Jabra Elite Sport is a set of totally fully waterproof wireless sports earphones, rival ups its battery life to 4.5 hours, and the case delivers two more charges of equal length. It’s also designed with heart-rate monitor that sounds quite good. Works very well as a headset as single or stereo buds. Compatible with leading third-party fitness apps as well as Jabra’s companion fitness app.
Pros
- Solid
- Reliable connection
- Long battery life for form factor
- Decent fitness tracking options and performance
Cons
- Fit could be more comfortable
- Sound is quite bassy
Jabra has added a new pair of truly wireless earbud market market with its Elite Sport earphones. However, not content with ditching wires altogether (each bud is an independent unit with no cables connecting them), Jabra has also added a heart rate monitor (HRM), a feature borrowed from its Sport Pulse headphones and a first for truly wireless earbuds.
The likes of Bragi, Samsung and Motorola have all released their own attempts recently, so Jabra has some tough competition. These are first and foremost workout earphones, so don’t expect to wear them all day, every day.
Design
Size is 1.06 by 1.18 by 0.9 inches and weighing in at 0.23 ounces per earbud,
the Jabra Elite Sports come in big size, yet comes with three different sizes of silicon ear wings to keep them in place, and you also get a trio of silicon and foam ear pieces in small, medium and large sizes to help create a good seal.
Along with the new battery, Jabra has made some software enhancements. The Jabra Sport Life app has been updated, and there’s a new internal equalizer that allows you to personalize your sound profiles and settings. Those new software features will be available to existing owners of the original Elite Sport, but they won’t get the battery life gains of the new model.
Each of the earbuds features external buttons. The left earbud has the volume up and down buttons which adjust the volume when pressed once, or skip tracks when held. On the right earbud, there’s a play/pause button which also has an answer/end call function and can activate the so-called “HearThrough” ambient noise pass-through feature when double-pressed. There’s also an activity button which launches the Jabra app when the phone is unlocked, and can be long-pressed to launch whichever tracking function is on screen at the time.
While these buttons are a little small and fiddly, they are still pretty easy to feel, and aren’t easily confused with one another thanks to the distance between them.
There are two microphones on each earbud for use during calls, to operate noise-cancelling and HearThrough, the aforementioned external ambient noise feature.
For those who like (or tolerate) running in the rain, you’ll be happy to note that these headphones come with an IP67 rating—they’re built to withstand being dunked in 15 cm to one meter of water for up to 30 minutes at a time. Jabra is so certain of the Elite Sport’s resilience against liquids that they offer a three-year warranty against damage caused by sweat.
Sound
When you’re working out in a busy gym or doing roadwork, situational awareness is important for your personal safety. To ensure that you can hear your surroundings, the Elite Sport allows you to use its built-in microphones to bring outside audio into your ears.
I’m not a fan. Though the feature is optional and can be toggled on and off at will, activating it removes all sense of how close the source of a sound actually is. It also degrades the quality of the music that you’re listening to. If situational awareness while you work out and great audio are important to you—and you don’t mind forgoing the Elite Sport’s sensors—consider picking up a set of Bose SoundSport Free. They offer superior sound and passive situational awareness in a waterproof package.
When you’re not using audio transparency, you’ll find that these earbuds offer a good level of thumping bass—a must-have for any set of athletics-oriented headphones. However, I did find that the heavy bass took away from the enjoyment of listening to music when not powering through the final minutes of a workout. High-frequency sound always found a way to shine through, but much of the mid-range audio of the music I tested with was lost. This less-than-stellar sound stage leads me to suggest that music lovers might want to consider having a second set of headphones for when they’re not headed to the gym.
Overall
The Jabra Elite Sport truly wireless headphones are an exceptional workout companion for anyone looking to track their fitness and listen to a few tunes along the way. However, their bass-heavy audio and reliance on audio transparency to provide adequate situational awareness for runners make them a less ideal choice outside of the gym.
Jabra Elite Sport on Amazon.com
