Nank Runner Diver2 Pro Review

Introduction

There aren’t many headphones that are fully equipped to join you for swims, but Nank, formerly known as Naenka, have in recent years provided one of the standout options to jump in the water with.

The Nank Runner Diver2 Pro, like previous Runner Diver headphones, gives you the option of Bluetooth and music player streaming with a sizable 32GB of storage to pile on your audio. It’s now promising to let you switch between open-ear and noise-cancelling listening modes. 

The original Naenka Runner Diver impressed me, so is it more of the same with the Runner Diver2 Pro? I’ve been testing them in the water and on land to find out.

Availability

The Nank Runner Diver2 Pro are mainly available through Nank’s own website where they are currently priced at £157.55 and at the time of writing was on sale for £126.04. If you’re in the UK and want them, you’re going to have to pay shipping fees on top, so that is going to push the price up.

At under £160, it’s technically cheaper than picking up the Shokz OpenSwim Pro (£169), one of the best waterproof headphones we’ve tested. As mentioned, you do need to factor in that additional shipping cost for the Runner Diver2 Pro. So, depending on where you live, the Runner Diver2 Pro may end up being the pricier buy in comparison.

There’s also the original OpenSwim, which lacks the option of Bluetooth and music player modes like the OpenSwim Pro and costs £139. The H20 Audio Tri 2 Pro is another swim-friendly set of bone conduction headphones that at £188, is one of the most expensive waterproof headphones you can buy. It also offers music player and Bluetooth streaming.

Design

• Neckband design
• IP69 waterproof design

The Runner Diver2 Pro looks very similar to the previous Runner Diver headphones I tested back in 2022. You’ve got that pretty customary neckband bone conduction headphone design that isn’t quite as svelte as rival waterproof headphones like the Shokz OpenSwim Pro or the H20 Audio Tri 2 Pro. That’s mainly present through the slightly thicker arms where the battery and the music player memory is located. The ends of the headphones where the bone conduction vibration units are situated are bigger as well.

It’s all made from a titanium covered in silicone, which is pretty much the go-to materials for most bone conduction headphones. That’s to make sure you’ve got something that’s both durable and also doesn’t put that titanium in direct contact with your head.

As a package, it carries an IP69 waterproof rating, giving you the highest level of protection against liquids. That also means it’s suitable for use in water including seawater, up to 10 metres depth for up to 5 hours. That’s a nice durability upgrade on the IPX8 rating attached to the original Runner Diver.

Below one arm you’ll find three physical buttons to turn them on, switch between listening modes, adjust volume and skip audio. The buttons are all sat a bit too close for my liking and meant I often mistook the power button for one of the volume ones.

If you like a colourful set of headphones, Nank keeps it pretty low-key on that front. There’s just the grey version to grab and does mean it blends into the sea of other predominantly grey bone conduction headphones outside of the likes of Shokz.

There isn’t a case included to store the headphones in, though you do get a set of silicone ear plugs for swims and a proprietary charging cable in the box. There’s also a series of what Nank calls its sound quality enhancers, which are essentially pieces of flexible plastic that sit inside of the ears to help create more of a closed headphone experience.

Features

• Bluetooth 5.4
• 10 hours battery
• MP3 and music player modes

The Runner Diver2 Pro offers the option of Bluetooth or music player streaming. The former option uses Bluetooth 5.4 and I’ve had no problems swiftly pairing them to an iPhone, Samsung Android phone, a MacBook or an Apple Watch Ultra 2. There is also support to pair two devices simultaneously, making it useful when switching from listening from a phone or when you’re stationary. I have found that when having them paired to two different phones nearby it can struggle to switch disconnect from one and pair to the other.

When you switch to music player mode, you’ve got 32GB of storage at your disposal, which translates to approximately 8,000 audio files. The supported formats are MP3, M4A, WAV, APE and FLAC, so it’s covering the key ones.

Getting audio onto the headphones is a drag and drop affair once you’ve connected the microUSB charging cable to a computer. Interestingly, Nank also provides instructions on how to transfer over music from Spotify, including suggestions for music converters to convert Spotify file formats so that you can store them onto the headphones. Quite how legal this process is I’m not sure. I gave this a go, but it didn’t actually appear to work for me.

Nank claims the Diver2 Pro can last up to 10 hours with a 10-minute charge giving you an hour’s listening time. It isn’t specified whether that number is attached to Bluetooth or music player streaming, though as I found, it seems to be applicable in both scenarios. An hour’s streaming from the music player saw battery drop by just over 10%.

It was a similar drop for an hour of Bluetooth streaming at near to maximum volume. Given music player streaming generally sees a more noticeable drain compared to doing it over Bluetooth on most headphones I’ve tested that support it, the Diver2 Pro impressed.

Sound Quality

• Warm albeit not most balanced open-ear sound
• Offers open-ear and noise cancelling modes

At its essence, these are bone conduction headphones, which means an open-ear design that doesn’t entirely clog up your ears and fires that sound via transmitters that send vibrations up your cheekbones. Nank says it’s using new bone conduction technology that reduces sound vibrations from previous versions and promises improved overall sound across frequencies.

Nank also claims the Diver2 Pro can operate in a noise cancelling mode where the vibration units built into the headphones can tilt to sit closer to the ears and use noise cancelling waves to keep more exterior sound out. You do also have those sound quality enhancers mentioned to boost overall sound.

In the water, the Runner Diver2 Pro certainly prioritises power, being loud and giving you a bit of a bass rumble. If you’re hoping for the cleanest, most balanced open-ear sound, that’s not quite how things pan out. Shokz and Bose pretty much lead the way on that front and these aren’t a match for Shokz and Bose. If you can handle the undeniably boxy mids and grainy treble performance, at its core there’s enough good to make them enjoyable to use for swims. It definitely didn’t have any unwanted murkiness in the water and while I think the Shokz OpenSwim and OpenSwim Pro offer the best sound quality in the water, these offer something a couple of steps below.

Having mainly managed to sync over podcasts including the Wolf and Owl podcast and Hospital Records podcast these headphones tend to treat music better over spoken word, but I was happy with the performance across both fronts.

Out of the water, it’s largely more of the same in terms of overall sound profile. This is where you can bring this open-ear and noise-cancelling mode into play as well as those sound enhancers, which I can’t help think looks a little bit silly to stick into your ears. Without them, the open-ear bone conduction sound is more than satisfactory. Using them in the closed mode does fire sound a little more intimately towards the ears without entirely blocking out the world around you. You definitely let in more exterior sound when you tilt those units further away from the ears, but I found the noise-cancelling mode provided the most satisfying experience and it’s nice to have the option to swiftly switch between modes.

On Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain or Portishead’s Glory Box, there’s smoother, more detailed mids that want to break out, but are never really achieved. It’s punchy bass over everything else. There is some bone conduction vibration rumble at louder volumes, but it never felt unsettling to the extent where it made the Diver2 Pro unbearable to use.

Should you buy it?