Verdict
The Oladance OWS Sports offer a good all-round, open-ear headphone performance with a thoughtful design, but you can ultimately pay less for equal or better sound elsewhere.
Introduction
The Oladance OWS Sports are neckband-style headphones for working out and use open-ear air conduction design to make sure you’re still aware of the world around you.
This isn’t Oladance’s first foray into air conduction but with the OWS Sports, it’s taking its design approach into a different direction.
The number of air conduction headphones has grown significantly in recent times and while Oladance has pedigree in this space, does it do enough here to make these the go-to open-ear headphones to get sweaty with?
Availability
The Oladance OWS Sports launched in February 2024 priced at £189 / $179.99, putting them towards the expensive end of the market.
The Shokz OpenRun Pro costs less, though they opt for bone conduction and offer fewer EQ presets. The JBL Soundgear Sense, can be used in an earbuds and neckband form factor are also cheaper. There’s also the impressive Soundpeats RunFree, which cost $49.99 and have since dropped below that price since launch.
Design
- IPX8 water resistant design
- Built-in physical controls
- Doesn’t include a charging case
The OWS Sports marks the first time that Oladance has moved away from a true wireless design for a look that’s now associated with bone conduction headphones. It’s a neckband design that uses silicone to ensure it’s not too heavy around your neck. There’s nothing hugely revolutionary about this look, though it’s nice to see it comes in four different colours (silver, yellow, pink and black) for more eye-catching appeal.
While they’re not as svelte and light as a pair of Shokz OpenRun or OpenRun Pro, they’re comfortable to wear over longer periods and weren’t a nuisance on my 2-hour marathon training runs. Like Shokz, there’s titanium materials used for a more rugged and high-grade design without adding unnecessary weight.
Oladance has sought to bolster protection against moisture with an IPX8 water resistance rating, which technically means they can be submerged in water up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes. It means they have strong defence against sweat and rain, and I have tested them in both sweaty workouts and serious downpours and experienced no performance or connection issues.
There’s room for controls, and they’re the physical kind that I prefer to see on sports headphones sitting on the speaker units as opposed to the headphone frame. There is a main multi-function button on the left side you can single, double, and triple tap to play back audio, summon your smartphone assistant, skip through tracks, as well as answer and reject calls.
On the other side you’ve got two smaller buttons to adjust volume, turn the headphones on and off, and to initiate pairing. All the physical buttons are nicely positioned and easy to access on the move or during more frenetic exercise. Some of the triple tap features take some mastering, but overall, Oladance gets things right with its button setup.
Oladance provides quite a sizable carrying case, which unfortunately doesn’t double up as a way to charge the headphones when they’re out the battery. That’s done via the proprietary magnetic charging cable provided, which does mean you’re going to have to keep hold of another charging cable.
Features
- Offers 4 sound presets in companion app
- Battery life lives up to billing
It pays off to make use of the Oladance companion smartphone app to enjoy the best sound. The app is free to download and works for Android and iOS, and in it you can adjust the onboard controls, turn on the dual device connection support and enable aptX HD for wireless Hi-Res Audio.
More importantly, this is where you access the preset sound modes. There are four in total: a default one, a surging bass mode, a pure voice mode aimed at podcasts and audiobooks, and lastly one to create your own EQ.
In terms of battery performance, Oladance talks big numbers. It suggests you can enjoy 15 hours of battery life before you need to grab the proprietary charging cable to power up. You can check battery status inside the app, and there’s also a quick charge feature where 15 minutes of charging time should give you a useful five hours of playtime.
An hour of use saw the battery drop by 8%, which would suggest a performance lower than that 15 hours. Volume and EQ modes impact overall battery, but it does have a quick charge feature to make sure you’re not charging them on a very regular basis, even over a week.
Sound Quality
- Air conduction-based audio
- Not clearest performance
The OWS Sports offer an open-ear air conduction design that essentially involves dropping speakers beside your ears to deliver sound without blocking them. The biggest disadvantages of air conduction over bone conduction is the promise of more powerful, bassier sound. It typically can be more customisable based on your listening tastes.
I’ve been using the OWS Sports for as many workouts as I could squeeze in over a few weeks of testing. I’m currently training for a marathon, so they’ve been ideal for taking on long runs where I’m exploring longer and new routes and don’t necessarily want to entirely block out sounds around me.
I’ve also used them in the gym, battling against the gym’s stereo system and used them for workouts like indoor rowing. What I’ve found is that the OWS Sports deliver a pretty bright, likeable sound, and fine call quality if you’re using them indoors and in quieter outdoor environments.
The EQ modes work in a pretty simple fashion. Surging bass mode simply ups the presence of bass, voice mode pushes that bass into the background. The issue here is that while it boosts those aspects, the sound overall lacks balance. Bass is more woolly than punchy, mids feel a touch boxy, and there’s a more relaxed feel about the treble performance.
Things are improved when you delve into the custom EQ support and can get a better grip of how things sound. They’re not the clearest-sounding open-ear headphones I’ve used, though absolutely not the worst offenders as I’ve largely enjoyed using them across a range of music and for podcasts. I wouldn’t say they’re up there with the best open-ear, fitness-focused headphones I’ve used, putting in what I’d consider to be middle tier in terms of performance.
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Should you buy it?
You want a secure and well-designed set of open-ear sports headphones
The Oladance OWS Sports ticks the key design boxes while also offering an easy to use app to boost things in the sound department.
You want the very best open-ear neckband sports headphones
While the Oladance OWS Sports offer likeable open-ear sound, you can definitely find cheaper alternatives that offer clearer and more balanced sound quality.
Final Thoughts
The Oladance OWS offer good open-ear sound from a design that shows a good understanding of what makes a good set of sports headphones.
The price however feels a little steep, especially given the audio performance. You can buy more balanced open-ear, neckband-style headphones for less money. The JBL Soundgear Sense immediately springs to mind, as does the Soundpeats RunFree, which cost significantly less than the OWS. I’d even say some bone conduction headphones like the Haylou Purfree BC01 are worth a mention here too.
How we test
We test every set of headphones we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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Tested with real world use
Battery drain carried out
FAQs
Plug the headphones in for 15 minutes and you’ll get five hours of playback for the Oladance OWS Sports.
