What is Bone Conduction?

Sound is just little vibrations caught by our eardrum. Most of what we hear gets funnelled into your ear which vibrates your eardrum. Have you ever noticed when you touch your head on the window of a car or plane? Those vibrations make it to your ears through the bones in your head and you can ‘hear’ it? That’s bone conduction.Sound vibrations don’t have to go in through your ear to hear them. They can go through the bones in your skull or the cartilage in your ears. It all ends up in the same place.

The OptiShokz Revvez sunglasses with bone conducting headphones

AfterShokz, the company that makes the successful Trekz series of headphones, have launched OptiShokz, a line of sunglasses with built-in bone conducting headphones. From the front, the Revvez sunglasses look like a normal pair of sporty sunglasses with slightly bulky arms.Hiding around the back are 2 little arms that flip down onto the back of your ears. These are the transducers, basically speakers that send vibrations through the cartilage.First, a few specs:

• 4 styles of lens available
• 6 hours play time, 10 days standby
• 48.5 grams
• Integrated microphone
• Premium Teijin lens
• 2H hardening treatment
• Moonstone grey polarized, Sapphire blue, Diamond Transparent, Amber Yellow lenses available
• Leakslayer tech reduces the sound leakage
• Bluetooth 5.0

Three buttons up underneath the right arm control everything. The multifunction button controls power, receives calls, skips songs, mute and change the equalization. The rubber buttons are raised off the arm and easy to find with one hand. Once I remembered that the multi function button was closer to the lens and spaced apart from the other two it’s easy to feel which is which.Charging is through a micro USB port just in front of the buttons on the underside of the arm. A small rubber cover keeps the sweat and rain out. It takes about 2 hours to charge the 180 mAh battery.The Revvez are water and dust resistant with an IP55 rating. For something that’s meant to touch your skin while you’re working out this is sort of required. The sweaty runs and rides I’ve done so far with them have been completely fine. I doubt you’ll be out in the rain with these headphones much as they’re also sunglasses. If I’m running and it starts to rain a bit, I usually just keep my sunglasses on though. They’re my headphones too, and I keep them on as long as I can.

How do they feel?

Picking up the Revvez they’re slightly heavier than other sunglasses but not much. With a battery and headphones attached, I thought they would feel much heavier but it barely amounts too much. Once they’re on your head, it’s not noticeable at all.The lenses have good coverage and are clear and nice to look out of. I got the Sapphire Blue lenses to test but there’s also grey polarized, clear and amber lenses. The nose piece is interchangeable.

How do they look?

Aside from having thicker arms, which some sunglasses do anyways, it’s hard to tell you have headphone sunglasses on. From the back you can see the transducers but they’re fairly discrete.

How do they sound?

The bone conduction is an interesting experience when you first try it. Your ears are open but there’s still sound there. What’s more interesting is that I tried putting the transducer on my forehead and it still sounded pretty good.The sound doesn’t have the bass that good in-ear headphones do but the clarity is very good. My favourite songs come through nice and clear. At very high volumes the transducers tickle the back of my ears a bit. At the normal volumes I use for running, I can’t feel it at all. When I’m near the road and want to hear traffic, I don’t want music too loud anyways.

The big question

The big question for me usually ends up being do I want to keep wearing the sunglasses when I’m not listening to tunes or a podcast. The transducers can flip on and off your ear and they just stay tucked beside your head so they’re very comfortable whether you are listening to tunes or not. Driving with them is easy and comfortable as well.When it’s sunny out I’m in sunglasses 100% of the time. And if I’m running I’ll always have headphones in too. It’s nice to have both in the same device without having to plug my ears to get the tunes.Find out more about the OptiShokz Revvez headphone sunglasses. 

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Truly wireless headphones with no cords to your phone and no cords between them have come a long way in the last couple years. Bose has entered the game as well as other big fitness sound players like Jaybird and JLab Audio. Jabra, a company with tons of experience in the business sound and headphone game has jumped into the fitness side. And their latest entry is probably the best truly wireless headphone you can get in 2018.

The Elite Active 65t truly wireless headphones are small and comfortable. They have good battery life, solid bluetooth connection and great sound. They’re easy to wear for hours at a time. Settings are easy to change through the phone app.

Let’s look at the specs.

Jabra Elite Active 65t Headphones Specs

• 5 hour battery life and 10 more in the case
• Solid phone app to change settings like HearThrough and equalizer
• Can pair with multiple devices
• Motion sensor for tracking steps
• IP56 sweat rating with 2 year warranty against sweat and dust
• Rubberized outer coating for grip on the earbuds
• Bluetooth 5

Elite Active 65t vs Jabra Elite 65t

A similar option to the Elite Active 65t‘s are the Elite 65t headphones. The newer Elite Active earbuds we’re reviewing here is a couple grams lighter. The Elite 65t is billed as the professional training option with it’s heart rate and VO2 max sensor. The Elite Active has the accelerometer for movement tracking, quick charges and is sweatproof. The heart rate monitor and VO2 max sensors mean the Elite 65t’s sell for about $30 more than the Elite Active.

Back to the Elite Active 65t.

Performance

There are a lot of pros to the Elite Active 65t‘s. The cons are few, nit picky problems experienced by other truly wireless headphones as well.Pros

• Good sound
• Comfortable to wear
• Tiny case
• Multiple silicon ear gels for different size ears
• Can use the right earbud by itself
• Jabra 3rd generation true wireless stability.
• Can opt for Google Assistant on Android and Alexa/Siri on iOS
• Rubberized feel on case and headphones

Cons

• Less battery life than larger headphones
• Still has plugged-ear feel
• Can’t use left earbud by itself
• Can’t use Google Assistant on iOS
• Only 6 equalizer presets

Sound and Connection

The sound from the 65t’s is very good. I have no issue with listening to it for long periods of time. It’s clear with plenty of bass. The sound profile can be changed in the app for more bass, more treble or both. There are 6 equalizer presets: Default (flat), Speech, Bass boost, Treble boost, Smooth and Energize. I find I’m on Bass boost most of the time since I listen to bassy tunes most of the time. If you are into different music, then you may prefer Smooth or Treble boost.The bluetooth connection has been very solid in testing over the last few months. Some headphones drop the connection periodically when the phone is further away or when the phone is just in your left pocket or backpack. Aside from the connection dropping when more than 40-50 feet away, it never drops.

The Phone App: HearThrough and changing settings

The phone app for iOS and Android gives you access to settings and listening profiles. The settings are separated into Preferences and then the listening profiles Commute, Focus and Active. You can set different settings for profiles. Changeable options are equalizer presets, HearThrough, Soundscapes and the activity tracker.

HearThrough plays sound from your surroundings through the headphones. It sounds similar to not having headphones in, even though earbuds are completely plugging your hears. When you want to hear for external sounds like traffic or kids this can be a great option. I found I couldn’t hear much if my music was loud but turned down sounds would come through. One option I’d like to see, hopefully in a firmware update, would be the option to turn up the volume on the HearThrough sounds.

Along with HearThrough, equalizer presets and white noise soundscapes can be changed within each listening mode. A bunch of different white and pink noise sounds allow you to drown out all other noise. This is great in the focus mode. There’s also an activity tracker that uses the accelerometer in the headphones. You can track your steps when the tracker is active. I’m not sure I’ll ever use this since the iPhone can do this anyways and I can’t enable the tracker without my phone. The slightly different more expensive Jabra Elite Sport headphones have a VO2 max and heart rate monitor built in. They would show in the app as well.

Case and Charging

The case is tiny, only slightly larger than an AirPod case. Compared to other headphone cases, it easily fits in your pocket. The buds slide into place and the case closes easily. It would be nice if they could magnet into place inside a bit more than they do. The earbuds hold 5 hours of a charge and the case holds another 10. I use them a lot and quickly run through the charge on the headphones but popping them back into the case turns the earbud off and charges them at the same time.  You don’t even realize they’re charging until the the 15 hours are gone and it’s time to charge again.

Charging is easy with a micro-usb cord into the bottom of the case. There’s a tiny led light above the usb port that displays red, yellow or green, depending on how much charge you have. A 15 minute quick charge gives you 1.5 hours of battery. The case has a slight rubberized grip to them which feels really good.

What could use a little work

None of these items are major issues. The 65t’s are very refined and use the latest tech so it’s hard to find fault with any of the features. These are my upgrade requests to take these headphones into absolutely stellar level of performance.

Less battery life than larger headphones  – Larger truly wireless headphones may have more battery life but the headphone and case are also larger. The Epic Air headphones from JLab have 10 hours in the headphone but are larger with an ear hook around the back and have a much larger case.

Still has plugged-ear feel – Most wireless headphones sit deep in your ear to seal out sounds and actually stay in. It creates a plugged-ear feel that makes breathing sound loud in your head. I’m not a fan of it but at this point almost every headphone does it.

Can’t use left earbud by itself – The phone connects to the right ear bud which then connects to the left earbud. This means you can use the right earbud by itself but not the left one. I use the earbuds by themselves quite a bit and would love to be able to use either.

Can’t use Google Assistant on iPhone – This might be a limitation of iOS but you can’t use Google Assistant on iOS app yet. Siri and Alexa are the only options. I use all Google Assistant and Google Home for my assistant needs at home.

Only 6 equalizer presets – The app only has 6 presets to choose from. Jaybirds app has a ton of different presets to choose from, even listing favourites from their athletes. It does let you adjust the equalizer to whatever you like to hear. There’s no way to save it though.

Final Thoughts on the Jabra Elite Active 65t Headphones

After testing a large set of headphones this year and using headphones almost on a daily basis for the last few years for workouts, running and work, the Jabra Elite Active 65t headphones are the best truly wireless set I’ve used so far and easily the best of 2018. There could be a few small improvements but my requests aren’t anything major. A few of them could just be addressed with firmware and app updates.

I highly recommend the Jabra Elite Active 65t headphones. 

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