Today, I’m going to be answering two questions a lot of you guys are asking “Are Airpods good for running?” and “Do Airpods fall out when running?”
I took the Apple Airpods Pro for a 2.5-hours run, which is a great way to test out the Airpods Pro from a runner’s perspective.
Putting the Airpods on, I knew right away they were so comfortable and I knew instantly that these were going to be my favorite earbuds ever.
However, I wanted to go for a really long 2.5-hour run to:
- Test if these Airpods are good for running.
- Test the long-term comfort.
- Test the battery life.
- Test how they perform in sweaty conditions.
Without further ado, let’s get right into it…
Related:
Are Airpods Good For Running?
Do Airpods Fall Out When Running?
For those of you looking for a quick answer, the Apple Airpods are good for running.
So far, these Airpods have been absolutely fantastic to live with. I’ve been running with them, commuting with them, and just going the normal things that I do as a runner.
As a road runner who’s going out there and just sweating like crazy for two hours at a time, these have actually been working out really well for me beyond my expectations.
And if you’re wondering whether the Airpods Pro fall out when running, they’re secure and they stay on even in sweaty conditions.
This is what makes the Airpods great for running:
- They’re secure and do not fall out of your ears even in sweaty conditions.
- They do not stick quite so far out of your ear.
- Phenomenal experience with Active Noise Cancellation.
- Great Sound Quality.
- The sound is just full and it envelops in a very pleasant way.
- Really great fit.
- Lighter than regular Airpods.
- You’re not going to be too closed off from the world while running.
- Great passthrough feature.
- Great battery life for longer runs.
- Great connectivity.
- Easy-to-use mic.
- They have inductive charging and they get fully charged with no issues.
In the review below, I’m going to discuss these bullet points in detail. So make sure you keep reading…
Related:
Apple Airpods Pro Review
The Apple Airpods Pro are instantly my favorite set of earbuds that I have ever had. And for once, it feels like the price is ridiculously expensive for something you’re going to be sticking in your ears and running with, but it’s to the level where I think it’s actually really definitely worth it.
There’s a couple of key features that are very different from the Airpods or even the Powerbeats Pro that made this an extremely interesting set of earbuds for me.
The first thing is that it has Active Noise Cancellation…
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Active Noise Cancellation
The amount of improvement in sound quality that happens when you turn the Active Noise Cancellation on is just absolutely amazing.
Normally, I’m using earbuds for running and that’s pretty much the only thing I care about when I review a set of earbuds as how they are to run with. So, Active Noise Cancellation really hasn’t been a thing that I’m all that concerned about.
Having said that, trying this feature on the Airpods Pro was a really phenomenal experience.
The best way that I could describe it is it’s as if you’re closing a very good window between you and the rest of the world around you.
You can still kind of hear things that are going on and if it’s loud enough, you can still feel the sound a little bit, but most of the noise just magically gets turned off.
On the other hand, when I want to be able to hear the world around me, which is whenever I’m commuting and for the most part when I’m running, it does really a fantastic job of mixing in not only the sound that I’m playing but also the sounds of the world around me.
How to turn on the Active Noise Cancellation…
The way that you do that is by hitting the button on the stem of the Airpod. I don’t know if it’s a physical button or a Taptic Engine button, but it’s a clicky button and it’s not one that you have to poke into your ear to operate, which is a big plus in my book in the way that these work.
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Fit
When I was running with the Airpods, the fit is really great, they feel lighter than regular Airpods, but I don’t think it’s a huge difference in terms of weight. They are a little bit shorter and so they do not stick quite so far out of your ear.
Again, when I was running with these, I was able to hear what I wanted to listen to really well and hear the people and noises around me really well at the same time.
World Around You
If you’re concerned about being too closed off from the world while running with Airpods in, these are going to be some of the best earbuds experiences.
Lately, I have been low heart rate training, which means that I have been running a lot slower than I normally do and it means that I get passed by a lot more people while I’m running out.
With my old earbuds, passthrough audio makes it agonizing because I can hear really well even directionally where sounds are coming from.
However, I couldn’t really kind of locate very well with those earbuds. I couldn’t tell if the person was a little bit past my peripheral vision or directly behind me.
That was something I always had a hard time with. With the Airpods Pro, it’s amazing how well it locates and then replicates that sound in my ears.
So the way the Airpods let the audio in is just really fantastic and I have not really experienced something like that before.
Sound Quality
In terms of the audio itself, the Airpods Pro gives me that fullness of sound that I would come to expect from Airpods or Apple products. It’s just not loud but I’m getting fidelity of sounds. Everything sounds well-balanced and nothing is over-emphasized.
The sound is just full and it envelops in a very pleasant way. So, even at very loud volumes, it never feels harsh. Everything feels like you’re becoming more and more immersed.
Battery Life
I was running with the Apple Watch and streaming podcasts. The Apple Watch was at 50% when I left. I figured that that would be enough and ended up not being enough. So at about the 2-hour mark, the Apple Watch died and so I was no longer streaming audio to the Airpods.
So, when the Watch died, the Airpods were still on, but I’m not sure how that changes in terms of its battery consumption.
After 2.5 hours, the Airpods Pro was at 43%. So, you can extrapolate from that although I don’t really like to extrapolate with battery life.
But in terms of marathon training, most of my runs are going to be 2.5 hours or less and hopefully not much longer than that. So, I can say I have no problems taking these Apple Airpods along with me for any of my longer runs.
Every time I take them out of the case, they’re fully charged and they’re ready to go. They have inductive charging so I can set them on a wireless charging mat and I always have a full charge for my ear.
Apple Airpods Pro vs Powerbeats Pro vs Airpods 2 vs Jabra Elite
For a really simple comparison between the Airpods Pro and the Powerbeats Pro, I would take the Airpods Pro over the Powerbeats Pro almost any day unless you are like me and in the heat of summer, you REALLY need that ear loop.
So, if you need the ear loop, stay with the Powerbeats Pro. Otherwise, if it’s wintertime or you don’t need the ear loop because you don’t sweat like crazy, then I would go with the Airpods Pro.
Compared to the regular Airpods or the Airpods 2, the Pro has the inductive charging which the Airpods 2 also has, but I do like the noise cancellation.
If you’re picking between the two and you want to figure out which is better, the Airpods Pro is definitely better.
The Jabra Elite 65t is also great because it does let you tweak the sound quality and different scenarios.
But overall, I do think that the Apple Airpods Pro are substantially better and so I would definitely go with the Airpods Pro over the Jabra Elite 65t.
By the way, the Jabra Elite 65t is an absolutely fantastic set of earbuds and I really didn’t think that I would ever run into any earbud that was better than the Jabra 65t.
Winter
In wintertime, I wear some fluffier winter hats. Sometimes, there is a little bit of friction that is both passing through the earbud on a physical level from just the rubbing, but I also think that audio is getting picked up by the mic as well.
There are some times when I feel like that’s a little bit on the loud side. In that situation, I just try to long-press the button and then toggle just the full noise cancellation on, and then I would get rid of that problem.
But then, I’m not as aware of what’s going on around me. So, that’s not a great solution to that but it’s also not a huge problem. It’s not something that would make me stop wanting to use these or turn off the noise cancellation.
Summer
When I first reviewed the Airpods Pro, it was at a time where temperatures were a lot cooler. I tried to do some sweat testing taking them to a treadmill, but I didn’t really have a chance to do some full thorough hot summer weather running type tests.
When the temperatures were ripe for full sweat testing, it was great to see how they are staying in and what the sound quality and overall livability have been like with these earbuds.
For the summer sweat test, I brought the Powerbeats Pro and the Airpods Pro. I took the Airpods to use when I’m just using the phone and I need a good quality and easy-to-use mic or just if I wanted to have simple-to-use earbuds.
But for running, I thought I would use the Powerbeats Pro. The Powerbeats Pro have always given me a problem pretty much from the beginning in terms of this connectivity issue.
When I put them in the charging case, the left one, in particular, is not always like getting seated into the charging thing. So, a lot of times when I put the earbuds in, the right one responds quickly and the left one is just not charging correctly.
Other times, even when they do have good charge, my phone might recognize that they’re both there and have charged, but music is not playing to them. I don’t really understand why that happens, but it just is something that happens with these earbuds.
Plus, the other thing about the Jabras is they don’t have passthrough audio. They’re blocking the ears and they’re not pumping in any of the ambient noises, which I still want because I’m still doing a lot of road running.
There are still cars that are something that I have to worry about and so that makes it a little bit of a concern, which is something that I really should have at that price point.
Airpods Pro – Sweat Test
So, I thought maybe I can run with the Airpods Pro, and maybe I can make them work. I’ve been running in the hot humid conditions lately and they’ve been doing surprisingly well.
They still have that occasional instance where I feel like going to start slipping so maybe I need to fiddle with them a little bit.
I’ve been doing a little bit of fiddling, but what I’ve noticed is if I just let it go and don’t touch them, they stay in just fine and the sound quality’s fine.
I’m getting in the passthrough audio, I’m getting in good audio connection with my iPhone, the usability is rock-solid and it makes it so easy to live with.
I’m listening to a lot of audiobooks so this sound is good enough for me and they’re staying in just fine. I’m not doing like a CrossFit type workout, I’m not doing high-intensity interval training and I’m not sure how they would fare there in super sweaty conditions.
But for me, as a road runner that’s going out there and just sweating like crazy for two hours at a time, these have actually been working out really well for me beyond my expectations.
Cons
The thing I don’t like about the Airpods and I like about the Jabras is that the Jabras have buttons that you can use to control the volume and advance and rewind tracks.
With the Airpods, you have to do pretty much everything through Siri. To increase the volume, it’s a Siri command, and to advance it to the next track, it’s a Siri command.
And when you’re running, it’s just like you have to yell it because I don’t know if it’s the ambient noise or maybe it just feels like I’m yelling. So, when I’m running, huffing, and puffing and I got to scream at it, that’s always kind of a weird proposition.
Also, the Airpods are glaringly bright. I don’t like the white color on these and I wish they came in other colors, but besides that, in terms of using them as a summer earbud, I still think people that are even more profuse sweaters than me might have a problem.
So, are Airpods good for running? I guess you have the answer now.
Thanks for making it this far and I hope you found my thoughts on the Apple Airpods Pro from a runner’s review helpful.
