Coach
trip.
If
you've ever considered hiring a personal trainer, you might have been
put off by A: the price, and B: the fact that a toned sporty person
will be yelling at you to get out of bed. No thanks. So instead of
forking out for human help, why not turn to our dear robotic friends
to assist you in losing all that Christmas weight (that you acquired
seven Christmases ago)? To that end we review the Jabra Sport CoachWireless Earbuds.
The
Sport Coach (like the previously reviewed Sport Pulse) are Bluetooth
earbud headphones designed for use during work-outs and exercise.
However, instead of just pumping your favourite tunes wirelessly into
your brain, the Sport Coach have quite a few tricks up their sleeves.
If headphones had sleeves. You know what we mean...
Working
in conjunction with Jabra's Sport Life app (available for iOS and
Android) you can select from a list of 40 preinstalled work-out
routines. Then, once the earbuds are connected to your smartphone via
NFC-enabled Bluetooth, you will receive voice commands and
encouragement to help you through the work-out, all while you enjoy
your music.
At
first we assumed this would be exceptionally distracting and also
pretty annoying; especially if you run or work-out in time to
whatever music track you've selected. However, vocal commands are few
and far between, and they are are always short and to the point. They
also interrupt the track in the least annoying way possible, dipping
in subtly, and then letting the music build back at speed.
And
if you were wondering how the app can tell if you're actually doing
all the things it is telling you to do (instead of just sitting on
the bus on the way to Starbucks), it's thanks to another unique
feature of the Jabra Sport Coach. The earbuds themselves contain the
TrackFit Motion Sensor, which can keep tabs on your movement, steps,
distance travelled, calories burnt and cadence for cyclists. They're
like have an activity tracker... in your ears. Awesome.
So
although all this might be excellent news for fit fans and exercise-y
people, what about those of us who might be buying these purely for
the music? The Jabra Sport Coach performed really well in all our
tests, taking them outdoors for a run (they are waterproof,
thankfully), and listening to tracks while lounging around the house.
The Dolby sound enhancement makes everything sound rich and deep, and
although we were slightly more enamoured with the aforementioned
Sport Pulse in terms of overall sound quality, these are still very
impressive, and damn comfortable over long periods of time, to boot.
So
although they lack the heart-rate monitor of the Pulse, the Jabra
Sport Coach are innovative headphones that are perfect for people who
want to ditch that outdated activity tracker once and for all.
£59.99