Bose Sport Open Earbuds Review: Colorful, Comfortable, but Tough Clip Competition

Bose, a brand that helped popularize clip-style wireless earbuds in the U.S., is back to work. In addition to its fantastic Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), the company just launched a different kind of clip: the Sport Open Earbuds.

While both pairs are clip-style wireless earbuds that tout a lot of the same benefits, the $199 Sport Open Earbuds are geared towards, well… sport. These are made for the more fit among us. With that emphasis on exercise, there’s a slightly different design and a few other features that you actually forego by choosing Sport over Ultra, but the real question is: how do these wireless earbuds feel and sound when you’re on the move?

On that front, it’s more good news for Bose as well as Bose audio fans.

Clip it and carry on

One of the things I look for in any pair of clip-style wireless earbuds is a good fit, but that fit feels even more important when you’re sweating your ass off in the gym, contorting your body to please the fitness gods. Serious runners will probably opt for something like Shokz’s OpenRun, which has a strap that runs along the back of your head for stabilization, but casual joggers (myself included) might be more comfortable with clips.

The C-shaped design of most clips just feels nice and snug and less likely to move around than ear hooks, another popular form factor for open wireless earbuds. They also don’t look as dorky in my humble-but-judgmental opinion.

That’s all to say that Bose’s decision to go with a C-shaped cuff feels right to me, and it feels even more right when they’re on my ears. I wore the Sport Open Earbuds for hours at a time, and my ears didn’t feel fatigued or pinched. They also feel a bit lighter and less noticeable on my ears compared to the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen). Both are comfortable, but the Sport Open Earbuds have a slight edge here.

They feel a bit more snug than the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), which is a good thing. The cuff has a pretty sharp curve that wraps around your ear, and while I was jogging, for example, it didn’t move. Likewise, in other high-motion exercises like sit-ups and pull-ups, it stayed put.

While the fit is comfortable, I did find myself having to readjust the ball inside my ear for optimal volume when I was exercising or just walking around. For my specific ears, there’s a chance that the fit is maybe a bit too snug, causing the ball to sit slightly askew from the optimal spot. I’ve had this problem with other clip-style wireless earbuds before, but it does feel more pronounced with the Sport Open Earbuds.

Another design tweak worth noting here is that the Sport Open Earbuds have an IP54 rating for water splash and dust protection (or in this case, sweat and light rain), as opposed to the Ultra Open Earbuds, which have an IPX4 rating, which includes splash protection only. I’m not a big sweater myself, but if you are, you’ll be happy to know your wireless earbuds aren’t going to get bricked when your heart rate goes up.

As long as we’re talking about looks, I should mention that I do really like the design of the Sport Open. I’m as big a fan of the cherry chocolate finish on the Ultra Open (2nd Gen) as I am of the eucalyptus green colorway on the Sport Open. I really appreciate the semi-transparent top of the charging case and the two-tone green on the inside of the earbuds themselves. No notes on the look.

Solid sound, minus some features

The fitness-focused tweaks in the Sport Open Earbuds are great, but they wouldn’t mean much if the sound wasn’t good, too, and while the Sport Open hold their own, I don’t think they quite achieve the same highs as the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen).

Bose doesn’t specify what kinds of drivers are in either pair of wireless earbuds, but I do find the sound on the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) to be a bit more nuanced—the soundstage is just a little bit wider. In my usual test songs like “Any Major Dude Will Tell You,” I thought the audio quality was on par with competitors like Shokz’s OpenDots 2—vocals were clear, and there was a decent amount of stereo separation, though not a ton of bass.

Everyone’s ears are different, but I was more satisfied with the sound quality and overall clarity by giving these a midrange and small treble boost in the Bose app using the EQ.

The Sport Open Earbuds, like lots of other clip-style earbuds, struggle a bit on the low end. Listening to a bass-heavy song like “Da Funk” by Daft Punk, I was able to get a sense of the limits of its lower frequencies. The bass sounds a bit muddy and over-processed. It also lacks the punch you get in wireless earbuds with ear tips or wireless headphones, but that’s to be expected with clips.

Overall, the audio quality is good but not great, though calling was surprisingly nice. In a several-minute phone conversation, the Bose Sport Open did a formidable job of blocking out noise in my office, including people talking right next to me and loud footsteps. The person I called reported that my audio didn’t sound great, but at least it wasn’t drowned out by noise like a lot of other earbuds and headphones. They rated the call a seven out of ten.

My bigger gripe isn’t with the audio quality, though; it’s with the overall listenability. One of the biggest challenges in a pair of clip-style wireless earbuds is finding the balance between allowing ambient sound to come through while still letting people hear their audio.

The Sport Open do a good job of letting ambient sound through, but they struggle a bit more in louder scenarios like walking on the sidewalk in New York or taking the subway. If you want a pair of clip earbuds that compete with loud sounds, the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) are the way to go.

As long as I’m talking about limitations, it’s worth noting that there are two other big differences between the Sport Open Earbuds and the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen). One of them is the lack of “Immersive Audio,” which is Bose’s spatial audio technology. I don’t really care much about the lack of Immersive Audio, since I don’t think it adds much to the experience, but some people might, and if you’re one of those people—now you know.

The bigger thing that people might care about is battery life. The Sport Open Earbuds have seven hours of battery life, as opposed to the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), which have nine hours maximum. The Bose app doesn’t show exact battery percentages—just increments of 10%—but after an hour of listening at 50% volume, they went from 100% to 90%.

There are comparable clips

The Sport Open have some things that the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) do not, like better water/dust resistance and a more snug clip curve. I do think they’re probably better for exercising given that snug fit, but having worn both in the gym, I don’t know that the snugness really matters that much.

For $100 more, you can get better sound, better battery life, and access to Immersive Audio in the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen). The Sport Open Earbuds are good, but not great, especially given the tough competition from brands like Shokz, but the bar is high for Bose since the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) are some of the best I’ve used yet.