Review of xFyro xS2 Waterproof Bluetooth Earbuds

Having recently got the xFyro xS2 waterproof bluetooth earbuds, we had planned to use them for a number of applications and scenarios and we've spent the last couple of weeks using and abusing them.

First Glance

On first appearance, the xFyro xS2 are particularly enviable to look at. They are sleek in design, lightweight and wonderfully portable. It come in a small rectangle box, enclosed with a small pamphlet, charging cable, a choice of ear fittings. The charging unit is where you will find your new wireless ear buds. We like that it doesn't come with a whole load of pointless extra packaging.

Charging

The earbuds come with their own hardcased premium aluminium tube shaped power bank, allowing each ear bud to slot magnetically into each end. Connect your charging cable to the 'IN' slot and your soon charging. The LED light is helpful, you'll soon see it change from red to blue once your ear buds and powerbank (holder) charged. Charging suprisingly doesn't take much time at all, roughly just about 1 hour. The power bank also comes with an "OUT" option, a useful extra feature allowing you to use the power bank for emergency charging of your phone or camera if it uses a micro USB port. After owning other wireless ear buds and a portable power bank seperately it is fantastic feature to combine the two and save space in my bag. The magnetic ability of the earbuds to the charger is particularly strong meaning you don't need to worry about the earbuds falling out of the power bank or being knocked out by another item in your bag. The same goes for pocketing them, the only way these will come out, is if you pull them out. You will also find the ear buds can be turned on accidently as you need to hold the button on the ear bud down for longer than a second for it to turn on. If your not sure if your power bank has enough juice in it then press the power button on the power bank and you should get a red indicator light appear, if it doesn't appear your power bank has no power in and this will need charging from your laptop or a wall socket via micro USB.

Do not assume the power bank to be waterproof because your ear buds are. The power bank is resistant to dust but is NOT waterproof so be careful if using your ear buds for water based activities such as swimming that your power bank is no where near your wet gear or in the same bag as your wet belongings after a swim session. 

Earbud Fitting

Firstly you will need to work out the best fit for your ear bud in your ear. You are given the option of three different pairs of silicone fittings, small, medium and large. If you are used to using ear buds for music players or bluetooth devices you generally learn what type of ear fitting is going to fit your ear. Or if you are used to hearing aids your audiologist may have told you that you have particularly narrow or large ear canals, in which case you may straight away opt for the smaller or larger one provided.  The ear bud will need to sit into your ear at a slight angle. To achieve this place the earbud snuggly into your ear with the power symbol pointing upwards and the rotate the ear bud clockwise for your left ear and anti-clockwise for your right ear until it creates a seal in your ear and fits comfortably. Therefore I would try out the other fittings with the above procedure and see which works best for you. 

Setting Up The Earbuds

The xFyro xS2 come with a small conveiennt leaflet on how to set up your ear buds which is worth keeping in your bag or wallet until your fully in the know of how your ear buds work. Setting up the bluetooth earbuds was very simple and within a minute we had paired an earbud to my phone and then set the second earbud up with the first so that audio would come through both earbuds.

We had a phone in front of us with bluetooth on and the two earbuds. There is a simple setup and connection guide that comes in the box and it only had a few instructions and these were clear and simple. I had to press in one earbud button for 4 seconds and then it would flash red and it paired up with my phone. You then press in the button of the second earbud for two seconds and it pairs with the first earbud, you should see a red flash and then two blue flashes and it's all set up.

From there the earbuds are put in to their respective ears and are fully functioning and connected with the phone.

This can be done with one or two earbuds, depending on what you will be using them for. Remember, the first earbud you set up, will be the main controlling earbud for answering calls etc.

 

Answering Phone Calls And Using Outdoors

Whilst on one of my runs I received a call, my music was playing and I didn't know what was actually happening at the time. The music went silent and I thought the battery had ran out, but a few seconds later a pleasant ringing tone came through on one side, which I believe was the primary earbud I had connected. I simply clicked the back of the earbud and I had answered the call and was talking whilst on my run.

Even through my buff, the call was clear on both ends, forgetting signal strength, as I was out on a mountain, I am very impressed with how clear the call was and how simple it was to answer and communicate through. The caller on the other end was very pleased with the call and clarity of our conversation.

With these ear buds you also have the option to reject or even redial a phone call. If you press the button in for longer that 1 second whenthere is an incoming call it will reject the call. So it is worth noting this incase you do this by accident. Also if you double click the button of either ear bud it will redial your last caller. How fantastic is that!

If you're a busy person, having one earbud in whilst running or cycling can be a great way to still communicate with others if you need to. Meaning you can answer calls at a seconds notice whilst still participating in your run or cycle.

 

Running With The xFyro xS2 Earbuds

One of the first things we wanted to use the xFyro earbuds for was running with music, I am a trail and fell running fanatic and was really looking forward to putting them in and running to some energetic music.

After charging the headphones in their adapter, getting my run gear on and syncing up to my phone which I had put in to my rear pocket on my shorts I put the wireless earbuds in. As much as they are stable in day to day activities, when running you will need some support. I run in a cold environment in the UK so I wore my trusty buff and placed it over my ears. During my hour long run I was able to fully use the earbuds without any problem, no movement or slippage in the ear.

My first run I had planned to simply run for an hour over a nearby mountain, on rugged terrain to see how they'd hold up to the movement whilst running and what listening to music on them would be like. I had music saved on to my phone so was only using bluetooth to send the music over to the earbuds from the phones storage. If I was using something like Spotify using my phones bandwidth, the experience would change and be dependent on the local reception, which is iffy at best.

I had chosen a loud and energetic album from And So I Watch You From Afar, called Gangs. Once playing, it was easy to shuffle the tracks and move to the next one with a simple click of the earbud. Even through my buff, I was able to control the songs and select the next one with minimal effort.

The great thing about the xFyro's is that you don't have to worry about bad weather or sweat if using them for exercise, specifically running outdoors. They have an IPX rating of 67, which means they are dust proof and waterproof to 1m for at least 30minutes. So if you would like to run in all weather conditions, these are the earbuds for you.

 

Using While Driving

Once paired wih your phone, these ear buds can essentially work as a bluetooth headset but are more comfortable and have fantastic sound quality. Once your phone has its bluetooth switched back on press the back of your ear bud on and it should come up with "paired with phone". With the tap of the back allows you to answer any incoming calls. You even have the option to redial and the clarity of phone calls is superb, even with background music on and the noise of the car and other traffic on the road. We tested the Xfyro xS2 on a number of short journeys and a long journey of 5 hours. At a bluetooth range of 10 metres, your ear buds will work appropriately whether the phone is in the front with you or in your bag in the boot of your car, we had no issues at these distances.

What I personally found helpful is that you can use the ear buds one at a time which prolongs how long you can use the buds overall and it still provided spatial awareness and engine sounds. The ear buds have noise supression ability which helps for clarity of phone conversation and nicely supressed the slight rumble noise appearing in my car when the call started. Be careful though if you have been using each ear bud stand alone then the ear buds will need pairing with eachother again to work together.

I was able to answer and a engage in a good hour conversation via the ears buds until phone signal was lost. I was also able to redial the number back to re establish the conversation at the press of a button. With the ability to keep the power bank charged via a USB charging port in the car. This ment I did not have to go long without being able to answer any nessesary calls along my journey. What was only a slight inconvenience was the fact that once I had set the volume on the phone I was unable to adjust the volume with the ear buds so if it was too quiet which one family member is particularly quiet I was unable to increase the volume up.

 

Use During Water Activities

Before using in water we were aware that they have a rating of IPX67, dustproof and waterproof. By understanding hearing aids and hearables we are aware that IPX67 does mean waterproof BUT there are limits, this means it is only limited to a depth of 1 metre and generally does not cope with more that 30 minutes submersion. It demonstates its ability in calm gentle water but does not negate for water pressure that comes with particular activities such as surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing or water based activities where there is strong movement of water. The same applies to use while scuba diving or freediving (of which it is not recommended to wear ear buds anyway).

At YourHearingHelper we enjoy a number of water based activities and decided to try them out in such scenarios but be cautious about it. We first tried the accidental drop in a water situation by putting them in a shallow glass of water, no problems here.

We then used the ear buds while swimming, but we enclosed them in a water tight swim cap. Now this is not ideal as you can get listening devices for in water use but in my experience these are mostly bone conduction music players and miss out on the bass and clarity an in-ear sound device can give.

It was a successfull swim, which we followed up a few more times and playing your own music is quite a relaxing experience when swimming alone. We had zero issues with water ingress but we were careful, we weren't diving down and were only swimming on the surface with a very tight swim cap on which went well over our ears. This meant that any water that did get in, which a little did, was not sloshing about and putting little pressure on the earbuds.

 

Streaming Quality and Listening to Music

For general use at home to listen to music or when on public transport such as a bus or train you'll get about 3 hours happily of music streaming. I noticed if I had the volume up louder for longer this reduced the battery life as well as if I extended the distance I moved away from my phone, say into the next room this also reduced the battery life. Similar to when recieving a phone call with background noise the ear buds will supress noise allowing you to hear your music. However it may end up working quite hard to do this in a noisey place that may heavily reduce battery life. They are noise cancelling and that is fantastic when cleaning the house or wanting to really focus in on some music or even just not be disturbed whilst listening to a podcast or similar.

The ear buds simplicity is a key feature. To pause music requires only to tap of the button on your ear bud and then another tap to resume your music.

What I have also noticed that now I have used the ear buds for a few weeks in a number of different environments that the sound quality seems to be much clearer. I was not sure if I was imagining this but after a couple hundred hours of use now in many different environments and levels of outdoor noise the quality of these earbuds are superb.

Overview

Positives

• Small and discreet in size, no head band or wires once in use.
• Crisp and clear sound quality
• Built in microphone
• Clearly marked right and left ear buds
• Sleek charging unit, allowing you to charge other devices such as your phone
• Easy to clean
• Quick to charge
• Simple to use and operate
• Can be paired with muliple phones
• Noise supression technology
• Suits active lifestyles and outdoor pursuits
• Doesn't get in the way of helmets or hats
• Choice of three colours, black, blue or red

Negatives

• Inital set up and pairing can seem difficult but actually works out fine!
• Some trouble with sound from both if you have been using one ear bud standalone, they will need to be repaired.
• Volume can only be controlled from your phone not the ear buds
• For longterm benefit and enjoyment of your ear buds not use for water activities
• Hard to get the micro USB cable in to the IN port as the cover for it is stiff, not a real problem though

 

Summary

We absolutely love these waterproof earbuds and they've really outshone themselve's. Especially because we love our outdoor experiences and there is usually water involved. They have held up well to everything we've thrown at them and more.