The Best Headphones for Working Out
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The Best Overall
Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2
Best Cheap Buds
JLab Audio Go Air Sport
The Best Sunglasses
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
Best On-Ears
Koss Porta Pro
“You’re always mooooving,” a parent friend once said in my direction, as he rapidly disappeared over the horizon. As the working parent of two kids, I … don’t disagree. Luxurious over-the-ear headphones are great if you primarily use headphones at work or for meetings, but for the rest of your life—working out, traveling, or puttering around your house pretending you’re putting things away—you probably want something much more convenient and durable.
Since I started testing workout headphones years ago, the sound, comfort, variety, and features have all improved dramatically. I pretty much always have a pair on or around me during the day, whether I’m biking on errands, running, rock climbing, or following along to mildly embarrassing yoga videos on my laptop in my bedroom. If you also need the distraction of music or podcasts while scrambling up stony slopes or mowing your lawn, here are a bunch of WIRED’s favorite pairs. We’ve worn and sweated on all of them. Don’t see anything you like? Check out our Best Wirefree Earbuds, Best Cheap Headphones, Best Bluetooth Speakers, or any of our other buying guides for more.
Updated June 2024: We added the Jabra Elite 8 Gen 2, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarers, and the Shokz OpenSwim Pro. We also updated links and pricing throughout.
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Photograph: Adrienne So
The Best Overall
Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2
This recommendation comes with a major caveat: This year, Jabra announced that its newest releases would be its last. That includes the flagship Elite 10 Gen 2 and this year’s Elite 8 Active Gen 2. The company will continue to honor its unusually long two-year warranty, but there won’t be any software updates after that. With that said, I have recommended Jabra’s workout headphones for years now, and I still love the Elite 8 Active Gen 2. The standout feature this year is a plug-and-play smart case that turns itself into a wireless transmitter. If you’re watching TV while your spouse is sleeping, or flying in a plane, you can plug your case into the 3.5-mm output and enjoy spatial audio without any hassle or latency. As someone who travels frequently with small children, this feature is startlingly convenient.
I like pretty much everything about the Jabra buds. The fit remains the most comfortable and secure of any buds I’ve ever tried (Jabra claims it scanned 64,000 ears to dial it in), with an industry standard of eight hours of battery life without the case, and wireless charging. The fully featured app lets you customize the amount of ambient noise you can hear—for example, if you want to drown out the muscle bro grunting behind you but don’t want him to be able to sneak up on you. I love the pleasingly matte case and the fun colors and the way the buttons feel when you push them. They’re IP68 rated; I ran in them for a week with my ears sweating in the punishingly humid Virginia summer heat without fear. These are my favorite versatile, comfortable, and convenient earbuds, and I will be sorry to see them go.
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Photograph: JLab
Best Cheap Buds
JLab Audio Go Air Sport
Workout buds are getting cheaper and better all the time (I’ve recommended other pairs that I like below), but JLab’s are really in a different class. The Go Air Sport are the sport version of the insanely affordable Go Air (8/10, WIRED Recommends), with a slight markup for over-ear hooks and a case with a cover.
You just can’t find buds with quality this good for this price. They come in a sturdy case with a built-in USB charger. The build quality is solid, and touch controls are not too sensitive; I don’t accidentally turn off my music or turn up the volume whenever I adjust my hair or my hat. They have a solid 30 hours of battery life when you recharge them in the case—I wore them for two weeks for a few hours each day while running and walking my dog, and I never had to recharge them. And the Bluetooth connection is stronger than in other affordable earbuds that I’ve tried; I don’t have to be wary about walking around a corner, away from my phone. As a bonus, they also come in a wide array of playful colors.
★ Alternative: Is your biggest problem with workout buds that you can never find the darn things when it’s go time? Save yourself some trouble and attach the JBuds Mini ($40) to your gym bag. These are the cutest, tiniest headphones I’ve ever seen, and I’m in love. They sound decent and fit pretty well, considering how small they are. The battery life is a perfectly adequate five hours or so outside of the case, and they come in a wide variety of fun colors.
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Photograph: Ray-Ban
The Best Sunglasses
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
I’ve tried several smart sunglasses, including Amazon’s Echo frames ($170) and the Solos AirGo 3 Helium ($199). Of these, my favorite is the Meta Ray-Bans—just because, well, they are Ray-Bans. I have started grabbing these every time I leave the house because, well, it’s summer and I need sunglasses, and if I grab these, then I don’t have to thread an additional pair of earbuds around my sunglasses, hair, and hat.
As we say in our review, the audio quality is head and shoulders above the competition, and so is the operation of the glasses. The Meta app is intuitive and easy to use. The hardware works; I never have weird skips or stutters when my fingers, hair, or hat accidentally brush the frames. The AI translation features could use some work, but hey, I very rarely need anything translated spur of the moment while I’m walking my dog or going for a run, and I really like being able to make sure an incoming call or text isn’t important while I’m running, without having to pull out my phone. Most importantly, I just look cool. Who doesn’t look great wearing Wayfarers?
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Photograph: Koss
Best On-Ears
Koss Porta Pro
Many over-ear headphones don’t advertise themselves as workout headphones because the drivers are not completely enclosed. Once you splash them with sweat or water, they’re dunzo. With that said, on- or over-ear headphones are just more comfortable, and you don’t have to worry about losing a bud during a particularly vigorous activity. I’ve seen enough of you at the gym wearing AirPods Max to know that you’ll wear them anyway.
The best pair for that ’80s Sweatin’ to the Oldies vibes are these iconic Koss Porta Pros, which are also solidly built and blessedly affordable. They fold up to fit in a bag, and you can customize them with a ton of aftermarket accessories. Unfortunately, they’re wired and use a headphone jack, so you’ll need a phone with a headphone jack or an aftermarket accessory. Or a cassette player!
★ Alternative: If you’re working out in a gym, you might want a pair of noise-canceling over-ear headphones. Sony’s WH-CH720 ($150) don’t fold or come with a case or bag, but they offer affordable noise-canceling and have a very long battery life.
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Photograph: Adrienne So
Best for Apple Lovers
Beats Fit Pro
Not only are the Beats Fit Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) one of the best workout buds for Apple users, they’re one of the best everyday buds, period. They have squishy ear tips and elegant fins (that may be a little big for smaller ears, unfortunately). They have the Apple H1 chip and pair seamlessly with Apple products, but they also have a great app for Android that includes one-touch pairing, customized controls, and a fit test.
The noise-canceling works extremely well, and you can click on a physical button on the buds to pause and let ambient noise in. The sound signature is remarkably sculptured, according to WIRED associate editor Parker Hall, meaning you can enjoy music in all genres, movies mixed in Dolby Atmos, and get great-sounding Zoom calls. Most important, unlike many of our other picks, they come in a signature Beats-style eye-catching purple (they now also come in coral, pink, and blue).
★ Alternatives: Beats makes a lot of workout headphones. We have an upcoming guide to Apple-compatible headphones, but in the meantime I also wholeheartedly recommend Beats’ previous, and now cheaper, Powerbeats workout buds; they still work reliably after years of heavy use.
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Photograph: Apple
The Obligatory AirPods Pro
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) With USB-C
I’m legally required to put these in the roundup. As we noted in our roundup of Apple’s latest AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends), these little white drumsticks are ubiquitous. You’re going to work out in these whether I tell you to or not, so you might as well read about them here. The two most significant differences from the previous version are that the case has USB-C charging rather than Lightning, which I’ve already found to be incredibly convenient, and in iOS 17 there are new Adaptive Audio features that automatically detect when you’re talking and give people time to respond to you while you’re wearing the buds.
Senior editor and our go-to AV person Parker Hall noted that while Apple declined to confirm the exact changes in the audio architecture, this latest version sounds better than ever before. They have an IP54 sweat- and dust-resistance rating, and the noise-canceling is top-tier. These aren’t my favorite headphones to run in. The fit is comfortable, but it’s one of the least secure headphones I’ve tried. But if you have an iPhone, these are by far the most convenient for everything from work calls to plane rides, and they’ll be fine for quick workouts in the hotel gym.
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Photograph: Shokz
Best for Biking and Running
AfterShokz OpenRun Pro
For obvious reasons, open-ear headphones—that is, headphones that conduct sound via anything from little halos above your ear to buzzing it directly through the bones of your skull—are increasingly popular for outdoor workouts when you have to avoid getting hit by a car. I’ve tried many previous pairs of Shokz (formerly known as Aftershokz) and found their bone conduction technology—in which sound is conducted through the bones of your head—to be wildly unpleasant. But the Shokz OpenRun Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) feel more like placing a set of tiny speakers near your ears.
They’re comfortable and fantastic for all outdoor workouts. I can wear them running and hiking, and while biking, skateboarding, or roller-skating under a helmet, and still hear everything around me. Then you can just wear them on your neck while you’re running around, or put earplugs in for a little homemade noise-canceling! However, they don’t have a charging case, and a 10-hour battery life before recharging is significantly shorter than every other bud we’ve listed here.
★ Alternative: I have extremely tiny ears and was frustrated to find that Sony’s LinkBuds (8/10, WIRED Recommends) did not work for me. But if you have less-wonky ears, the LinkBuds have an unusual doughnut design that allows ambient noise to pass directly through the earbud into your ear. They leak a little sound, but they let in enough ambient sound to let WIRED editor Parker Hall wear them in the grocery store and on ski trips.
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Photograph: Adrienne So
Best for Swimming
Shokz OpenSwim Pro
In a head-to-head comparison on the street, the OpenRun Pro sound better than this year’s Shokz OpenSwim Pro. The OpenSwim Pro’s bone conduction technology is also an earlier iteration of Shokz’s bone conduction tech than the one that’s used in the OpenRun Pro, so when I wear it running or walking, it just feels so much more buzzy. However, in an underwater comparison, there is no competition. The build quality, ease of use, and sound is a lot better than the H20 Tri Sport ($150), which I also tried.
On my Mac, I just plugged the OpenSwim Pro in and dragged and dropped MP3s to load. It has a 32-GB capacity, so more than enough for a few Beyoncé or Taylor Swift albums. With the swimming earplugs in, Taylor Swift’s Reputation sounded remarkably clear and punchy, considering that I was in the pool swimming freestyle. These do come with more than a few caveats, however. You can’t swim deeper than 2 meters, or you’ll damage the mics. You can’t go into salt water, so unless you are on the Great Lakes, these are useless for surfing or other ocean sports. You have to switch it to MP3 mode in the app on your phone, which is annoying when I am already sitting on the edge of the pool and need to run back and get my phone to switch it. There’s also only nine hours or less of battery life, so I have to charge it every other day, or much more often than pretty much any other headphone on this list. However, I switch to lap swimming once it gets too hot to run outside in the summer, and I can fully submerge and dive in these in a chlorinated pool, which is fun and also surreal. They’re perfect for keeping in your pool bag with your goggles, Adidas slides, and swim cap.
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Photograph: Ryan Waniata
Best Upgrade Pick
Bose Ultra Open Earbuds
Bose’s open-ear pick (6/10, WIRED Review) is remarkably innovative. Instead of placing a speaker right above your ear canal, the earbud clips onto your ear’s outer edge. Reviewer Ryan Waniata liked their small size, clever design, and detailed sound (obviously, because they’re made by Bose).
However, these are pretty pricey for sport earbuds and had a few software quirks. These were quickly addressed via updates; still, you don’t want to be experiencing glitches at this price point. I also have long hair and wear hats and sunglasses, and I can easily imagine myself knocking these off at every opportunity. However, if you’re curious about open-ear headphones and find that many pairs don’t sound great or are uncomfortable, these would be a good pair to try.
★ Alternative: Nwm is a Japanese audio brand owned by NTT Group, the telecommunications company. As weird as it might be to think that Verizon or T-Mobile now makes niche headphones, I like everything I’ve tried from Nwm so far. The MBE001 ($178) are attractive, sound great and fit securely, and I like how they click on their little magnetic charging platform. However, their IP rating is only IPX2 against direct spray, and calls sound weird.
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Photograph: Adrienne So
My Favorite Headphones
Anker Soundcore AeroFit Pro
We’ve generally found that Anker’s Soundcore line offers tremendous value for the money and the company’s latest sport headphones, the AeroFit Pro, are no exception. The AeroFit Pro are open-ear headphones that fit more comfortably than almost any other pair that I’ve tried. However, when you’re ready for more strenuous activity, you can clip them onto a titanium memory wire and adjust it to fit around the back of your neck.
You get all the benefits of open-ear headphones with a charging case, such as comfort and longer battery life, combined with the secure fit of the OpenRun Pro. 14 hours of battery life, plus an additional 40 or so with the case, means that I could go more than two weeks without charging. They’re comfortable enough that my 6-year-old son asked if he could use these headphones with his iPad, instead of his kids’ over-ears. A secure fit also means that the speakers are placed perfectly, which makes the sound rich and full. However, there is no place to put the memory wire in the case and I have almost lost it a half-dozen times in the weeks I’ve been testing it. If you also doubt your ability to hold on to this accessory, Anker also makes a regular AeroFit ($130) for cheaper.
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Photograph: JBL
Best for Customization
JBL Reflect Aero
To stay safe on a run, you should remain aware of all the honking, revving, and talking around you. But sometimes, you want to shut the world out completely to enjoy your podcast, audiobook, or death metal playlist in perfect isolation. These buds can deliver both total awareness and total escapism—plus every notch in between—with a fully tweakable noise-canceling experience.
The Reflect Aeros have many of the basic active noise-canceling features, like an ambient listening mode and the ability to turn ANC on and off. Additional controls live inside the JBL Headphones app, including the ability to adjust the level of noise canceling that’s applied when ANC is switched on, or to activate an adaptive noise canceling mode that automatically adjusts the level of canceling based on the noisiness of your surroundings. Touch controls can also be tweaked in the app, so you can decide what a tap (and double- or triple-tap) on either bud should control: volume, track playback, or ANC.
They sound fantastic for music, movies, and voice (podcasts, calls, Zooms) with great bass and plenty of volume. The ANC is powerful enough to handle loud train rides and louder roommates. Fin-like wings keep the buds lodged into your ears; our reviewer wore them on two dozen runs with zero fit issues. The battery lasts eight hours, and that drops to six hours with the adaptive noise-canceling on. Our only quibbles are with the case; it’s USB-C (no wireless charging), and getting the earbuds properly aligned so they’ll recharge takes some practice. —Michael Calore
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Photograph: JBL
Best Rugged Buds
JBL Endurance Peak 3
JBL’s latest outdoor workout buds have one of the most important qualities for a pair of buds that will see all sorts of harsh conditions: They’re relatively cheap! While they’re virtually indistinguishable from their previous iteration, the JBL Endurance Peak II ($70), they have improved specs, like an IP68 compared to an IP67 dust- and waterproof rating (it can be submerged deeper and for longer) and startlingly long battery life—10 hours of playtime in the buds and an additional 40 in the case. I wore them for two weeks while running and walking the dog and never once had to recharge. The JBL app is easy to navigate, with quite a bit of customization available.
These are quite a bit bigger than some of our other picks, and even the smallest size of ear tip doesn’t seal securely inside my ear. That made it a little difficult to evaluate sound quality as objectively, since if you can’t seal them securely, you’ll find the sound a little tinny. The buttons are a little more sensitive, and I often found myself skipping tracks by adjusting my hair or hat. However, if you want killer battery life and buds that you don’t have to worry about even if you step on them, these are a solid pick.
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Photograph: Sony
For Bigger Ears
Sony WF-1000XM4
In his write-up, WIRED associate editor Parker Hall says Sony redesigned these buds to fit roundly in your ear instead of the “mostly in but with a bit hanging out” style of previous iterations. These buds are too big for my ears, but if you have larger earholes, this is the one pair to rule them all.
The sound quality is excellent, the noise-canceling is better, and they pick up your voice more clearly than ever before. They also have wireless charging and an industry-leading eight hours of battery life. They might be a little bulky to use on runs, but they work just fine for lifting weights at home.
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Photograph: Back Bay
Another Affordable Option
Back Bay Audio Tempo 30
I was shocked by the Back Bay Tempo 30 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). The build quality is so good, they fit really well, and the sound is so great that I immediately had to have my colleague and WIRED’s resident audiophile, Parker Hall, verify my assessment.
A $45 pair of headphones isn’t perfect. They sound muddy up in the high range, and the Bluetooth connection isn’t great—it cut out when I left my phone on a counter and walked around a corner. Calls are fine to the person on the other end, but they sound remote and tinny on mine. At least they stayed in place while I was hanging upside down at a climbing gym, so you probably don’t need Back Bay’s upgraded pair with ear clips and wireless charging.
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Photograph: JLab
Honorable Mentions
Other Workout Buds We Like
We try almost every pair of new workout buds that come out. Here are a few we like that aren’t quite as nice as the options above.
- Speck Gemtones Sport for $70: These are cheap and fit well. The buttons are a little too sensitive, and the sound is noticeably fuzzier than most of our other picks, but they’re not bad.
- JBL x Under Armour True Wireless Streak for $100: These have most of the best JBL features—Ambient Aware, TalkThru, bumping bass—in a tinier package.
- Bose Sport for $129: These are fine; they’re just getting very old.
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Photograph: Amazon
Headphones We Disliked
Dishonorable Mentions
There’s nothing more annoying than carving out some time in your day for a workout, getting out the door, and realizing that you can’t listen to your fun podcast because your headphones are glitching out. These are the ones I hated.
- Oladance Sport for $180: These have a high IPX rating and sound decent. However, the neckband is way too big for me, so they keep falling out of place, and the buttons are hard to use and unpleasant to push.
- 1More Fit Open for $130: Don’t buy these. They sound OK, but the buttons are so sensitive that I couldn’t run for more than five minutes without a song skipping or the music turning off.
- Suunto Wing for $200: These look very nice and come with a bunch of thoughtful accessories, like a carrying case and a charging holder. But they sound way too tinny for this price.
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Photograph: Graphicscoco/Getty Images
How to Get the Best Fit
A Few Pointers
So how do you keep your headphones from falling out once you start on your run? Here are a few of the tips and tricks that I’ve tried over the years to make sure they don’t fall out.
- Dial in the fit. To put on your buds, pull open your ear a little bit and give it a little twist to fix it in place. If they don’t fit, don’t be afraid to switch or mismatch ear tip sizes—one ear might need a medium tip and the other a small, for example.
- Accessorize. Still can’t get it to fit quite right? There’s a healthy market for aftermarket clips and wings to get your earbuds or AirPods to fit more securely.
- Check the IP rating. Ingress Protection ratings give you a quick indication of the headphones’ dust- and water-resistance. If you’re running outside in the pouring rain, you need a higher IP than if you’re doing gentle calisthenics in the gym.
