3/5

$159 | Buy from Amazon

TL:DR

Headphones should first and foremost sound good and unfortunately the Run Plus’s from Mojawa fall short of the mark. That’s not to say they are without merit though, the onboard memory is handy as is being fully waterproof so if you’re a swimmer looking to add some tunes to your workout then these could be a great choice.

 Positives

• Generous onboard memory

• Dual Bluetooth connections

• Very fast charging

Negatives

• Fit issues with glasses

• Don’t sound amazing

• Expensive vs competition

 The Lowdown

• 32gb onboard storage

• 8 hour battery life

• Bluetooth connectivity

• IP68 Waterproofing

• EQ tuning

• Touchpad controls

Bone conduction headphones have been growing in popularity in recent years amongst the fitness crowds for their combination of good sound quality whilst still being able to hear the world around you. The market has been dominated by a handful of brands but now there’s a new player in the game. Founded by the former leader of the Innovation Team at Apple, Mojawa aims to bring new innovation to the sector.

They work by keeping your eye canals free and conduct sound via the bones in your ears to let you hear the music as well as your surroundings.

 We’ve been testing the Run Plus headphones in a range of situations to see if they really pack innovation or are you better of sticking with the existing options.

First impressions out of the box are good, the packaging feels sturdy and more importantly premium. Once inside, the headphones are nestled in a vacuum formed plastic tray with the magnetic charger below. A soft case is included but we’d like to see something sturdier, especially as these headphones are likely to be thrown into a kit bag and subjected to a bit of rough and tumble.

The band of the Run Plus is made from titanium so will be able to withstand a certain amount of abuse and helps keep the weight down to a svelte 29 grams. The band is slightly rubberised and feels durable against cracking etc. The ‘headphone’ portion is a low sheen plastic that is an absolute fingerprint magnet, as are the touch sensitive pads that we’ll get onto later.

Our model came in the black and grey colourway, but Mojawa say blue, white and orange options are coming later in the year.

The overall design of the Run Plus is similar to other options on the market with a lobe that sits behind the ear and the bone conduction element looping over the ear. The lobe does extend lower behind the ear than other options, but we didn’t notice any difference in comfort or operation. When wearing the Run Plus’s with glasses, we found the loops interfered with the arms on our glasses and caused the bone conduction pods to not be in as firm contact with our head. We tried with a few pairs of glasses and experienced the same issue throughout.

With the headphones on, there was a small gap between the band and back of our head but this style of headphones relies on the tension of the band to hold them in place; we found the tension to strike a good balance between security and comfort; occasionally when running or riding over rough terrain the headphones would slip down slightly and cause the band to rub on the back of our neck  but we experience no irritation thanks to the rubber coating.

The Run Plus headphones are fully waterproof and rated to IP68 so they can be worn whilst swimming to a depth of two metres which will appeal to those looking to bring some tunes to their swim sessions. Their fully waterproof nature also means that they can be rinsed off after particularly sweaty workouts.

The Run Plus’s are powered on by holding down the left conduction pad which doubles as a button; the device tells you the remaining charge and the status of the Bluetooth connection. If they have already been paired to a nearby smartphone then connection was almost instant and pairing to a new phone was similarly painless; it’s just a case of selecting the device from the list on your phone.

Mojawa claim their patented ‘Original Physical Bass Strengthening Technology’ produces a deep and resonant bass that you can feel on an expansive and intricate soundstage.

 Our mileage varied somehat from these claims; on less bass heavy tracks they are perfectly good, offering good detail but they really lack any low-down punch. Listening back-to-back against the OpenRun Pro’s from Shockz the difference is night and day; the Shockz offer a much richer and more complete sound whereas the Mojawa’s sound almost distant, as if the music is coming from another room.

Switching to the ‘Bass’ mode in the companion app added a little more oomph to the bottom end but they still couldn’t match the Shockz.

We tried listening both with and without glasses to see if a tighter fit on our head made a difference and it did to an extent but not enough to directly correlate the sound quality to wearing glasses.

Interacting with the device is made easy with the touchpad and multifunction button which can be used to skip tracks, change volume, and summon your phones virtual assistant.

The Run Plus’s have 32gb of onboard memory which can be used to store up to 8000 tracks without having to bring your phone. To add music to the headphones it’s a case of plugging them into a computer and simply dragging and dropping hr MP3 files onto the device. It should be noted that you need the actual MP3 file, not a download from a streaming service. A way around this would be to pair the headphones to a watch that supports apps such as Spotify and downloading the tracks to the watch. The Garmin Epix, Marq and Fenix all support Spotify downloads so this would be our preferred route.

The battery life is claimed to be 8 hours which was on par with what we managed to squeeze out; when they do go flat, 5 minutes plugged in will provide 90 minutes of listening time which is mighty impressive.

If swimming forms part of your regular workout routine then the Run Plus might be the headphones for you as they offer great battery life, internal memory and are fully waterproof. However if you tend to stay on dry land then it’s hard to ignore the other offerings on the market which provide better sound quality at a similar, if not lower price.