Earphones are an important piece of gear for the runner and traveler alike. I have sampled quite a few different types of audio gear for both travel and running. There are quite a few options for both but never one that I felt made the perfect blend.
Are These The Next Best Earphones?
When it comes to ear gear for flying, the best I have ever used was the Bose QuietComfort 20i earbuds (this is my Amazon affiliate link). The noise canceling was awesome and the comfort in the ear was really good. I could wear them on long-haul flights without really noticing them and could go to sleep with them in. That was something that was never possible with something like the Bose QC 15 headphones!
As for ear gear for running, I have actually been pretty much on the cheap side. It is not that I gravitated to some of the cheapest earphones out there, it was just that I had been through many to find the perfect fit for my ears and running and this ended up being my pair – the Philips Flexible Earhook headphones (this is my Amazon affiliate link). They are cheap at only $9.99 for a pair and they have held up nicely in all my runs from 10ks through 24 hour races. I do need to replace them every 6 or 7 months as the sweat works away at the rubber and metal of the piece.
The FreeWavz
But, all of that brings us to what I think may be the next best earphones and they may have great crossover appeal. A friend of mine, Olympian Ryan Hall, has been talking about these earphones on Twitter and is a “professional athlete advisor” for this company. These are not actually on the market yet and they are currently being run as a Kickstarter project. It still needs some help to get fully funded so this could be your chance to get them at a discounted price and help push it over so they do end up getting to market.
FreeWavz
The headphones are called the FreeWavz and look a great product! Not only are they wireless, independent earphones but they also have built-in fitness monitoring. They have been designed to fit in the ear perfectly and not fall out. They are not marketed as noise-canceling ear gear, but they could still work nicely on the airplane.
In addition to the fitness monitoring and feedback, they provide audio from your phone or other music player wirelessly and allow you to make and receive phone calls through them. They come with a variety of custom profiles to allow you to have just the right balance of environmental audio with your own music.
Now, this is not meant to be a review in any way since I do not have a pair, but I did want to share these with you since I believe they could very well be some of the best earphones yet. That should certainly be the case for running and I am hoping they work equally well for flying.
These earphones are set to sell for $299. However, if you get in on the Kickstarter campaign, you can get them for as low as $179 (for the green ones pictured above, it will cost $239). As with all Kickstarter campaigns, you will not be charged unless the project is fully funded. For more information about the product, check out their website here.
I get nothing for writing about these other than the desire to help out my fellow runners and travelers with some great gear!
Check out the very reasonably priced ($50ish) 66 Audio bluetooth headsets. Unlike the earbuds for me, they actually stay on while running without a single adjustment. They’re not going to knock off your ultira-high end travel headphones for music, but they’re good enough that I actually don’t travel with anything else.
The also double as a surprisingly clear phone headset (so they have a mic)
I have the Bose MIE earbuds which are great for running or other uses but I’m afraid to wear them in the rain so I switch to some cheap apple OEM ones for rain use.