Category: bluetooth

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Gear Review: Shokz Open Swim Pro (Bone Conduction Headphones)

Bone conduction (or Open-Ear) headphones transmit sound by inducing jawbone vibrations, freeing your ears to hear outside sounds. This makes them ideal for women runners who, unfortunately, need to be more aware of threats when running alone. My wife has enjoyed a pair of Shokz for years, but I was intrigued when I heard of a waterproof version.

From the Shokz website: Transducers send vibrations through the cheekbones and deliver sound directly to the inner ear, bypassing the eardrum.

Overall First Impressions/Controls

I’m not an audiophile, but I had trouble believing that this technology could produce the same quality of sound as regular earphones. My favourite songs sounded the same.

The only controls are two volume buttons on the right side, and a “multi-function” on the left. The multi-function has to be pressed a combination of times to advance or go back a track, held down to enter pairing mode, etc. The volume buttons are used to power the device on/off in addition to obviously controlling the volume.

Normally I prefer to have more dedicated controls rather than memorizing combinations to accomplish basic tasks, but I can see how not having to fumble around searching for the right button when the headset is being worn is actually more practical and user-friendly.

Bike Test

My first test of the OpenSwim Pro was on a bike ride. Normally, headphones would be a big no-no on the bike, but the open ear should mean that a rider can maintain situational awareness. On this ride, the way out was mostly downhills and steep ones at that, so I didn’t listen to music at all, because I wanted my full attention on handling my bike through the turns and such. I had planned to listen to music to motivate me up the steep climbs home. Unfortunately, I remembered to turn on the music a little late, but for the last stretch, I did notice that I could hear a car come up behind me as I rode.

Run Test

I brought the headphones with me on a run around the track at the town stadium. I had the music playing while I used the bathroom before my run – what was interesting is when I used the hand dryer, I couldn’t hear the music anymore. So loud sound coming in your ears will override the music coming in through your jawbone vibrations.

During the run, I was able to have conversation with my wife when I passed her on the track without turning down (or off) the music.

Swim Test

So the headphones are waterproof, but that doesn’t mean they can connect to Bluetooth while in the water – this is made clear by the manufacturer. So for swimming, you use them as an MP3 player; remember those? You have to load MP3 or other audio files from a computer over the USB cable to the memory of the OpenSwim Pro. MP3s are getting a little hard to come by, but I still had some songs loaded on my phone (in unprotected m4a format from iTunes) that I loaded onto my computer and then back to the headphones.

The headphones convert from Bluetooth to MP3 mode by pressing the 2 volume keys simultaneously. On my first swim, I absolutely loved hearing music and the laps seemed to tick by with less boredom and tedium. The headphones hug my head and can almost be forgotten, which is a far cry from the “listening to music while swimming” I had over 10 years ago.

Other Applications

I’ve used these headphones a bit in the office as a way to listen to music or be on a call while having a better awareness in my surroundings; e.g. a co-worker wants my attention. The microphone seems to work well for calls, though I prefer noise-cancelling headphones for longer sitting periods of meetings or deep work.

Conclusion

So far, the Shokz OpenSwim Pro is one of the best electronics purchases a multi-sport athlete could buy.

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Gear Corner: Bye-bye Blackberry, Hello Samsung Galaxy S3 (Android LTE)


It’s just about time to retire my Blackberry Bold 9900; my boss has upgraded most of our team to the Samsung Galaxy SIII.  I haven’t found the time to get it setup and activated yet, but the day is coming.  The new phone is LTE which means faster data, but that’s not the only thing I’m looking forward to in the upgrade:

  • Better accessories I hope.  It always boggled my mind how Blackberry supposedly wanted to conquer the consumer market, but somehow always seemed locked into use scenarios that could only really to a business executive.  I never found a running armband that would let me use the Blackberry while running; even if I tried to stuff it into a larger armband (like one intended for an iPhone), it might fit, but push all kinds of buttons on the way in or out, and inadvertently pause the music or something.  I’d end up using the belt holster with a water bottle belt… that was about the only solution I could live with.  The S3 is a touchscreen format, so hopefully it’ll work better for this sort of thing.  I’m looking at this Otterbox case, though I’m also intrigued by SPIBelt/SPIband.  Maybe I’ll get a working heart rate sensor even…
  • Better Apps.  The selection of apps on Blackberry was always meager.  The major social networks were there, but things like Instagram (even if that’s a dirty word now) were either absent, or only supported through the browser (Google+).  I still love Endomondo as my exercise tracker, but there’s tons more fitness apps (like Zombies Run!) that I could use to round out my training.  Music streaming, chat/video/VOIP (Skype), Blogging tools, I’m getting intimidated just thinking about the selection I’m about to experience.
  • Better Bluetooth.  Pairing the Blackberry with the handsfree in my car was always a crap shoot, maybe the Samsung will work better.  We’ll see.


That said, there are a few things I’ll miss about the old Blackberry.

  • QWERTY Keyboard Buttons – I don’t think I’d ever be able to type as well with a touchscreen.  Some of my blog posts were written (about 90%) on my Blackberry while I was killing time.  I’d email them as a draft, polish them and insert links then publish.  Typing out reams of text for a blog (or writing lots of emails) seems like it would be tedious on a touch screen (based on my experience with my iPad), though there are apps that supposedly make touchscreen typing more efficient.
  • Blackberry Messenger.  BBM is very cool; I seeing that the message has been a) delivered and b) read, plus group chats, sending pictures and files is no problem.  I didn’t use it so much for status updates and the kinds of automation on said status, though.  There’s plenty of chat apps, but at least everybody I knew who had a Blackberry, I could contact through BBM.
  • Supporting a Canadian Company.  I’ve got several friends and ex-colleagues who work for RIM, the company that makes Blackberry.  The last Canadian Tech Giant is fallen on hard times, and now I’m part of the problem.  Who knows?  Maybe they’ll bounce back and they can be my next  phone.


How important is your smartphone to your fitness?

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Gear Corner: Jaybird Freedom Bluetooth Headphones Review

I had bought these headphones as a replacement to my Motorola S9 Bluetooth headphones (seen here) that had long since broken… beyond all repair.  I had worn them once right out of the box and found that they didn’t stay in my ears well.  The guy who recommended them to me further advised me to try some of the ear hook accessories.  






I tried the ones that are intended for the middle ear (which is how my friend wears them); I did this the night before my run and needed both the illustrated instructions and a bathroom mirror to figure out how to best implement the correct fit.  I went out the next day for a fairly brisk 8 km in the freezing cold; this meant the Jaybirds had the added advantage of being held in place by a hat!



The Jaybird Freedom was easy to pair with my Blackberry.  I wanted to use Endomondo’s (my running and exercise tracking app) built in access to music to play my running playlist, but the audio option for ‘BT Stereo’ didn’t work, and when I used ‘BT Handsfree’ the sound quality was terrible.  Once I accessed the music from the normal Blackberry Music App, things sounded great.  So this is more of an Endomondo problem than a Jaybird problem.  After mucking about with the controls for so long, I finally got going.  The instruction manual requests that you wear your phone/media player on your arm and not in a pocket for best reception.  This is annoying because tucking the thing away would have been one of the benefits of having wireless headphones.  I compromised and clipped the Blackberry to my belt.

The way out (4km) was blissful.  No skips, and the buds stayed in comfortably – I even liked the pace I was keeping (which is neither here nor there).  Things got a little worse on the way back and not just because I had trouble keeping the same pace due to fatigue.  My current theory is that my ear canals shrink due to expanded blood vessels, because in-ear buds always exhibit the same behaviour – they seem to get popped out like a bar of wet soap out of a squeezing fist.  The ear-hooks (and hat) did a decent job of keeping them from falling right out, but having to mind where they were in relation to my ear and occasionally push them back in to secure them became a minor chore.  I also started experiencing some skips… but I think I can say that on that front their better than any other Bluetooth product I’ve run with.

To make the earbuds maximally secure I decided to add the over-the-ear hooks.  One problem: I couldn’t find the ones that were sent with my original package.  Jaybird sells replacements, but I got lucky in that the friend who recommended these said he didn’t want or use his (in fact, he wasn’t aware he had them until he dug through his gym bag) and so I got his.




The next time I took them out on a run was for a quick 5km.  Unfortunately it was cold, so I wore a hat again, but I did get a lot of confidence in the buds’ ability to stay in.  The other problem was that I had opted to try an armband I found.  This thing was large enough to hold my Blackberry Bold 9900 as it was designed for an iPhone 4, but I had a lot of problems with sound when I wanted to wear the armband; my suspicion is that buttons were being pushed causing the volume to go up and down, the music to skip ahead to the next track (or back to the previous one).  I ended up giving up on wearing it on my arm and sticking the whole mess into my jacket’s back pocket – expressly against the recommended use instructions.  Thus… more skipping.  I would have to try one last configuration on Friday, the day of our company run group’s 10km race – not ideal for experimenting with an optimal set-up  but I want to find something that will carry me through this winter’s many long training runs.

Well, as luck would have it, everything came together on Race Day.  I had the Blackberry in its holster clipped to a water bottle belt, and I experienced no significant skips.  The ear hooks kept the buds in place and I was able to focus on my pace and not have to fiddle with them… much.  One small exception was that if you look at the photo above, the cord connecting the two buds is draped across the back of my neck, which got more than a little sweaty.  This caused the cord to stick to the back of my neck, and put a little pull on the buds when I’d turn my head, which I have to admit, I did more than the regular amount since it was a race, and I was being chased by someone who is usually just a bit faster than me on training runs (I beat him!).  More on that race in a future post; but at the end of the day I found I could have a great run with wireless Bluetooth ear-buds, and I’d even credit them with a better than expected time, since I was *really* feeling the music.

Beyond their performance, I also like that they came with a hard-shell carrying case, which should spare them the fate of the S9s… being smashed up in my gym bag.  And here’s the kicker… my boss just brought me a replacement phone to keep me up to speed with the rest of my team… The Blackberry Bold 9900 will be replaced by a Samsung Galaxy SIII (LTE and Android).  Which is something else I’ll address in a future post.  

Looks like this review will have a sequel once I get the new phone up and running (no pun intended) to see how the Jaybird Freedoms play with an Android phone. Still, with the caveats of a steep learning curve and time spent getting acquainted with the product, I’d recommend the Jaybird Freedoms as a pair of running earbuds for those who want to be free of the wires.

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Gear Corner – Review of the Polar H7 Heart Rate Sensor with Bluetooth (a.k.a Bluetooth Blues)

I love using Endomondo to track my workouts; that way I only need to carry my Blackberry along on my run (which is nice because it also plays music, and I can even take pictures and/or tweet if I feel like it).  What’s always been missing is heart rate data.  Endomondo has always been able to integrate heart rate data (even if you import from a Garmin), but now that there are Bluetooth HR sensors, it seemed like that might be the way to go.  Just pair the sensor with the smartphone and run.  No problem.

Running Free, one of my favourite retailers for running and triathlon stuff carried one, so I wouldn’t have to pay duty or international shipping fees.  I’ve worked with enough Bluetooth devices to know how finicky they can be.  The entire process can be infuriating, you don’t know which end should be seeking or listening, and you’re never given much to go on as to why devices won’t detect each other, or if they do, they won’t pair.  This device took the cake though; there is no code to enter, no light to indicate what mode it’s in, or even if it’s on.

The instructions merely tell you to wet the appropriate areas, where to put the strap on (just below the chest muscles) and tell you to turn on Bluetooth on your device.  Any trouble connecting and they simply question whether you wet it appropriately.  I tried it with my BlackBerry (Bold 9900) and my (new) iPad and nothing worked.  I contacted Polar to see if they could offer extra steps to take, and they let me know this sensor is only compatible with the iPhone 4S, nothing else.

I checked Running Free’s website and I have to admit the words ‘Compatible With iPhone 4S’ are there right at the bottom of the description box.  Still, I was irked, because the idea of a standard like Bluetooth is to avoid these little proprietary ‘walled gardens’.  I thought ‘ONLY Compatible with…’ would have been the better description for Running Free to use.  I wrote them and told them so, and asked for my money back.  To their credit (and my instore credit) they offered to add $45 to my account; not the full value of the device, which they couldn’t take back.  Which is fair enough – I got to keep it (in case I find a friend with an iPhone 4S who wants a HR sensor) and while the description was a little vague, I can bear a little responsibility for not paying enough attention.  I’m not sure what I’ll spend the money on, but I started trying to build up a wishlist…

While Bluetooth seems to be widely accepted for hands free stuff in cell phones (and my BT keyboard works well with my iPad), I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement in the world of fitness equipment.     Buyer beware…

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Gear Corner: Running Wirelessly

Usual disclaimer: I don’t get any compensation or consideration for writing this; all products were purchased with my own money.

I started running seriously (i.e. more than 2 miles at a time) sometime in 2004. As I got built up to Half-Marathon distance I accrued more and more technology to support my runs.

Shortly before the September race I was doing, a friend spotted me with sunglasses, a Garmin Forerunner 205 strapped to my wrist, and a Palm Treo (one of the first smartphones) on my arm – he referred to me as ‘Robocop’; I found it both cool and funny.  The phone was playing MP3s to a wired headset; it was nice to listen to music but people would get a little scared when I answered the phone huffing and puffing.

Nowadays, smartphones are more commonplace and since both my Garmin (I now use the Forerunner 305) and iPod Touch seem to be lost or missing, it’s as good a time as any to write about running with a Smartphone.

With an iPhone, Android, or even Blackberry you can track and share your workout activity – including distance for many sports using an app.  I use Endomondo (I’ve tracked running, cycling, inline skating, walking, cross-country and downhill skiing and kayaking so far), but there’s Adidas miCoach and many others including Daily Mile and RunKeeper.  It’s a lot simpler when you can combine device functionality like this.

To me, one of the big pains of running to music is dealing with the headphone wires; I either snag it with my hands and yank the headphones out or I have to deal with stringing it under my clothes and through the neck, sleeve or whatever.

I experimented with Bluetooth solutions.  I used to have the Oakley ROKR sunglasses.  These were nice for killing two birds with one stone, as I would have both my headphone and sunglasses needs taken care of.

The problem was that music would skip, almost as if I was running with one of those old portable CD players (remember those?).  It got very aggravating.  I also got reliant on them to be my actual sunglasses, so I had hands-free when driving, and was better able to take phone calls on bike rides (I wouldn’t listen to music, but if a call came in, I could stop, stick an ear-bud in and push a button more easily than fumbling through a pocket), but when racing, they became unusable since earphones are not allowed.  Ultimately, I dropped them on the ground once, and that was the end of them.

Nowadays I use a Bluetooth headset (without shades): the Motorola S9.  I’ve used it with an iPod and my Blackberry and no skipping – now let me tell you why I love using a Bluetooth headset for music.  It actually feels more natural (oddly enough considering it’s a more high-tech option than regular headphones), and I can store the player (iPod/cellphone) in whatever pocket I like once the devices are paired and the connection is made.  It feels like the music is simply present in myears (the S9 seems to grip to my head quite nicely) as I move, and it stays with me even when I’m jumping around or dropping into push-ups.

Bluetooth headsets have a few drawbacks:

  1. They need to be charged.  If you’re forgetful about this sort of thing, you’re going to be left in the lurch when you want to have music to listen to, and the headset battery is dead.  Don’t lose the charger, or find one that can be charged by USB
  2. Pairing challenges.  Getting Bluetooth devices to talk to one another should be straightforward, and usually when you’ve done it once, the devices remember each other like old friends (my car and Blackberry seem to have little spats from time to time, though).  In my experience, if you can’t get them to connect, there seems to be very little troubleshooting you can do with most devices.
  3. Standards confusion.  There’s several different versions of the standard from 1.0 to 4.0.  According to Wikipedia: “Users who need a stereo-music playing Bluetooth headset should look for a headset with the A2DP profile.”  This is less of a problem nowadays, as music playing is pretty standard in a lot of devices, but still it’s worth double-checking before putting your money down.
  4. Breakability.  You already know what happened to the Oakley’s… now look at my S9 headset:

And yet I still prefer it to these Adidas/Sennheiser OMX 680 headphones which were recommended as being one of the best running headphones – in spite of being able to ‘mold’ and adjust the ear-clips to fit, they still pop out when my run gets too bouncy, or I sweat too much.

And if you’re wondering, my #1 favourite running song is Wild Hearted Son  by The Cult.