I Tested the Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds: Comfort and Awareness All Day

If your ears are tired of having something jammed inside them all day, or you have ever felt a little unsafe tuning out the world on a run, open-ear buds are built for exactly that problem. The Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds sit outside your ear instead of plugging it up, so you hear your music and everything around you at the same time.

At their core these are true wireless open-ear earbuds that run on Bluetooth and come with a charging case. They are sweat and water resistant, rated for around 40 hours of battery life with the case, and sell for $69.99. The whole idea is earbuds that never go inside your ear canal.

I wore the Raycon Fitness earbuds for hours at a stretch, took them through a workout, and paid attention to the four things that matter most here: how secure the fit is, how long the battery lasts, how aware they keep you, and how the sound holds up. Here is where they earn the price, and where they fall short.

What I Liked About the Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds

A few things stood out once the Raycon Fitness earbuds became my daily pair, and most of them come down to comfort, fit, and staying aware rather than raw audio power.

Open-Ear Comfort That Lasts All Day With No Ear Fatigue

Because nothing sits inside your ear canal, these Raycon open earbuds skip the plugged-up fatigue that in-ear buds and AirPods cause after a few hours. They just rest against your ear, so I could wear them most of the day and forget they were there.

That comfort showed up in owner reviews too. One buyer with sensitive ears wrote that “every earbud and headphone causes me pain,” yet these left “no pain in my ear,” and another called them sensory-friendly enough to forget they were wearing them.

Two-Axis Adjustable Hooks Lock On Tight for Any Workout

The standout feature is the two-axis adjustable fit. Each hook swivels on two separate hinges, so you can angle the bud up, down, in, or out until it sits in the dip of your ear, where a lot of open-ear styles only bend one way.

Once they are dialed in, they are locked on. I shook my head as hard as I could and the buds barely moved, so whatever exercise you are doing at the gym, they stay put.

40-Hour Battery Life You Rarely Have to Think About

Each bud runs about 7 to 8 hours of playtime, and the charging case takes the total to roughly 40 hours. That is a full workday on a single charge, with the case topping the buds up several times over.

In practice I never felt like I was reaching for the charger. One reviewer wore a single bud through an 8-hour shift and still had 30 percent left, which lines up with what I saw.

Reliable Bluetooth Pairing Across Two Devices at Once

The connection just works. As true wireless earbuds, these Raycon earbuds run Bluetooth 5.2 with multipoint pairing, so you can hook up your phone and laptop at the same time and bounce between them without repairing.

That reliability is a real upgrade over Raycon’s earlier, cheaper open-ear model, which owners complained would drop the connection. Buyers who returned the Raycon Essential Open Ear Earbuds for connecting only half the time reported the Fitness pair connects every single time.

IPX5 Sweat Resistance Plus Switchable Sound Profiles

An IPX5 rating means these shrug off sweat and a sustained spray of rain, not just a stray drop, so you can push through a hard workout or get caught in a shower on a run without worry. For a sport-focused pair of earbuds, that is exactly the durability you want.

There is also a feature Raycon does not document anywhere: tap any bud four times and you cycle between balanced, bass, and pure sound profiles. There is no app to fuss with, so the sound tuning lives entirely on the buds themselves.

What Needs Improvement

The comfort and secure fit are genuinely good, but a few caveats keep the Raycon Fitness earbuds from being a no-questions-asked pick.

Sound Quality Is Only Good, Not Top-Tier, With Light Bass

As someone who used to produce music, I would call the sound solid but not top-tier. The mids and highs are clear, though they could be a touch brighter, and the bass stays light even on the bass profile because the open design lets outside noise leak in and softens the audio.

That tracks with what other listeners say. One Reddit owner in r/BuyItForLife noted the open earbuds, “including the Fitness model, are still not quite there” on sound and mic leakage, and a blunter r/Earbuds post said Raycons sound weak next to Beats, Apple, or Samsung. These are not headphones for critical listening, and there is no active noise canceling here at all, since the whole point is to hear your surroundings. Because these lean toward workout awareness rather than critical listening, they pair naturally with fitness gear like the Amazfit Active fitness smartwatch for tracking those same runs and gym sessions. Swimmers who want that open-ear awareness in the water too can look at the PSIER Bone Conduction Headphones, which trade even more bass for IPX8 waterproofing and onboard MP3 storage.

The Rigid Plastic Ear Hook Can Get Sore Over Long Sessions

The behind-the-ear hook is rigid plastic rather than soft rubber. I personally wore these for hours without trouble, but if the backs of your ears are sensitive, that harder material can rub.

Several Amazon reviewers felt it. One who wore a bud for an 8-hour shift said the back of the ear felt “slightly bruised” afterward, and knocked a star off purely for the stiff hook. A softer coating would fix this entirely.

No On-Bud Volume Control Means Reaching for Your Phone

The touch controls handle play, pause, track skipping, and calls, and they work the same on both buds so you can use just one. What they will not do is change the volume.

There is no volume gesture on these earphones, so every adjustment goes through your phone or source device. It is a small thing, but it stands out when you are mid-run and just want to turn things down. Since you reach for your phone to change the volume anyway, keeping it propped within reach on the Rokform Magnetic Wireless Charger with Stand makes those quick adjustments easier at a desk.

A Quiet Incoming-Call Alert Can Make You Miss Calls

Call quality itself is a strength: the microphone comes through clearly, and the person on the other end hears you well. The problem is the incoming-call alert tone.

One detailed reviewer found the alert so quiet, even below the lowest music volume, that calls slipped by unnoticed. If you rely on these earbuds to catch calls at work, that is worth knowing before you buy. If your day revolves around meetings and calls, the VIAIM OpenNote AI voice recorder earbuds pair the same open-ear design with clearer call handling and automatic transcription.

How the Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds Compare

The open-ear aisle has filled up fast, so it helps to see what you trade away and gain versus the obvious alternatives. These are everyday earbuds tuned for movement and awareness, so I am comparing them against other open-ear headphones rather than sealed, noise-cancelling buds.

vs Shokz OpenFit

The Shokz OpenFit is the open-ear benchmark most people cross-shop, and it is the more polished, better-sounding option. Head-to-head, the Raycon edges slightly ahead on battery, around 8 hours per charge versus 7, while Shokz carries a tougher IP54 dust-and-water rating against Raycon’s IPX5.

Where the Raycon Fitness wins is price. It undercuts the Shokz by a wide margin while delivering the same secure, aware, sweat-resistant experience, so you are paying for Shokz refinement rather than a fundamentally different job.

vs Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are the premium end of this category, with fuller sound and a more refined cuff design. If audio quality is your top priority and budget is not, Bose is the clear step up.

The catch is the price gap, which is large. For gym sessions, runs, and all-day wear where you mostly want comfort and awareness, the Raycon covers the same ground for a fraction of the cost, and that is the trade Women’s Health testers flag across this whole category.

vs Bone-Conduction Options Like the Shokz OpenRun

Runners often compare open-ear buds against bone conduction, like the Shokz OpenRun, which sends sound through your cheekbones instead of resting in the ear dip. Bone conduction can feel more stable for some ears, but it usually gives up bass and outright volume.

The Raycon Fitness keeps a normal dynamic driver near your ear, so it sounds a bit fuller than bone conduction while still letting traffic in. If you want an even more different take on open audio, audio glasses push the speakers into eyewear, but the Raycon is the simpler, cheaper way to go open-ear.

Final Verdict

The Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds are an easy pair to recommend for the job they are built to do. You get all-day open-ear comfort, a two-axis hook that locks on tight through any workout, roughly 40 hours of battery with the case, reliable Bluetooth, and IPX5 sweat resistance.

I am giving them a 4.0 out of 5.

They earn points for the secure fit, the long battery, the dependable multipoint connection, and staying aware of your surroundings. They lose a little because the sound is good rather than great, the bass is light, the rigid ear hook can get sore over long sessions, and there is no on-bud volume control.

Bottom line: If you want earbuds that stay comfortable all day, lock on for runs and workouts, and keep you aware of traffic and people around you, the Raycon Fitness Open Ear Earbuds are well worth checking out. If you crave deep bass or want active noise cancellation to block the world out, buy a sealed pair instead.