AfterShokz Xtrainerz Bone Conduction Swimming & Sports Headphones
These Bone Conduction Headphones have a built-in MP3 player, you can upload up to 4GB of your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks so you can leave your device behind. The AFterShokz Xtrainerz MP3 have up to 8 hours of battery life and are very lightweight and comfortable.
- EXCLUSIVE PACK – Includes Xtrainerz bone conduction headphones and swim cap. Unlike traditional headphones that send sound through the ear canals, our patented bone conduction technology delivers audio through the cheekbones. With nothing inside or over your ears, enjoy total awareness and comfort while you listen.
- LEAVE YOUR DEVICE BEHIND – 4GB of built-in MP3 storage holds up to 1, 200 songs, so you can load your favorite music, podcasts or audiobooks and dive into your workout. Xtrainerz support MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, and FLAC files. Not Bluetooth compatible.
- 8 HOURS OF PLAY – Enjoy 8 continuous hours of premium audio while you’re cross-training. Adjust volume and tracks at the touch of a button.
- IP68 RATED – Fully waterproof, Xtrainerz headphones perform in and out of the water so your favorite open-ear headphones can keep you company wherever your training takes you.
- COMFORTABLE + SECURE – The unique open-ear design of Xtrainerz enables bud-free, pain-free listening, and keeps the headphones in place stroke after stroke.
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Justin Clark –
Super high quality feel and sound quality. Recorded voice confirmations for headset button presses, so you know what (possibly random) button you’ve just pressed. Looking forward to getting these in the water for the special swimming mode eq setting. Overall very impressed with these – a bit pricey, but worth it. Will update review once used in the wet stuff.UPDATE – In the water they are possibly even better – amazing bass, and light years ahead of any other swimming headphone I have tried. Highly recommended, and I don’t often write Amazon reviews, but just had to for these.
Sara Zorriasatein –
Tried these out for the first time today and I was super impressed. When under the water the sound is amazing. They are light weight and really comfortable. You would forget you are wearing them if it weren’t for the music.They’d re really easy to set up and what I like most is that I don’t have to take my phone with me. The ability to have 4GB worth of music means you have plenty of music on your person while you are in the pool.Would highly recommend. Certainly made my swim more interesting and actually helped me switch off and focus. I will never be without these headphones when I am in the pool from now on.
Andrew Fedak –
I’m a big swimmer, and have used the Finis Duo for about three years or so. After having them break for the fourth time, I decided to see if there are any other options. Thus when the Xtrainerz came out in europe, I imediatley got them (I live in the US, and as of when I bought them they weren’t out yet). So far, they have been really fantastic, sound is good in the water, and I’ve found myself using them for all my exercise (not just water, but hiking, working out, TRX). The interface is simple and elegant, and the actual device is like something out of the future.Only issue I’ve had was when loading the songs, you need to do them one at a time, as the system orders them when they are copied onto the device. Thus if you have a book that has chapters, with each chapter being an MP3, you need to make sure they go on one after another, rather than copying them all at once (as the smallest ones will go on the device first, and mess up the ordering). Once I understood this, it was easy to organize my books into folders, and then the chapters in each folder.Overall, after two weeks it’s been great! My biggest concern is how they last with the constant use in the pool, but with a 2 year warrentee, even that isn’t the biggest worry. These are my go to swimming (and exercise) headphone/playback device from now on! Totally love them.I’ll update if I get any issues:)
Adam Wheeler –
TL;DR – excellent earphones but the lack of Bluetooth is annoyingI’ve never had swimming earphones before, but find pool swimming mind-numbingly boring most of the time. I’ve never heard good things about ‘traditional’ swimming earphones so have never bothered to take the plunge; but having used the Trekz Titanium headphones over the past year I thought I’d pull the trigger on these. Used them prodigiously over the last few weeks whilst exercising and have found them to be brilliant both in and out of the water, they are now my go-to training partner, and (for me) have made the time spent swimming much more enjoyablePros:- Lightweight and comfortable to the point you forget you’re wearing them- sound quality underwater is surprisingly better than above water!- easy to change between swimming and General EQs on the fly- ability to be used in pool and open water is excellent- earplugs and swimming cap that come with it are decent quality tooCons:- Lack of Bluetooth. I know this is something that’s not needed whilst in the water, but if these had a Bluetooth connection then they would be completely ideal for those that swim and do land-based exercises.- Shuffle mode doesn’t seem to queue all tracks in a random order, rather it just randomly plays whatever’s in the folder you’ve selected (meaning that some songs will be replayed several times during an extended listening period)- Fit. Not a major issue but it’s best to wear a swimming cap (especially when open water swimming) as it would be an expensive loss if these get dislodged!However these downsides are relatively minor and I would definitely recommend these to anyone getting bored with swimming
Kwood –
This was my third attempt at a swimming mp3 player.The first attempt, a Pyle PSWP6BK, died after 3 months. It stopped taking a charge and melted one day. I was able to get okay sound, but it would inevitably fill with water in one ear and become inaudible. Pyle wouldn’t respond to my requests for warranty replacement.The next attempt was a H2O Audio player and none of the many earpieces would seal. After a few laps I found the earbuds dragging behind me in the water serving no useful purpose.These Aftershokz Xtrainerz are amazing. The sound is decent, considering it’s passing through your bone and not your ear canal. Best of all — butterfly, flip-turns, you name it — NOTHING changed the sound. I swam with the provided earplugs although underwater the sound is the same without them. It’s just not as consistent since it becomes more quiet when your ears drain the water (just the opposite problem as in-ear earbuds).The only cons are the rather high price and only 4GB of storage. I would also like bluetooth (not a feature in this model) so I could use these for running with my Galaxy Watch, since it’s nice to hear ambient sounds as well as the music. Still, for swimming this is a great find, and it’s worth every penny not having to stop and blow the water out of the earpieces every few laps.
Evelyn Jordano –
(Hi. This is for an early bird review promotion, BUT it is my honest review). I am very active. I love to skateboard, and I’m always moving. And I also love music. I love bone conducting headphones. Honestly, not to sound sappy, but they’ve changed my life. It’s true when they say that it’s like background music for your life. They don’t replace in-ear earbuds, but I never saw them as such. You can still hear everything (the sound of what your doing, incoming people, other skaters, cars, danger, or worse, incoming conversation. And it solves the dilemma of how hearing the sound of your own board helps with practicing tricks, but hearing only your board (gaining speed) can shake your commitment Plus it has a world of perks for people with Anxiety or PTSD like me.) Therefore I use my apple earbuds when I want to shut out the world, and my bone conducting headphones when I want to go be apart of it. I have much less earwax now too. I originally purchased the Aftershokz Trekz. They were perfect, except the Bluetooth signal kept playing with me (even after an exchange). BUT I purchased these (excited that they were MP3 instead of Bluetooth.) ASIDE from all the pros of just being Bone conducting headphones, here are my pros and cons:PROS:-Plug and play! No signal to worry about.-It’s waterproof! (I don’t swim like the target audience, but I LOVE listening to these in the shower.-Far better than the Aftershokz Trekz as far as sound quality. (Better sound. Clearer sound. Deeper bass. Doesn’t vibrate as much. Even though the music is clearer, the outside world is still just as clear, meaning it’s much more discreet at work, and I don’t have to compromise enjoying the music and worrying if I’ll have to take them off and say “Huh?” Both the music and ability to hear are better and clearer.-AND far better build quality. (They are much lighter and much more comfortable. Don’t slip around. The buttons are also more comfortable, and there is actually a BACK button this time.CONS:-The downside to the plug and play thing, is that obviously, since it’s only MP3 with no screen, it will remind you of an old mp3 player, or an iPod Shuffle. It’s not bad, and done fairly well, but anyone who is sighted and not used to navigating with only audio, will probably hate it.-There is only 4GB. (Which they say is about 1,200 songs). For the average adult that would be fine, but for me, and many other music beasts like me, it is not enough. To get an idea, I currently have 2114 songs in my iTunes library, and plenty on a list that I need to download. I also am in love with my large collection of carefully grown and crafted. I have just under a hundred playlists, and about at least 10 of them have hundreds of songs. (To be clear, that’s not weird or unusual at all. Many people keep hundreds to thousands of songs in a library and organize their music carefully. And I have already seen a few complaints about it.) I like to organize mine by fluidity (of rhythm, melody, voice quality, mood etc.) Needless to say, chopping down my selection of music to about nearly a third was slightly painful.-Playlist creation is tedious and not intuitive at all. The only way to create playlists is using folders. It seems intuitive to just drop mp3 files into a folder and call it a day but there are two problems with that. (#1.) As I said, I have hundreds of playlists, and blind, voice navigation through the (only about 15 playlists that I could fit) is exhausting, and there is no back button when navigating folders. So, if you make a mistake skipping over the one that you want, you will have to go all the way back around.) (#2.) The average (I even downloaded another) file explorer cannot handle play-listing the same way media players do. You will have to fight the auto arrangements (such as date added, alphabetically by name etc.) You will end up having to fight for loopholes. AND even when you finally have your playlist ordered correctly, it won’t organize the actual folders differently. (So say I finally got it to organize the music by date created, but the folders by alphabetical order. It won’t. It’s one or the other. (#3.) It recognizes subfolders as regular ones. (So for example, I tried to divide my rock playlists into subgenres/eras. There is no parent folder recognized. They are still seen like regular folders.)THAT BEING SAID: Although it does still have that Beta version vibe (excuse my nerdiness), it IS their first crack at an MP3 version, AND the Aftershokz team has posted everywhere that they are working on a better model, their main problem being “Bluetooth/visual selection” VS “MP3 freedom/waterproof” So while I sit back and enjoy this wonderful pair, I’ll be waiting anxiously for any improved versions. It would be cool to see some kind of (“online/offline mode”) where you can connect it to bluetooth to browse visually and listen to online media, but still be able to disconnect from bluetooth and return to mp3, leaving off at the song you’ve selected.The cons list looks much greater since I went into detail, but in reality it’s not. I still love this so much and it is a life changer. If you’re not spooked by audio selection and won’t be devastated by 4gb (great for the average person) then BUY IT! (Plus: If you find you don’t like it, their customer is fantastic.) So GET IT. TRY IT OUT.
Pete S. –
I’ve used this for running now about three weeks. Overall it functions as promised, it’s lightweight and I hardly know it is on. The sound is fine too. Where AfterShokz cut corners, however, was on their “shuffle” feature. Most music players perform a permutation when asked to shuffle, that is, you get your songs in a random order and NOT repeated until all songs have been played. The shuffle option on this AfterShokz Xtrainerz model simply uses a random number generator, and a poor one at that. On two outings this week, with a selection of a few hundred files in a folder, I’ve heard the same song come up in a run of ten songs. It’s bothersome enough that I’m thinking it should be returned. I’d like to hear about a firmware update that fixes this. AfterShokz? If this problem would bug you too, I’d wait on the sidelines until you hear that it is addressed.
Run4Fun –
I bought these for 1 reason.. to use while swimming freestyle laps in the pool.About me:I’m an avid runner and triathlete. Swimming has been my least favorite part of training for triathlons, and I never really enjoy swimming. This past summer I had a running injury and I still cannot run or bike from it (I can barely put weight on my foot). I finally decided to start mainly swimming since it is the only cardio I can really do right now, just 2 times a week. I was fighting myself to get up in the morning and not looking forward to swimming. These changed everything.About the headphones:First workout I was planning to do 2,000 yards. I felt so good I doubled it to 4,000 and I felt great. The headphones are super clear to hear in the water, even while wearing ear plugs (I get ear infections so I have to swim with ear plugs). I can easily changed songs, volume, playlists, etc. I was worried about a steeper price of $150, but it was 100% worth it. It changed my attitude from disliking swimming and skipping workouts, to enjoying it and pushing myself harder. These are definitely helping to keep me in shape.Cons:Now, if you are buying these to primarily use outside of the pool, maybe look at a different pair of AfterShokz (maybe Aeropex). These do not have Bluetooth (so you have to upload songs directly to them from the computer) and the quality of sound outside of the pool is likely better with other pairs. I still plan on biking with these since they allow me to hear my surroundings and I don’t want to spend another chunk of money. Also, some comments do not think the volume is loud enough. I disagree, for me it is loud enough for sure.Hopefully This Helps. Happy Training!