Jabra Sport Coach Wireless: A personal coach in your ear

Good fit: Despite its large size, the many earpieces included with the Jabra Sport Coach means you can get a comfortable fit for your ear.

With Jabra's latest Bluetooth earphones, you don't need to go to a gym to get chewed out by an instructor.

IF THERE is one thing you can say about Jabra, it’s that it has earphones and speakers for almost any occasion, from simple earbuds to the top-of-the line Sport Pulse with heart rate monitor.

The company’s latest model, the Sport Coach, sits just below the Sport Pulse in the price ladder.

Apart from colour choices, the Sport Coach and Pulse look ­practically the same, and come with rather large earpiece that actually fits quite well.

The Jabra Sport Coach comes in a number of colours from red to blue. — TAN KIT HOONG/The Star

However, in terms of functionality, the Sport Coach is a bit different – it doesn’t, for instance, have a heart rate monitor.

Instead, the Sport Coach comes with a motion sensor which Jabra calls TrackFit so that it can monitor your movements as you work out to guide you through a variety of indoor and outdoor workouts.

Out of the box

Like its other in-ear models, the Sport Coach comes with a number of silicon earpieces called EarWings and EarGels which together help you to get the best fit for your ears.

You also get a nice semi-hard case for storing the earphones and short microUSB cable for charging the earphones, say, by plugging into a PC.

The Jabra Sport Coach comes with a variety of EarWings and EarGels to suit every ear type. — TAN KIT HOONG/The Star

Setting up the device was pretty easy but I recommend checking out the Jabra site first for firmware updates.

Once updated you can just pair the Sport Coach in the same way you pair any Bluetooth device. If you have an NFC-enabled smartphone, it’s even easier as all you have to do is tap your smartphone on one of the earbuds.

In terms of sound, the Sport Coach is actually pretty much like every Jabra earphone – audio is good with clear midrange but with a tad more bass than my personal preference.

Nevertheless it looks like this is currently what others seem to like so if you like bassy sound you ­probably won’t be disappointed by the Jabra.

Speak to me

The main purpose of the Sport Coach is to give you voice coaching for your workouts from running to cross training when used with the free Sport Life app.

The cross training section comes with a few different subdivisions like CardioCore, BellyBurn and Push Perfection.

Hidden underneath one of the earpieces of the Jabra Sport Coach is a microUSB charging port. — TAN KIT HOONG/The Star

On the first day of testing the Sport Coach I decided to just try the motion tracker on the device by ­taking it out for a run.

On the run (which I just set to “just track me”) the Sport Coach gave progress reports on distance, calories burned, time, speed, cadence and a whole lot more. You can turn any one or all of these alerts on or off.

Next, I tried it with indoor cross-training and the voice prompts were more helpful – it tells you the timing as well as when to start crunches, push-ups and the like.

I’m not sure how many of the exercises actually make use of the motion sensor, but I found that even if I didn’t move the Sport Coach would continue with the prompts.

As far as battery life goes, the Sport Coach has a claimed 5.5 hour battery life which it comes pretty close to if the volume is kept at ­reasonable levels.

The wireless Jabra Sport Coach can be controlled by the in-line remote. — TAN KIT HOONG/The Star

Of course, the Sport Coach has all the usual features you find in ­modern Bluetooth earphones such as a three-button controller on the cable for adjusting volume and media playback.

You can answer phone calls with a quick press of the middle button. If you hold it down for two seconds you can also start Siri on an iOS device such as an iPhone.

Conclusion

By opting for a TrackFit motion ­sensor instead of a heart rate monitor for the Sport Coach, Jabra has managed to price it cheaper than the Sport Pulse, which makes it an attractive buy. Of course, having both sensors would have been even better but the price would have been prohibitive.

The left earbud of the Jabra Sport Coach has a button on it that will read your workout statistics when pressed. — TAN KIT HOONG/The Star

The Sport Coach’s biggest draw is the voice coaching – it works best with the Sport Life app but popular third-party apps such as RunKeeper or Runtastic can also access the motion sensor data.

All in all, the Sport Coach is one of most functional pair of earphones for working out.

Pros: Good audio quality; voice coaching is helpful for some exercises. 

Cons: Not every workout uses the motion sensor.

Sport Coach Wireless
(Jabra)
Bluetooth in-ear sports earphones
FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
PORTS: Micro USB
OTHER FEATURES: Bluetooth 4.0, integrated TrackFit motion sensor
DIMENSIONS: 18 x 21 x 32mm
WEIGHT: 16g
WEBSITE: www.jabra.com
PRICE: RM649
Rating: 3.5 stars
Review unit courtesy of Mobile dot com Sdn Bhd, [phone]