VERDICT
An excellent set of AirPod rivals in many ways, and massively powerful in terms of the amount of exercising you can do. A touch too expensive perhaps (a lower price and they'd be a must-have), and the heart rate monitoring could be more accurate, but the sheer volume of training options is brilliant.
PROS:
- Large range of exercises,Long enough battery life,Automatic rep-counting
CONS:
- Uncomfortable fit over time,Expensive,Heart rate data not perfect
I really love the idea of wireless earbuds, because… well, they’re just cool. I’ve been using the Apple AirPods on and off for a couple of months, and while the fit on those is terrible and the functionality poor, there’s something amazing about just shoving two buttons into your ears and hearing music.
The Jabra Elite Sports aren’t cheap by any means (RRP of £230 / $250 / around AU$330), but they promise so much. These things can track your run, monitor your heart rate, guide you to get stronger or push you to your max during an indoor high-intensity interval workout.
In short, they’re a mixture of the Jabra Pulse (heart rate-monitoring) and Jabra Coach (fitness-coaching) headphones and shed the wires – these things could be big.
Initial setup
Actually, the Jabra Elite Sports are more than just big – they’re huge. The idea is pretty good: they sit snugly in your ear canals and push the optical heart rate monitor against your skin to give one of the more accurate heart rate readings, according to scientists who know more about this than I do.
With no charge out the box, I had to plug in the anonymous-looking black case the buds live in when they’re not in your ears, wait an hour for them to charge up, and then shove them in my lugholes. There’s a huge range of tips and wings to give a decent fit, and while it takes a while to put the right ones in, the fit is certainly snug.
You’re not enticed to download the Jabra Sport app for some reason (at least not on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge I was using, along with the iPhone 7 Plus) but the in-box literature pushes you there, and without the app you can still listen to music over Bluetooth .
Open the app and you’re – weirdly – asked to re-pair the earbuds with the app, despite already having done so. It took a couple of tries but eventually the headphones were paired, then you’re asked to put in your vital stats to monitor health effectively.
I like that Jabra wants to check the heart rate monitoring is working correctly by asking you to stand still and then jump around for 15 seconds… I’m never by myself when I get this command so I look like a right fool.
The first time I tried this, I could NOT get the heart rate to work. Over and over I removed the headphones and tried to get them to fit better – in the end I gave up.
(As you'll see later, this was due to an issue with the firmware that's now been solved).
The first workout
While this test is supposed to be a running test, there’s so much more to the Elite Sport headphones that I’m going to try out the cross-training workouts too.
I was pressed for time this morning, so I just chose the five-minute ‘PushPerfection’ workout, which comprised of push-up reps and timed planks (and variations thereof).
The thing that Jabra is talking up is the fact that you don’t need to have the phone in view to do this – it’s all guided through the headset.
I gave it a go… nope, you need the phone. Firstly, at the start and end of every exercise I was told to press the button and be told what the next exercise is – but without looking at the phone it’s hard to know what ‘Push-Ups with Rotation’ means.
And pressing the button on the side of the headphones is SO SO PAINFUL. It’s quite stiff, so you’re jamming these large buds onto your fragile ear bits. Ow. I hated touching the buttons at any point… this should be touch-sensitive.
( Update: Newer versions of the product - likely those that most will purchase - have had the plastic underneath softened. I've tried these and the pain is certainly lessened, although it's still not easy to press the buttons when you're working out).
Also, I was under the impression the reps were going to be counted. But they weren’t. Something was up here.
I finished the workout and was pleased overall – it was easy to get through, with a good range of effort needed. While the execution wasn’t great, the workout was good and well-guided when looking at the phone.
At this point I noticed that I was being encouraged to download new firmware… I did this and everything started working. The heart rate clicked in, the button worked to skip through exercises – I’m looking forward to trying this tomorrow.
Run, Beavis, run...
This afternoon it was run time – I needed to pop out and hit 10K , so decided to try the app at that. The first thing it asks me when opening up the running section of the app is to do a VO2 Max test, to assess my fitness.
Apparently I should do this every four to eight weeks to see how I’m improving, with green zones to show me how fit I am.
I did a couple of kilometers to warm up, and then got into it. This was simple enough: run for 15 minutes at 70% effort or above, with the app telling me if I needed to speed up (I’ve no idea how these new headphones knew how much effort 70% was for me – I’m thinking some guesswork goes on here).
I went all-out for 15 minutes – I was told four times during the workout that I had achieved the ‘target training zone’ (which irritated – surely I can only reach it once?) but overall I gave it a hard push.
I got the results: my fitness was ‘good’. I had a VO2 Max of 50. Now, I don’t mean to sound boastful, but I’m definitely in the ‘excellent’ category (when you sacrifice a large portion of each week to run, you know when you’re at a decent level of fitness).
I’ve had lab tests done which tell me I’m hovering around 60 – and the heart rate recorded seemed a bit low too, leading me to wonder if the fit wasn’t quite right.
I decided to have another go – another 15 minutes of consistently-paced running with a stable, flat surface as the app suggested. End of the test… still ‘good’, but only a score of 51. OH, COME ON!
So… I’ve learned that this thing is going to need more than two tests to learn my physiology properly. The running tracking is good, but needs the phone – which makes sense given that the Elite Sports are just headphones.
The cross-training tracking is OK as well – I really like the breadth of workouts, but I need to figure out why the headphones aren’t tracking my reps like they’re supposed to.
I’m also a bit worried about how big the Jabra Elite Sports are – they’re hurting my ears by how much they fill the canal, with the pain radiating down to my jaw. I’ll try some smaller tips to see if that has an effect.
Tomorrow I’ll be doing a harder strength session and easier run to see how the headphones cope, as well as comparing the heart rate monitoring to a chest strap monitor to test accuracy, to see if these headphones are worth the high price.
Hello, lovely readers. It’s day two with the wireless Jabra Elite Sport headphones, and today I’ve been trying to get a better sense of what works… and what doesn’t.
One of the main things I was annoyed about yesterday was the lack of rep counting in the strength workouts, as I don’t want to have to be counting my own squatsdammit.
I also wanted to see how accurate the heart rate monitor really is – there are a lot of brands proclaiming that taking readings from the head, rather than the chest or wrist, is the best way of monitoring your pulse, so I wanted to check that out.
Fit and design
Before I get into today’s workouts, I want to talk about something that’s developing into a real problem: the fit of the Elite Sport headphones.
They’re massive, as I’ve mentioned. They fill the center of your ear entirely, and it’s hard to work out which way up they go.
I initially tried without the wing tips, but the buds kept falling out. So I had to put on the smallest option to keep them in place (and cause the heart rate monitor to work) – but that really stretched my ear and caused pain that radiated slightly into the jaw.
It’s not excruciating, and other colleagues trying them quickly found the fit okay, but after long periods of use they become uncomfortable, and taking them out is painful.
( Update: Over time, this does soften slightly, as does trying a number of different foam tips. Finding something that generally does the job and doesn't cause much pain will be fine in a few days - but it's not a pleasant start).
That leads me onto the other major issue I’m facing: the buttons on the headphones themselves. On the right we have the function button (that moves between the exercises in the cross-training workouts) and the play / pause button. On the left bud live the volume controls; holding down either the up or down button will skip the current track.
Oh my god this hurts so much to use. Imagine jabbing a cotton bud full force into the skin of your ear and it’s up there with that pain. I cannot bring myself to change the tracks using this method, and every time I need to press the function button I wince.
I really wish these could have been touch-sensitive – it would have been perfect, although I appreciate that this can be hard to work when you need four options from two buds.
( Update: I've spoken to Jabra about this, and the plastic has been softened - I've tried out the new models and it's definitely much better. Apparently touch sensitivity was considered, but wouldn't allow for gloved use, but it's jolly hard to press the button through gloves... so I think it's still a massive miss).
Morning MadCore workout
I had a big decision this morning: which workout to do? I was torn between some of the harder options, with leg workouts and harder cardio options, but with one eye on Sunday’s race I decided to go for the shorter MacCore workout, which combined explosive workouts and lunges with some cardio elements.
(I assumed they were what made it ‘mad’).
It was only seven minutes long, but with minimal rest. Sadly, once again the rep counting didn’t work, despite me going through every option I could find in the app to activate it.
However, I got in contact with Jabra who (thankfully) told me it’s a feature that’s coming soon, and should be there in a week or two – I wasn’t going mad.
( Update: Weeks later, that day has now come, and I've added my findings to the end of the review, but - spoiler - it's pretty good, with fairly accurate counts, though there are times when you're still asked to count the reps yourself.)
Anyway, back to the workout – it was short, sharp and just what I wanted. Rep-counting would have been nice, as would the app not telling me (while I’m lying on the floor gasping for air) that the workout was in the ‘light’ heart rate zone.
Yeah, thanks for that.
Testing the heart
For today’s 10K run I decided to pit the Jabra Elite Sport headphones against the Garmin Forerunner 735XT running watch with chest strap, so that I could see if the two different styles of monitoring agreed with each other.
The plan was to run a fartlek (stop the sniggering), which is a lot of different speed runs before a long and sustained effort, to see how the two correlated. It meant a lot of slowing down then heading into all-out sprinting to push the heart rate trackers to their limits.
Initially, both agreed to within one or two beats per minute (BPM), which was great. But around two-thirds of the way in the Jabra headphones started reporting much higher heart rates, despite me not running hard.
Looking at the results after, I could see that changes in speed caused the Elite Sports to spike where the Garmin was more serene in recording changes in BPM.
Without a lab it’s not possible to say definitively which is more accurate, but a sudden jump to a much higher heart rate within a few seconds doesn’t seem that believable.
And the random high rise in heart rate from the Elite Sport headphones later in the run seemed to be fit-related, as when I pushed them a little further into the ear the two heart rate monitors synced up again.
The distance run was just over 10 kilometers, but the Jabra app has me down at 10.3km – which means over the course of a race you’d need to run for a minute longer to reach the finish despite the headphones telling you it was over.
Nothing major, and it could be phone-related, since that’s where the app pulls the GPS data from.
Day 2 verdict
I really like the Jabra Elite Sport headphones… well, in theory. They’re the complete package, helping me through strength and running workouts with detailed info and genuine heart rate feedback.
My VO2 Max (measure of fitness) rose again today, up to 52, and that showed there’s a real learning curve to these buds. I don’t get the point of the fitness tests at the start though – they’re clearly pointless.
Yesterday, my first run gave me a VO2 Max of 49. Then doing Jabra’s dedicated test pushed it to 50. I knew it was closer to 60.
So I did the test again. 51. And today, without doing the test, I’m up to 52… every run the headphones are getting more and more accurate.
And the reason I know they’re still too harsh is the race predictor, which uses your VO2 Max to predict race speeds and recovery times.
I’m able to comfortably beat all the times it reckons I’m capable of based on my current fitness by four minutes (for 5K) all the way to 49 minutes (for a marathon).
I even did my 10KM distance today faster than the 46 minutes the app predicted Ishould be able to do based on my fitness.
If it’s so far off, what’s the point in taking the test? I get that it takes time to learn, but there’s no point encouraging the test when you start using the headphones if it’s not going to be any use.
And it means the recovery advisor, which says I can’t run at full speed for three days, is wrong too - I’ve got that race on Sunday, and today was an easier day to taper down for it.
Overall, I'm still enamored... but perhaps slightly less so than yesterday.
This morning it was Parkrun, where I would trot around for five kilometers first thing in the morning.
As you'll see in my 'week with’ review of the Samsung Gear S3 in the video below, Parkrun is a brilliant event organized each week around the country in the UK (and other countries too), starting at 9am and finishing... well, whenever you finish running five kilometers.
Given that I've got my five-mile race tomorrow, I have to be good and disciplined, running this at a slow pace and not pushing the heart rate up. I did think about trying to manually calibrate a session on the Jabra app, but it just seemed like too much effort when I really just wanted to mooch around the course.
So I decided to ditch the phone altogether, and test the Jabra Elite Sport headphones as just that: headphones. Syncing these things to another Bluetooth device – the Gear S3 in this case – is always fun – you have to hold down the play/pause button on the buds and wait for it to begin pairing, indicated by the LED flashing blue.
It took a few attempts to get it to enter pairing mode, but once it was activated the Gear S3 was able to pick up the signal straight away and paired up nicely.
Combined with the MP3s I downloaded to my watch the night before, I had a full music system without the need for a phone strapped to my arm – a much nicer running experience.
I also wanted to see how well the sound passthrough feature worked on the Elite Sport headphones – by activating the microphones on the outside, I should be able to hear people speaking and outside sounds much easier.
It's hard to say much more about the Bluetooth performance during the race itself, as it was perfect. The connection was strong, which I'd have expected it to be given there was little distance between my wrist and the earbuds.
However, I can't say that the sound passthrough option was much use. It dampened the sonic performance of the earbuds a little, making vocals in particular much tinnier.
I also wasn't able to hear people talking any better with it turned on or off. In fact, the only thing I did notice was that the wind would whip across the microphone and distort the sound from time to time, so it doesn't feel like a real safety feature that will let you both listen to your music and run without fear of being hit by a bus.
Day 3 verdict
I do really wish that the Jabra Elite Sport headphones were smarter, or at least had some inbuilt storage. I'd like to go for a run without my phone, and have the heart rate data stored and ready to be downloaded when I return.
It doesn't feel that fanciful given the cost of the buds, and there are devices that can do this: the Wahoo Tickr X heart rate monitor has such smarts built in, is a third of the cost and, apart from playing music, can do everything the Elite Sports can – it can even tell you how far you've gone using the accelerometer.
Oh, and sad news: I've checked, and there's no way I can use these headphones in my race tomorrow as it'll result in instant disqualification, and I need to score some points. Sad times – this would have been another good moment to improve my VO2 Max score, and get it closer to accuracy by running so fast I might be sick out of my nose.
Sunday's race went really well – even without music I managed to shave a minute off my five-mile time. However, it's left me feeling terribly tired, and I decided to take Monday off running and cross-training to play football instead.
Even still, I've woken up today (Tuesday) and I'm shattered still. While football isn't as taxing in terms of outright endurance, it's using muscles that aren't required for running so I'm feeling all kinds of stiffness now.
But, dear reader, I am nothing but dedicated to this cause, so I decided that it was time to take on the hardest cross-fit test the Jabra app had to offer.
I tapped the Bodyweight Challenge, which needed no equipment but promised me 20 minutes of pain through five circuits.
Dear lord, it hurt. The mix of burpees, press-ups, squats and crunches, followed by star jumps, left me gasping for air at the end of each session. It wasn't pleasant. I was also robbed of my promised 30 seconds rest at the end of each circuit, the app flinging me into the next exercise before my tears had time to hit my carpet.
Having to press the button to start each exercise is a really annoying feature. I get that it allows you to get ready at your own pace, and set yourself into the correct posture before beginning the workout, but it meant that I could sneak a little rest in between the reps before I summoned the will to press the button.
I don't think I'm alone in being weak-willed when the exercises hurt, so if this app is to be a properly decent personal trainer it should simply give me a few seconds before starting the new exercise, rather than letting me choose.
I also don't like how much the app judges me, as when I'm going through an exercise it'll chime in, telling me to press the button to start the next set of squats/lunges/whatever, the digital equivalent of drumming its fingers on the wall while it waits for me to catch up.
Workout finished, and I felt good for making it through all the circuits... except for the pounding headache. I never get neuralgia from exercise, so I can only assume it's the tight fit of the buds and the changes in blood pressure from all the burpees that's causing it – removing the headphones and resting for a few minutes seems to reduce the issue.
The day isn't over though, so I’ve wobbled into work with a 10K run to do. Looking ahead to the rest of my week, I'm not going to have a chance to do a harder run, and I really want to try the interval settings on these headphones... so I decide to do what you're not supposed to, and run hard when tired.
A runner's nightmare
Don't try this run at home, kids. Listen to your body and you'll recover better... and mine was just screaming like a baby seagull desperate for attention.
I decided to go for a high-volume, short-rep workout, but there was nothing on the app pre-loaded that I could do. I'd have to set it up myself.
It seemed pretty straightforward: choose your time / distance, and decide what to measure against: heart rate zone, pace or just simple tracking. I decided to go for heart rate and 15 sets of 400-meter runs at a high heart rate, with 200-meter cool-downs in between.
There was no option to add in a warm-up (bad Jabra – always encourage users to warm up before starting an exercise), so I just added a set to run for a kilometer before beginning the reps.
Here’s the bad news: you can’t just set steps in the exercise to repeat, like most apps allow for interval running. So I had to manually set up 30 steps, each taking two screens and five taps… it took ages.
That's ridiculous for an interval session – it's always going to be repeats of something, so come on Jabra, have an option to set how many times you want to do something.
( Update: I've had a moan to Jabra about this, and the people there have promised to have a look to see what can be done about adding in repeats of intervals - it's massively needed).
I also found out some more heartbreaking news at this point: having changed phones for a review, there's no account sync.
So all my VO2 Max data, and therefore information on how well-rested I am, has gone and I've got to start from scratch. It's not a massive issue, as most people will stay with the same phone, but you'll have to work hard to make sure the data copies across if you buy a new handset.
Day 4 verdict
I won't bore you with details of the run – I did it, and it went pretty well. The cues were clear and easy to follow, and the headphones letting me know when I'd reached the correct heart rate zone was useful.
There were a few niggles: when I'd reached the right heart rate zone I was told I'd achieved it two or three times per rep. And, like last time, the heart rate data went a bit wonky about two-thirds of the way through the run, meaning I had to pull out the earbud and make sure it was sitting correctly again.
But I was pleased with my run – I just wished it was much easier to set up, as interval training is a crucial part of a runner’s program, no matter the level.
The final day of the test was upon me, and it was going to be a simple one: trying out the battery life claims to make sure the headphones would work as advertized.
The carry case they live in doubles as a charger, and you’ll get around nine hours of charge off one juice. However, the charging status is only indicated by a glowing LED on the outside of the case, and I’m still not entirely sure what the colors mean.
When it glowed anything other than green after inserting the headphones back into their little house I just stuck the whole box on charge. It seemed the simplest approach, and over the days it’s seemed to work – although it takes hours to juice up fully, and doesn’t seem to hold charge in a predictable way.
Back to the Jabra Elite Sport headphones themselves, and I set off on a two-hour, 15-mile run, simply streaming music over Bluetooth to check out the buds’ ‘normal’ burn. Over the run they lost just over 1.5 hours of charge, which seemed pretty good to me.
The JES headphones do have decent battery life – taking them out of their case fully charged, they showed the expected power loss (based on Jabra’s three-hour battery life claims) after a heart rate-tracking interval session – about an hour’s battery lost for a 45-60 minute workout.
I should also say that the fit has improved over time, with no pain reported after a couple of hours’ wear – although my jaw did still feel ‘stiff’ at the end of the run as a result. Also, don’t use the foam earbud tips for a long run as they’ll absorb sweat and expand, and you’ll need to leave them on a radiator to get them back to normal.
Stupid physics.
Training plans
The thing that upset me the most (and which I’ve barely touched on in this review diary) is the training plan option, as this appears to be inaccessible until you’ve used the headphones for a month.
The reason I’m bothered is, well, it looks brilliant. Dedicated training sessions and plans that are based around you and your abilities, rather than generic, off-the-shelf offerings.
But the fact that they’re based around your fitness is the problem – as we’ve seen, the Jabra Sport app’s coaching system bases this fitness on your VO2 Max, and that’s a fallible measurement out of the box, requiring an unknown amount of runs to accurately give you a decent view of your actual fitness level.
You’ll need to use the app at least three times a week for a month to get an accurate and usable training plan built for you – it feels like a lot of effort, but if you put that time in then you should see some decent benefits.
The training suggested inexplicably doesn’t include the cross training / strength sessions either, where it’s perfectly placed to.
Firstly, the plan will recommend runs based on your fatigue levels. Assuming you achieve a decent fit for the earbuds, and therefore correct heart rate tracking, the app will learn your personal needs, and that’s the perfect kind of training.
If you use the training plan straight out of the box, you’ll get a decent set of options, and if you follow them, they should adapt over time – so it’s fair that they couldn’t be tested instantly, as curated stuff is much better for the new runner.
Repetition counting
And finally, months after launch, the Jabra Elite Sport headphones can track your repetitions of popular workouts!
This means any workout on the app that uses lunges, burpees, squats, press ups and most things which use a dumbbell can be tracked automatically without you needing to count yourself.
Further to my earlier point, it’s still not perfect - there are a lot of exercises where you’re still told to count the reps yourself as the headphones can't do it for some reason - but the accuracy is pretty good.
I’ve tested the Jabra buds through a few different exercises and while you still need to tap the button to confirm you’re in position (so you can give yourself a sneaky break far too easily...) workouts feel a lot more personal now.
It’s a shame you can’t automatically do more of each exercise as you get fitter, but there’s always the option to create manual workouts if that’s your thing - and you can easily just press ‘copy’ in the top right-hand corner to edit each session as you like and create that progression.
Jabra told me that this could be an option for the future though - this is going to be a piece of tech that definitely evolves over time.
Verdict
I’m impressed by the Jabra Elite Sport headphones in a large number of ways, but disappointed in some others.
The price is high, and as such I’d expect near-perfection. Repetition counting missing at the start was a big mistake and made me give up using the headphones for cross training - however, with that now supported, they’ve become a lot more useful.
One thing I’ve really liked is the ability to answer phone calls when on the run – all you need to do is say ‘answer’ when the call comes in and you’ll be able to have a chat on the go – and the voice quality is excellent, with minimal background noise.
However, the ‘answer’ mechanism only worked once for me – the rest of the time I’m running down the street screaming the word over and over while people are giving me very strange looks.
Not great - and apparently due to the iPhone 7 I was using, so the effectiveness is limited to Android devices for now.
What's good?
Jabra’s promotional materials for the Elite Sport headphones, predictably, show a lot of beautiful and athletic people using the system – and while the cost suggests that this is a headphone set designed for them, it’s really not.
However, for the runner / workout fiend who’s decided to get their butt off the couch and DO something about their expanding waistline, this is a great system. You’ve got loads of different workout types to play with – I’ve not even touched on the fact that things like spinning, hiking and cycling are all supported, and use the heart rate monitor to offer targeted training.
You’re also getting a decent set of Bluetooth headphones, with the connection generally strong in day to day use (although on the London Underground we found interference can cause the left earbud to stop working as effectively), so if you hate wires then these are a decent Airpods rival.
Even the fit is okay after a while – they’re lug-filling (to the point of inflicting a touch of pain from time to time, as mentioned), so they should appeal to anyone that wants a pair of Bluetooth buds that can shift from exercise to music playback without any effort.
The Jabra Elite Sport headphones will also double as a heart rate monitor for some applications – I couldn’t get them to sync with my Garmin watch, but some apps can use them to deliver heart rate info.
These things are also great at learning your actual limitations. Give them a few weeks’ use and you’ll really get a personalized look at your fitness – it’ll just take a while to properly bed them in.
Is there anything to look out for?
Despite the number of good things the JES buds can do, they’re a long way from flawless. The heart rate accuracy wasn’t great at times, with the fit playing a big part in delivering the right data, and I really tried to get them to stay in the right place.
Given that I don’t know how I could put them in my ears any more securely, I’m not sure what can be done here. Similarly, while the sound is pretty good, the option to use the external microphones to hear what’s going on in the world around you isn’t effective enough to let you continue a conversation with another person if music is playing.
But the main issue I had with the buds is mostly gone - the pain of pressing the buttons is much improved with the second batch I was given to try out. It's not great still, as the buttons are small and hard to find while running, but it's no longer excruciatingly painful.
The main sticking point, if you can call it that, is the price. It's not actually too bad for the amount of stuff you get with them and the impressive battery life, but it's hard to convince newer runners or cross-trainers (who will benefit most from the training on offer) to fork out this price on anything without a guarantee of a tangible benefit.
Overall verdict
The Jabra Elite Sport headphones are a very powerful proposition, and can do a wide variety of things to help everyone from the novice to the practiced fitness enthusiast.
Spinning, running, cross-training and even hiking are all included, and the heart rate monitoring will give an accurate view of your fitness rather than just logging miles on your feet, and most of the time you can just fire them up and listen to the verbal cues to help you get the most out of a wide variety of training styles.
They’re also competent Bluetooth buds for use around town, with a long-enough battery life and good sound quality.
However, issues with the slightly iffy heart rate data at times, and the still-not-quite-automated-enough cross training still grate – they're good enough, but a touch more expensive than they need to be.
If you’re in the market for the ‘ultimate’ set of fitness headphones and don’t mind paying for them, then they are a strong choice. But if you’re budget-conscious, they’re a step in the right direction, but one that doesn’t quite go far enough.
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