The Tiny RIPT Lite Is a Great Pair of Earbuds for the Gym
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The Good
- Charge display on case
- Good sound quality for the price
- Noise cancelling
- Good fit for small/medium ears
The Bad- Noise canceling not as good as over-ear headphones
- Inconvenient controls
Table of Contents
The RIPT Lite earbuds by H2O Audio are a little sister to the over-ear RIPT Ultra that I reviewed not long ago. They have the same color scheme and sweatproof-ness, but their smaller package makes them more convenient for when you want to carry your headphones in your pocket rather than your gym bag.
As with the RIPT Ultra, these earbuds are marketed as “sweatproof” (but not fully waterproof) and have active noise cancellation to block out distractions during your workout. The battery indicator on the case is a nice touch.
I took the RIPT Lite earbuds out for a few runs and gym workouts, and was impressed by their fit and performance. They’re a solid option for a fitness-friendly earbud.
Appearance and case
The RIPT Lite are a pair of tiny, lightweight earbuds, with a stem that sticks vertically down from your ears. The design is AirPods-esque, but with a distinctive black-and-electric-blue color scheme to be sure you won’t get the brands confused.
The RIPT Lite are an open design, without silicone tips to make a good seal. This affects the sound quality a bit—which I’ll discuss below—but it does make them easy to put in your ears, and easy to slide into the case.
I love the case, by the way. Open the lid, and the earbuds pair to your phone. Even better, when you open the lid, a little display lights up to tell you how charged the case is. The case itself is small enough that I can wedge it into the coin pocket on some of my pairs of jeans.
Fit and comfort
I fully expected these to fly out of my ears the way the RIPT Ultra flew off my head, but I was wrong to assume. I put them on for an easy walk/jog around the track with my daughter, and they were fine. I escalated to an interval run on a treadmill, and they were still fine. Determined to test their limits, I wore them for a weightlifting workout.
They stayed in while I practiced handstands during my warmup, and even while I doubled over for kettlebell windmills. I did power snatches, and then power cleans, and the earbuds never budged. I forgot I was wearing them as I did front squats and jerks. That’s more than I could say for their over-ear brethren.
Here, I may have an advantage with my smaller-than-average ears. Reviews from larger folks sometimes say the RIPT Lite feel loose. The earbuds ship with a pair of silicone wings, which you’ll find nestled next to the USB-C cable in the bottom of the package they come in. These make the fit even more secure, but they don’t fit into the charging case, so if you use these on the regular you’ll need to find a way to carry them around.
While the fit was secure, I didn’t find the earbuds super comfortable for everyday wear. They always felt like they were pressing on my ears just a little too much from the inside, and when I pressed the button to pause my music, that in turn pressed on the inside of my ear a little more. This wasn’t uncomfortable enough to be a serious problem, but it’s definitely not ideal.
Sound quality
These sound good! My music was always clear, never sounding muddy or tinny. Over at our sister site ZDNet, Jack Wallen says the sound on the RIPT Lite has “plenty of bass, modest mids, and highs that won't disappoint.” (Me, I’m just happy as long as I can hear the lyrics to sing along to between sets.)
These earbuds have the same Loud Lady problem as the RIPT Ultra, which is to say, a lady loudly announces “Play” or “Pause” whenever you start or stop your music. And, worse, she takes her sweet time saying “Noise canceling…activated!” when you press the left earbud.
Noise canceling
These earbuds have a noise canceling mode, but no transparency mode. You turn the noise canceling on or off with a single tap on the left earbud.
The noise canceling feature doesn’t work miracles, since there’s no way for it to get a perfect seal with your ear. But there’s a substantial, noticeable difference between the noise canceling mode being on and off, enough that I can enjoy my own music when I’m at the gym, instead of what they’re playing over the loudspeakers.
Controls
These earbuds are so small and light, they have a serious problem—there's nowhere to put buttons. H2O Audio has given each earbud one button, which means you need to remember what type of press gives you the function you want (single, double, or long press?) and whether you want to do it on the left or right earbud.
So you can play or pause the music with a single tap on the right, and turn noise canceling on or off with a single tap on the left. Long pressing the right earbud skips forward; long pressing the left skips back. And you’ll double tap the right earbud to turn the volume up, double tap the left to turn it down.
You’d think this is no problem once you memorize the controls, but then you run into the next issue: Even a light touch will often register as a tap, so you’ll end up switching noise cancellation on or off when you put the earbuds in, or pausing your music when you meant to just brush a hair off the side of your face.
It’s also easy to execute the wrong type of tap, especially mid-workout—for example, skipping a song when you meant to turn up the volume. I found myself reaching for my phone (or the music controls on my watch) when I wanted to adjust the volume or skip tracks, rather than using the on-ear controls.
Battery life and charging
According to H2O Audio, the earbuds can play music for four to five hours on their own, and the charging case adds another 30 hours. I didn’t rigorously test those numbers, but they do roughly match up with my experience.
The battery display on the case, again, is a godsend. Just seeing the number at anything less than 100 was a reminder that I should try to get it onto a charger at some point. The case never ran out of battery with this habit, and since I always popped the buds back into their case when I was done with them, they were always fully charged when I wanted to use them again.
The number on the display tells you how charged the case is, so when you put the earbuds back in after using them, you’ll see the case percentage falling—87% down to 81%, for example, as the case gives up some power to the buds.
The RIPT Lite are an excellent pair of earbuds for the gym, at least if you have smaller to medium ears. Those with larger ears may need to use the silicone tips, and then have to find a way to carry them around. But for me, doing handstands and windmills and Olympic lifts, they stayed in just fine.
The charging case is small and light, and the display on the case is a genius move. I wish there were a better way to control playback than the sensitive multi-function buttons, and I didn’t love the feel of the fit—but I recognize these are necessary tradeoffs for the functionality. Overall, I’d say these are a solid pick for a fitness-focused earbud, at a great price.
