Bose Sport Earbuds Truly Wireless Headphones Review

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a simple and basic look with a small Bose logo on each bud. However, the buds can stick out of your ears, and overall, they seem a bit bulkier than other truly wireless headphones on the market like the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ True Wireless. If you're looking for another color scheme to match your style, they come in three color variants: 'Triple Black', 'Baltic Blue', and 'Glacier White'.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a comfortable fit. They don't weigh very much, and the ear tips don't go very deeply into your ear. Thanks to their stability fin design, they should also stay put while you're moving. Unfortunately, the buds are a little bit bulky and stick out from your ear, which some users may find annoying.

Update 03/05/2021: Bose released a firmware update which added volume controls. We have updated the review to better reflect these changes, and raised the scoring of this box.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have alright touch-sensitive controls. The right earbud lets you play and pause your music or end and answer your calls. You can also turn on volume controls via the companion app, allowing you to swipe up or down to adjust the volume on the right earbud. However, you can't remap this control onto the left earbud. While there are no controls by default on the left earbud, you can activate or disable them by using the companion app. The app allows you to remap the 'hear battery level' or 'skip track' button onto the left earbud. While you get some audio feedback when connected, the touch-sensitive buttons aren't very clicky, so you may accidentally change a setting while adjusting them in your ear.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have fantastic breathability, which is to be expected from in-ear headphones. They don't cover your outer ear or trap in much heat. You shouldn't notice a temperature difference, even if you're wearing them during long workouts.

The Bose Sport Earbuds are outstandingly portable. Like most truly wireless earbuds, they're small and should easily fit in most pockets. Their portable charging case is a bit bulky, but it should still fit easily in your bag.

The charging case is decent. It's made of hard plastic, and it locks and unlocks to help keep the buds secure. There are also magnets inside the case to hold the earbuds in place while they charge. You can use the 5-light LED battery indicator to keep track of their battery level.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have an impressive build quality. They're mostly made of plastic, which feels solid and durable. There aren't any noticeable weak links in their build. They're also rated IPX4 for water resistance, though we don't test for this.

These earbuds are amazingly stable. They feel more stable than the Bose Sport Open Earbuds Truly Wireless and come with stability fins to help keep them in place in your ear. They shouldn't fall out of your ears during casual listening sessions or while working out at the gym.

• Bose Sport Earbuds headphones
• 3x Stability fins/earbud tips
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Carrying case
• Manual

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a smooth and warm sound profile. While they're lacking a touch of low-bass, which can be disappointing for fans of bass-heavy music genres like EDM, their neutral, balanced mid-range makes them suitable for lots of audio content, especially vocal-centric content like podcasts or audiobooks. However, they lack sound customization features to help you adjust their sound to your liking.

These buds have great frequency response consistency. Although they're slightly prone to inconsistencies in treble delivery, once you achieve a proper fit and air-tight seal, you should experience more consistent audio delivery each time you use them.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have great bass accuracy. While they're lacking a thumpy low-bass, the rest of the range is slightly overemphasized, resulting in a bit more punch and boom in your mixes.

These headphones have impressive mid accuracy. Most of the range is quite balanced and neutral, so vocals and lead instruments are clear and present. However, the overemphasized high-mids can make some of those instruments sound honky or harsh.

These headphones have decent treble accuracy. Low-treble is overemphasized, so vocals and lead instruments can be harsh or piercing. The underemphasis in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals weak or distant.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have decent peaks and dips performance. While they're missing a touch of low-bass, the peak across the bass range adds punch and boom to the mix. The dip in the mid-mids nudges vocals and lead instruments towards the back of the mix, while the peak in the high-mids and low-treble can make those same instruments sound honky or harsh. The mid-treble is uneven, resulting in sibilants that are both piercing and lispy.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have excellent imaging. Their weighted group delay falls mostly below the audibility threshold, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble. Also, the L/R drivers are well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, so objects like footsteps are accurately placed within the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our unit, so your experience may vary.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a terrible passive soundstage performance, which is to be expected from in-ear headphones. By design, they don't interact with the outer ear, which is one of the key components in creating a speaker-like and out-of-body soundstage. As a result, audio seems like it's coming from inside your head rather than from speakers placed all around you. Also, they have a closed-back enclosure, so their soundstage doesn't sound as spacious as open-back headphones.

These headphones have an impressive weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a small peak in the high-treble, most of the ranges fall within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings we used to test the Bose Sport Earbuds. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

While Bose advertises an 'Active EQ' feature, we don't consider this an EQ because you can't turn it off.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a poor noise isolation performance. They don't isolate against bass-heavy noises like bus or plane engines, and they struggle to block out background voices or the hum from nearby AC units. However, this may be preferred by listeners who want to stay aware of their surroundings, like outdoor runners. If you're looking for a pair of truly wireless Bose headphones with an active noise cancelling feature, consider the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds Truly Wireless.

These headphones have a very good leakage performance. They leak a bit of noise, but it's mostly thin-sounding. If you like to listen to audio at high volumes in a noisy environment, people may be able to hear a small part of it.

The microphone has a mediocre recording quality. Your voice sounds thin, muffled, and lacking in detail. However, the person on the other end of the line should still be able to understand you.

Update 06/04/2021: There seems to be a noise gate built into the microphone, which we couldn't turn off during our original test. However, we were able to retest the mic after fixing the noise gate. As a result, the scoring of this box has changed.

The Bose Sport Earbuds' microphone has a poor noise handling performance. The microphone struggles to separate your voice from moderate background noise like a busy street. If you need to take an important call, it's best to do so from a quieter environment to be heard clearly.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a mediocre battery performance. They only last roughly 4.3 hours off of a single charge, which may not last through your workday. However, there are roughly two additional charges in the case, which is nice. That said, battery life can vary depending on usage, so your real-life results may vary. These earbuds are also equipped with an auto-off timer to help conserve battery life when you're not using them.

The Bose Music app is decent. It lets you remap the controls on the left earbud to hear the battery level or skip to the next track. You can also turn on or off the volume touch controls as well as the 'In-ear Detection' feature, which automatically answers your calls when you insert the right bud, and automatically plays/pauses your music when your insert/remove the right bud. However, even though it has an 'Active EQ' feature, it can't be turned off, and it lacks an equalizer, so you can't customize the buds' sound.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a fair Bluetooth performance. They support Bluetooth 5.1 but don't have multi-device or NFC pairing. Their latency on PCs and Androids is likely too high to be suitable for gaming, but you should be able to use them to watch videos on iOS devices. However, some apps compensate for latency, so your real-world experience can vary.

The Bose Sport Earbuds can't be used with a wired connection. They come with a USB-C to USB-A charging cable for their charging case.

These headphones can be used wirelessly with Bluetooth-enabled PCs. However, they aren't compatible with PCs using any other connection.

The Bose Sport Earbuds come with a portable charging case that holds two additional charges. It has only one input, which is a USB-C port so that you can charge the case.