Jabra Sport Plus Wireless

Jabra’s Sport Pulse wireless in-ear headphones aim to help keep you motivated during your workouts. They allow you to listen to your favourite music, while discreetly tracking your heart rate and offering regular updates on your workout progress.

At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking that these headphones are going to be uncomfortable to wear. They have an extra portion that houses the heart-rate tracker and other tech sticking out at the bottom. This, however, helps keep the earphones in place, and the small rubber wing that sticks up from the main portion of the headphone provides extra support.

In use, we found the Jabras to be incredibly comfy. They managed to stay in our ears for the majority of our workouts and runs, and after experimenting with the various different ear wings and headset buds provided (three wing sizes and four bud sizes), we managed to find a combination that suited us.

There were a couple of occasions when one of the earphones would move out of place slightly and therefore momentarily lose the ability to monitor our heart rate, but you’ll be subtly alerted if this happens by the soft-spoken female voice that Jabra’s used for the headphones, so you can quickly adjust them rather than get back to find that your workout wasn’t recorded properly.

As these headphones are wireless, connecting quickly and easily to your device via Bluetooth or NFC, there’s just one reasonably short cable that sits behind your neck as you run. Small clips have been provided to help you make this cable more comfortable.

There are a few buttons on the headphones that allow you to control various things. For example, a remote control on the cable lets you increase or decrease the volume, skip tracks or activate Siri if you’re using an iPhone (there’s a microphone there, too).

On the outside of the left earbud is a physical button that, when pressed, will give you an update on your workout progress.

In terms of durability, the Jabra Sport Pulse seemed sturdy and robust during our testing, and they’re water-resistant so you won’t need to worry about sweat or rain.

Fitness features

Paired with the dedicated Jabra Sport app, you’ll be able to use these headphones to track activities including running, cycling, walking, hiking, skating or skiing, and even gym-based activities such as walking or running on a treadmill.

You won’t be able to track your steps, but you will find information about the duration of your workout, the distance travelled, your average pace and an estimate of how many calories you burned. You’ll also see your heart rate, which is also used to calculate when you’re in the light training-, fat burn-, cardio-, intense- or maximum zones, all of which we found interesting post-workout.

By default, the headphones will fade out your music and give you a workout update including distance (it utilises the GPS in your smartphone so you’ll need to have it turned on), pace, heart rate and training zone every 10 minutes or after every two kilometres, but if you feel that’s too regular or not regular enough you can change it in the settings menu.

If you’ve got a particular goal in mind for your workout, you can set a target distance, time, calorie burn or pace, or set a target heart rate zone that you’d like to reach. Then, when you’ve reached that goal, you’ll be congratulated by the headphones. You can also set up your own custom interval training workouts.

When you’ve finished your workout, you’ll get a detailed summary, which can include a map of where you travelled, and an analysis of your heart rate during your workout. You’ll also find out whether you beat your personal bests for the week, month or year.

The sound quality is certainly not the best we’ve experienced, but for sports headphones it’s fine. There’s just enough bass to help motivate you during your workout, but not too much that it becomes overpowering. At high volumes there’s a little distortion, though you won’t need them that loud.

Battery life

During our tests, the Jabra’s battery lasted for around five hours. Having to charge headphones at all is something you’ll need to get used to, but it’s the price you pay for the huge benefit of no wires to get tangled up in during workouts.

The good news is that the battery level indicator you’ll see when you launch the Jabra Sport app seemed to be very accurate during our testing, which is helpful it’ll allow you to decide whether your battery is going to last the full length of your workout or whether you need to plug them in to get a bit of extra juice before you set off.

Verdict

You won’t get the sound quality that you’d expect from any ordinary pair of headphones, but for the added fitness extras it’ll be a price that many sports enthusiasts are willing to pay.