Jaybird Gives You Freedom to Exercise in Style and Comfort

The Australian launch of the Jaybird Freedom Wireless earbuds took place in the middle of Sydney’s inner Kings Cross at Boxing Works, a multi-purpose gym with a boxing ring smack bang in the middle.

The Freedom buds allow you to ditch those annoying wired earphone cords, and earplugs that always fall out of your ear, and upgrade to stunning tiny earbuds that lock into your ear.

Amongst the audience of athletes, sports stars, television presenters and social media influencers, Jaybird Founder, Judd Armstrong spoke with Personal Trainer and Media Personality Shannan Ponton and Professional Boxer, Lauryn Eagle about why they thought the Jaybird earbuds are so good for training.

It was then this reviewers chance to take the product out of the box and give them a run.

The Review

Upfront, I’ve never used Bluetooth and wireless earplugs before, I’ve always had that cord connected whether it’s in the gym, out on the road or sitting on the train to work.

The specs from Jaybird sound impressive, “With Jaybird Freedom, you get micro-sized sandblasted metal accented housing in a fashionable, small package. Traditionally, in-ear Bluetooth buds use plastic materials to assist with signal performance, but Jaybird has overcome these challenges by moving all electronics to its miniaturized three button controller while still delivering an incredible eight hours of play time.”

The first thing I noticed is they are incredibly small and lightweight, but that’s before you place one pair of the six different ear tips onto the bud.

I initially just picked one and pushed them straight into my ear without thinking. I could hear through them but it all seemed a little loose and not what I was expecting.

At that moment I realised the three pairs of the plastic wing-like fins were needed to make the Jaybird’s work correctly.

My first foray was to take the system for a ride on the bus. A bit of walking, standing and sitting would surely get them into the groove.

My mistake was to not test out which of the ear tips or fins fitted my ear. Jaybird provide three different sizes and you need to try each of them to make sure the tips fit your ear cavity and the fins hook into the bottom of your ear lobe.

Once I had all the setup and the ear tips didn’t move in my ear cavity and we were almost set to go.

The final mistake I made was I had left the charging clip attached to the back of the headphones controller. This gave the headphones just a little bit of extra weight which made it almost uncomfortable and annoying to wear.

After working out the clip didn’t need to stay with the controller I charged up the headphones completely, and removed the charging clip and took the first run with my new Jaybirds.

To be absolutely free of the annoying cord is totally understated. The freedom to move arms and run at any pace without having to worry about the cord is amazing.

The fins are great, no movement in the ear makes the exercise the most important thing not re-adjusting all the time to make sure your earphones don’t fall out.

Other key points

• The clarity of the sound is terrific, just not sure it sounds like what it did before, maybe it’s just that much clearer.
• The controller is just a little dangly and means you’re are always slightly leaning to the right.
• The calling feature is great but the Apple feature where I hold down the button to ask Siri a question doesn’t work.
• Neither does the move on button to change the track you are listening to, which means you always have to pull your phone out to change the song.
• I’m yet to run out of battery, but when am I ever going to run for 8 hours.
• There’s a slight loss of sound sometimes when the phone is in the left pocket and you turn your head to the right. Maybe its just the Bluetooth acting up.

For my first foray into wireless headphones, I think it was a success. Subsequent runs and trips have continued to impress, my old wired phones are soon to thrown out.

But at an Australian retail price of $249.95, these may be out of the reach of most who genuinely would use them. But, remember Christmas is only 110 days away.

**Eikon was invited to the Jaybird Freedom launch and given a pair of the Freedom Wireless to review**

About Jaybird
Established in 2006, Jaybird is an active lifestyle consumer electronics brand based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jaybird makes premium market leading sports tech products to inspire people to be active and empower them to improve their lives. Jaybird has pioneered the sports Bluetooth headphone market and are currently the third top premium sport headphone brand in the US.
Jaybird is obsessed with delivering insanely great sound that goes with you throughout your day. For more information, please visit www.jaybirdsport.com.

Last Updated on Sep 6, 2016