T
Tony Pilato
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The Jabra Sport Pulse is your go-to wireless Bluetooth sports earbuds to bring to the gym or when training outdoors. They do come at a premium price of $200; however, the high price tag is worth it if you want to take advantage of all of the great features offered. They’re equipped with high-quality sound paired with a decently deep base, a built-in clinical-grade heart rate monitor, solid fitness app integration, as well as military grade sweat/rain, dust and shock resistance. On top of those features (and unlike most wireless earbuds), the Sport Pulse is designed to fit comfortably in your ears and, most importantly, stay tucked in even during workouts that involve sudden movements.
Audio Quality
The Sport Pulse sound performance is excellent. The earbuds offer high-quality Dolby-powered sound with a good base. There is definitely no loss of performance over Bluetooth, but the base is not the deepest for those who value a punchy base. Comparing them to the PowerBeats 2 by Dre, I can safely say that the Sport Pulse is on par with them in terms of sound performance.
Wireless earbuds often suffer to stay securely fit in your ears during heavy workouts. Sweat appears along the way, and certain sudden movements usually results in your earbuds falling off your ears or causes a loose fit which leads to a poor sound. Fortunately, the Sport Pulse comes with four sets of ‘EarWings’ stabilizers and four sets of ‘EarGels’ eartips in four different sizes to make sure the Sport Pulse can fit perfectly in your ears. The fact that they can stay tucked-in your ears throughout a workout is essential as a tight seal is key to maximize sound quality, base and sound isolation. This results in an immersive sound, even during outside runs where I could not hear traffic or distant noises. The Sport Pulse is also great for casual listening and in fact have replaced my PowerBeats 2 due to their greater sound isolation capability.
Features
One of the main features of the Sport Pulse is its heart rate monitor and fitness tracker. The heart rate monitor is powered by PerformTek technology and the company claims that they deliver clinical-grade heart rate monitoring precision. The Sport Pulse measures your heart rate throughout your workout and the fitness app’s voice coach will periodically inform you of your heart rate, average heart rate, as well as your total distance, total calorie burn and pace. This information can also be accessed by clicking on the left earbud’s button. The companion app lets you change what you want the assistant voice coach to tell you when clicking that button.
The fitness app also analyzes your workouts, to keep track of your training zone (light, fat burn, cardio, intense and maximum). In addition, you can set time, distance, cadence goals as well as other fitness training zones that the earbuds will track and let you know if you are training accordingly. The voice-coach prompts play over your current music, and can run simultaneously while listening to music with Spotify, Soundcloud or other music streaming services. One thing that can be annoying along the way is that if you move the earbuds to adjust their fit or they simply lose their fit, the voice-coach will tell you to readjust the left earbud to detect the heart rate and it sometimes take up to a minute for them to detect your heart rate again.
Finally, the Jabra Sport Life fitness app can use your phone’s built in GPS to map out your runs, and share your workout stats to your friends. The Jabra Sport Life fitness app is definitely a great feature to reinforce your workouts, as it lets you monitor/evaluate your performance, let you know if you are training in the right training zone and help you achieve your fitness goals. It is worth to mention that the Jabra Sport Pulse can also work with other fitness apps such as Endomendo and Runkeeper.
The Sport Pulse has an IP55 military-grade durability certification. This means that they will resist sweat, rain, dust and shock. This should ensure that they last you longer than other non-certified earbuds and withstand heavy workouts. The earbuds have also an in-line remote/microphone that allows you to turn the earbuds on, answer calls, skip tracks, and raise and lower volume.
They also come with built-in NFC tap-to-pair technology, which is supported by many of the latest Android phones and makes the hassle of pairing your smartphone a lot easier. The earbuds are of course compatible with both Android and iOS.
Battery Life
One crucial component of Bluetooth wireless earbuds is their battery life. The Sport Pulse’s small size does not offer room for a large battery, and most wireless earbuds will give you about 5 hours max of music playback time. Jabra claims that the Sport Pulse give you up to 5 hours of music/talk time. While testing them, they did last for a maximum of 4.5 hours when listening to music slightly above the safety level (loud).
Closing
After using the Sport Pulse daily for about three weeks in and out of the gym, I can highly recommend them to anyone looking for high-end wireless earbuds to bring to the gym, runs, or any type of outdoors physical activity. They work with a great range of fitness apps, and the Jabra Sport Life app provides you with audio coaching, GPS tracking for distance running and other fitness tracking features that inform of how you’re doing during your workout. These earbuds will definitely help you take your workouts to the next level and offer you high quality sound to get you through tough training sessions.
If you value the heart rate monitor and fitness app integration and are willing to pay $200 for a pair of earbuds, then the Jabra Sport Pulse is definitely a great choice. They are by far the best sports wireless earbuds out there, and go on par with other high-end wireless earbuds such as the PowerBeats 2 in terms of sound quality. They have an incredible fit, something that other wireless sports earbuds suffer from, and come with a great set of fitness tracking features.
[Jabra] [Amazon] [Best Buy]
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