Gadgetory

everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room now earbuds were just earbuds at one point in time meant just for listening to music but today with a healthier mindset amongst consumers and the ever evolving technology behind Bluetooth we have companies like Jabra and today SMS audio creating Bluetooth devices that provides real-time heartrate information now these are priced at $149 retail at the time of this video and we'll see how they compare to something more premium price earbuds so without further ado welcome to Jim's review now these come in three different colors black blue and yellow each is made of a hard type of plastic with a nice glossy logo right in the middle the construction feels tight and rugged with no indication of having flaws down the road now one area I really look into is at the ends of each earbud where the wire exits now on some other earbuds you can see this hair actually being weak and actually flexing as well and over time causing the wire to disconnect or become loose now with the bow sports these look and feel perfectly secure now all the color variations come with a very nice tangle free cord rolling these up and putting them into a bag or your drawer will pose no issues with noose down the road however SMS does include its own neoprene carrying pouch which is always nice to have with a main compartment offering ample storage room with no additional pockets inside and a secondary pouch on the front here for other additional accessories now speaking of accessories the bio sports does come with two other sets of earbuds so in total you'll have three Reggie from small medium and large and regarding my fitment test these surprisingly has to be one of the most secure non over-ear earbuds that I've tested they fit in very secure in the ear and unlikely powerbeats2 when you are weightlifting and straining or in an essence pulling muscles similar to when you're smiling the earbuds don't lift off the ear canal losing that sound isolation at least they did in for me now if you have some earbuds at home try smiling several times with them in and you'll sometimes feel them lift off of the ear canal but jogging with these and doing other activities the earbuds never once fell out on my ear something that has always been hit or miss with some other earbuds I've tried now let's talk about his new siege I'll definitely discuss the heart rate monitoring shortly but to get this out the way the inline controller now it's positioned right below the jaw line offer controls to pause play and skip music at least that's what's instructed in the user guide however my test Here I am on the Samsung Note 4 smartphone and tapping twice on the earbuds here did not allow me to skip my music on my music apps now I try this on Slacker Radio Pandora and then locally stored music played through my music player and another side note here SMS is upfront about this there is no inline volume controller you do have to adjust the volume by pulling out your phone which i think is very inconvenient especially for be sport earbuds and I'm in the middle of a jog or so however with those limitations you can still answer phone calls with just the tap of the button on the inline controller now with my testing on phone calls as requested by viewers with my tester on the other line my voice did not sound like I was far away like on a speakerphone which is a plus but my voice did sound amplified with a very slight fuzziness or distortion and no reasonable background noises for heard however testing this sitting in front of a gentle fanned wind noise was picked up distinctly causing a distraction overall it's still good quality but for riding your motorcycle or on a windy day it's not the best performer and the last feature here there is a button to activate or turn on the heart rate monitoring just by sliding it up and come to my surprise SMS does not offer a proprietary app that uses the HR information instead SMS is endorsing the use of the very popular app RunKeeper and indeed RunKeeper is a fantastic free app for those avid runners and if you do buy the bow sports they do offer a free month trial of RunKeeper elite for a limited time which offer some additional features not in the free version of course now I'm not here to review the RunKeeper app itself but comparing this to the only other heart rate monitoring earbud on the market currently is the Jabra sport pulse which retails for $200 expensive but after my review they do offer a very detailed very robust Jabra app to help train and coach you now if you're in the market for a built-in HR monitoring in the earbuds definitely watched my job video for more information as well now in general the bow sports only benefit is providing heart rate monitoring to the RunKeeper app not for SMS so it makes me think the only reason why you would want these is if you don't want to wear a chest strap you don't want to spend 150 to 250 dollars for an activity band with a HR monitor that's built right on the wrist or if you're really sold out RunKeeper already and you don't want to make that switch to another program now in regards to accuracy and you guys are going to get a sneak peak here at the Fitbit surge have yet to make a video for the accuracy in the HR monitor for the bow sports is actually awful I've tried this several times just to make sure this isn't a fluke but during a resting heart rate it's actually somewhat accurate but as soon as I start running the keyword here as soon as I start running my heart rate would skyrocket to a very high level at about 170 beats per minute or more and to test the accuracy and just make sure that like I said I'm not doing anything wrong here I cross-reference this with my new fitbit surge SmartWatch which measures HR levels right in the wrist and also check this with a chest heart rate monitor and that was practically spot-on with the Fitbit and I used the AXI meter on the back of my samsung note 4 phone now three devices were within tolerance and the very last measurement to rule them over was physically counting my pulse in Tommy it's again only the bounce sports were reading at such a high level and yes I did adjust the earpiece and ensured everything was properly seated but to be honest with you it shouldn't take that much effort to get these to work anyways now it's quite a letdown about the HR monitoring since that's what's unique about this device this pair of earbuds now the sound quality is good with no distortion there's clear mids and highs the most generous are appreciated by comparing these two these similarly balanced sound signature earbuds like the blue bar X's the bow sports are missing a little bit of depth in its base the job our sport pulse and the blue butt axes both premium earbuds they both offered better immersion into the music offers louder sound and against slightly bass now for the average consumer if you're not comparing the other two affirmation earbuds the bow sports will still sound good it's actually bright sounding signatures for the earbuds but if you're an audio enthusiast you may desire a little bit more so that's it for this video if you like my work be sure to add me Jim's review room on Facebook Twitter Instagram or Google+ to get updates from me and also update on items I'm testing before I put them on the website again this is Jimmy with Jim's review room you guys take care and I'll see you on the next one