Soundpeats RunFree Lite Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

The Soundpeats RunFree Lite are an inexpensive set of air conduction headphones that supply surprisingly brilliant, customizable sound from a design that makes them superb for runs and exercises.

Introduction

The Soundpeats RunFree Lite are a set of very reasonably priced air conduction headphones aimed squarely at runners however made for anybody who wants some audio firm throughout train time.

Together with an open-ear design to maintain you conscious of your environment, Soundpeats guarantees highly effective sound, spectacular 17-hour battery life from a design that’s match to deal with some sweat and rain.

Now there’s not precisely an enormous scarcity of headphones constructed for sport proper now, however most do sit at a costlier worth level than the RunFree Lite. Has this small Chinese language model managed to trump the pricier competitors?

The Soundpeats RunFree Lite is that can be purchased from Amazon the place you may choose them up for £34.99 / $29.99. That massively undercuts many of the massive identify bone conduction headphones together with the Shokz OpenRun, OpenRun Professional, Haylou PurFree BC01 and the Naenka Runner Diver.

Design

• IPX4 water and sweat resistant design
• Onboard bodily controls
• Weighs 28g

In case you’ve picked up a pair of air or bone conduction headphones earlier than, the design of the RunFree Lite will really feel acquainted. It’s a neckband look with bodily buttons on one aspect and an open ear method that channels sound in direction of your ears by way of transducers with out blocking them like in-ear or on-ear headphones.

The excellent news is that they’re mild, weighing in at simply 28g, so put that up towards a pair of Shokz OpenRun (26g) for instance, they usually weigh roughly the identical and by no means really feel cumbersome to put on. Soundpeats doesn’t go as sturdy on the water and sweat resistance. It’s an IPX4 design although, which implies it could possibly fend off some sweat and lightweight rain. I used them on runs in mild rain and for treadmill and normal residence and health club exercises and I’ve not skilled any efficiency or drop-out points.

There are three bodily buttons on the fitting aspect of the headphones, letting you flip the headphones on and off, and a mixture of faucets and presses to activate options similar to quantity management, skipping tracks, dealing with calls, switching between two calls, and enabling a recreation mode. My one criticism right here is that whereas the buttons are a great measurement, they really feel too shut collectively and once I was on the transfer, and it felt difficult at occasions to shortly differentiate between them. Separating the on/off button and quantity buttons could be the best way to go sooner or later.

Consolation-wise, they’ve been advantageous. They’re very mild, and I usually forgot they had been on, although I’ve seen on the odd event throughout for much longer use (over an hour) that I skilled a bit rubbing from the grilled areas on the headphone arms. It wasn’t on a regular basis, and it didn’t damage, nevertheless it was one thing I picked up on.

In the case of charging, there’s a bit latch beneath the place the buttons that fortunately doesn’t really feel too flimsy and that it would put on badly over time. It does include a case as nicely in case you don’t need to sling them into your health club bag to finish a fairly stable package deal total on the design entrance.

Options

• Bluetooth multipoint assist
• 17 hours of battery life

Getting the RunFree Lite paired and arrange is a breeze. I’ve used them with an iPhone 14, Google Pixel 6a and paired them to the Apple Watch Extremely and Garmin Forerunner 965 watches with out subject.

Soundpeats makes use of Bluetooth 5.3 to ensure these connections are secure and quick, and likewise presents multipoint sharing, letting you turn between two paired units, and it labored as nicely too.

By way of battery life, Soundpeats talks massive numbers. It claims the 130mAh capability battery will get you as much as 17 hours and take 1.6 hours to cost up from 0-100%. That might recommend larger battery numbers than an entire host of air conduction headphones. The Shokz OpenRun Professional and Naenka Runner Diver each promise as much as 10 hours to place that into context.

In actual phrases although, I’d say these battery estimates are beneficiant they usually ship one thing on par with Shokz and Naenka. For hour-long exercises with the quantity set fairly loud, the battery dropped by 10%.

That might recommend the battery is extra in direction of that 10-hour mark than 17. I’m positive in case you listened at decrease volumes, you’d get nearer to that mark, however I feel most will doubtless see it match the competitors for battery efficiency.

Sound High quality

• Vibrant however not immaculate sound high quality
• EQ included in companion app

I’d say out of the field, you don’t get the most effective of what these surprisingly brilliant and peppy-sounding air conduction headphones have to supply. That’s arguably as a result of Soundpeats doesn’t do a terrific job of highlighting the accompanying Soundpeats app, which isn’t important, however does provide higher management over the sound profile and a greater concept of battery drain in case you’re not utilizing it with an Android system.

With the Soundpeats basic EQ mode there’s no denying they sound a bit on the muddy aspect they usually definitely don’t rival headphones from the likes of Shokz and Haylou for readability and element. You do have some energy and heat right here, which you wouldn’t actually affiliate with air or bone conduction headphones normally.

Bounce into the companion app and you’ll choose from 8 completely different EQ presets in addition to dedicating gaming listening mode or use the customized equalizer and deal with a few of that muddiness and place an even bigger emphasis on a extra finessed sound, with smoother mids and one thing much less harsh sounding on the treble entrance to get a extra pleasant and balanced sound profile.

Crucially, the quantity doesn’t battle when you should battle extra exterior noise, whether or not that’s visitors or the sound of the stereo system within the health club. I by no means felt like they had been terribly drowned out and I additionally felt fairly conscious of my environment on the identical time. It’s an identical story for dealing with calls as nicely. Mess around with that EQ and when you gained’t get the most effective name high quality you’ll discover on a set of air conduction headphones, it’s nonetheless greater than succesful on that entrance.

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Sustainability

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As a part of this mission, each time we assessment a product we ship the corporate a sequence of questions to assist us gauge and make clear the affect the system has on the setting.

We presently haven’t acquired solutions to the questions on this product, however will replace this web page the second we do. You’ll be able to see an in depth breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability data web page.