to 0% took nine hours and four minutes, which is pretty spot on. It's notable that the right earbud actually died sooner, at around eight and a half hours, leaving lefty to struggle on alone; but I imagine this is more down to quirks related to the battery’s first few cycles rather than a persistent issue.

• Features score: 4 / 5

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: sound quality

• Provide great situational awareness
• Wide-open soundstage
• Relatively humdrum sound

Let’s start with the obvious. The JLab JBuds Open Sport don’t offer any sound isolation by design – their key feature is their ability to leave your ears clear of obstructions and let outside sounds in. So if you’re going to be using them in an office environment, you better be relaxed about hearing every tap of your co-workers' keyboards or their Severance fan theories. On the flip side, when I used the Open Sport while out on a run, the buds allowed me to hear the noise of oncoming cars and the hollered instructions of maintenance workers on the roadside. However, this awareness does come at a cost: the Open Sport can’t really compete with the volume of traffic, so running alongside roads I often found that tunes were drowned out by the thunder of vehicles.

A less predictable benefit of the JBuds open design is their soundstage. Playing Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon, I was immediately struck by how open the buds’ stereo field is – in particular, Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s choral style vocals bounce from left to right with impressive accuracy.

However, where things start to come undone is the expression of individual instruments. During St. Thomas by Sonny Rollins, I found that the bass, piano and sax were constantly competing with each other for prominence. While they sounded clear enough during solos, when all three were playing at once, they all somehow amounted to less than the sum of their parts.

It’s only really by probing the sonic balance further that I came to understand what was going on. Listening to Nothing Left To Lose by Everything But the Girl, there’s definite crispness to that saw-edged bass, but unfortunately, the sub that gives it that cocoa-on-a-cold-day resonance was lacking. Conversely, treble is occasionally bright, and I mean that to a fault: Young Blood by The Naked and Famous actively hurt my ears, with the bouncy, distorted melody off its synth quickly grating and making for an unpleasant listening experience.

You’d think that anything that doesn’t sit toward one of these two extremes would fare better; but, if anything, the opposite is true. While I Want You by Moloko at least displayed enough bass and treble to give it some presence, the mids felt severely neglected. Elements such as the strings, rapid guitar strokes and vocals felt cluttered in a way that I'm not used to: like an hourglass, the Open Sport’s sound is pinched tightly in the middle, meaning every instrument is forced to compete for attention, harming overall cohesion.

Fortunately, the Open Sport’s EQ modes can mitigate some of the worst of this, but we're talking more about damage control rather than adding real polish. Listening to Otomo by Bonobo on the buds’ flat profile left me pretty disappointed – it came across as rather tinny, while the spectral profile of the tribal chorus was so strident it almost scintillates in an unpleasant manner. Enabling JLab Signature performed a quick nip-tuck to suture up some of the flabbiest areas of this sound, ducking the problem frequencies around 1kHz to 2kHz and boosting the bass to compensate. This is definitely a blunt tool, but it does the trick of compensating for some of the inevitable aural shortcomings of open-ear buds.

Given you’re likely to use these buds when out and about, you may well be wondering how their microphones fare in noisy settings. Well, when recording a voice note while streaming the sound of a Delhi traffic jam in the background, I was impressed with how well the mics filtered out the background noise – although they did lose some of the treble of my voice, making the final result a bit muddier than I’d expect. Conversely, when making some trial phone calls not far from a busy road, my long-suffering girlfriend reported my voice came across perfectly clear.

• Sound quality: 3.5 / 5

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: design

• Comfortable to wear
• Decent dust- and water-resistance
• Secure, but not always stable, fit

When it comes to looks, the JLab JBuds Open Sport are fairly conservative. Compared to the more outré designs adopted by some open-ear buds, these aren’t that distinguishable from many of the best workout headphones – you’re not getting the square-bracket shape of the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, or earring-aping form factor of the Huawei FreeClip. Instead, they offer a traditional hooked design with a rectangular driver unit that’s positioned just in front of your ear canal. It’s practical yet entirely unexciting, like a pair of sweatpants for your ears.

If I’m being honest, I’m pretty hook agnostic when it comes to workout earbuds – I’ve never found that I struggle to keep in-ear buds wedged in place. But with buds that don’t enter your ear, some kind of hook or band is essential. And even though the Open Sport aren’t really my thing, I found the hooked design here to be pretty comfortable, allowing me to wear them for multiple hours without discomfort.

Ironically, though, given hooks are supposed to keep your earbuds secure, I did find they sometimes felt less stable than I was used to. Using them on runs, they wobbled more than I was prepared for – I couldn’t stop myself from periodically repositioning them just to make sure they were still on right. However, I don’t think they’d actually come loose and without being anchored in your ear, I guess it’s natural that open ear buds are going to shift around a little as you move.

On the plus side, they should be hardy enough to survive most workouts. Not only does their construction seem solid – the matt black plastic they’re constructed of is hard enough to resist marks and scratches yet the earhooks are flexible enough to make them easy to slip on – but their IP55 rating should see off dust, sweat and even a bit of rain. Of course, we don’t just take brands at their word at TechRadar, so I put these claims to the test, liberally flicking them with water from our testing tank until they’d had a thorough sprinkling. They shrugged off this spritzing like champs and, once dry, there was no impact on their performance or sound. So, while they won’t survive you dropping them in a puddle, neither perspiration nor precipitation should cause them too many problems.

• Design score: 3.5 / 5

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: value

• Affordable price
• Better sound will definitely cost you more

While I’ve made no bones about the fact the JLab JBuds Open Sport have some shortcomings, there's one factor that should probably recontextualize everything you’ve read above: their price. Premium open-ear buds massively outstrip their MRSP – for example, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds go for a hefty $299 / £249.95 – and even mid-market brands such as Shokz can range from the $119.95 / £94 OpenFit Air to the $179.95 / £129 OpenFit 2. So at $49.99 / £79.99, these are firmly priced at the budget end of the market.

Viewed through this lens, some of the Open Sport’s weaknesses become more palatable. Making open-ear buds sound unimpeachable is a much bigger technical challenge compared to buds with either passive sound isolation or active noise cancelling – and, inevitably, you'll need to spend premium prices to get premium results. As such, if your biggest priorities are situational awareness and an affordable price, these buds are a wise investment. But if you value sound quality above all else, you may need to spend a fair bit more or go for a closed-ear design.

• Value score: 4.5 / 5

Should I buy the JLab JBuds Open Sport?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

JLab JBuds Open Sport review: also consider

How I tested the JLab JBuds Open Sport

• Tested them for two weeks
• Trialed them in a range of quiet and noisy settings
• Assessed their water resistance by spraying them with water

I tested the JLab JBuds Open Sport over a period of two weeks. I used them to listen to a wide array of music, not only listening to the TechRadar testing playlist multiple times, but also trialing them on some of my own go-to testing tracks. I also tested out their microphones by recording voice notes accompanied by background noise and making multiple calls outside in an urban environment.

I also tried them out in a range of settings, listening to them everywhere from a busy office environment to traveling alongside congested main roads. I made sure to test out their fit and comfort by using them during several runs, while I tested their water-resistance by lightly spraying them with water and monitoring whether this had any impact on their performance.

Having spent more than a decade writing about tech, I have a lot of experience when it comes to weighing up the efficacy of different gadgets. Additionally, as an audiophile and music producer, I have a lot of experience assessing the performance of speakers and headphones, while my regular workout regimen means I’ve used a lot of different earbuds for exercising over the years.

• First reviewed: March 2025
• Read more about how we test