I have run, swim and worked with the Aqua Suunto. Under water I understood what these bone driving headphones propose

A common problem of aquatic headphones is that, in addition to not being Bluetooth for physical reasons, they are usually specifically aquatic. That is, little or nothing appropriate to use them out of water.

The rest of sports headphones usually also have something in common: they forget the water. I do not talk about enduring sweat or rain, but really swimming, throwing you into a pool and forgetting everything except to breeze.

That’s where the Suunto Aquabone driving headphones that are not only designed to function under water, but They have water as their natural state, But they are still dry in dry.

I have tried running, on long walks, even at home while working. But it wasn’t until I took them to swim when I understood what I was trying to do with them.

Its strength is not the sound (because it should not be)

The first thing to understand of the Aqua is that they are not headphones to use. They use bone driving, a technology that transmits sound through vibrations that travel through the bones of the skull, specifically the temporal bone, to the inner ear. The auditory channel is free: you don’t need to have anything inside the ear to listen to music or a podcast.

That provides a double advantage. On the one hand, comfort and safety outdoors: you can run or bike listening to your content without isolating yourself from the environment. On the other, an even more overwhelming logic underwater: nothing gets into the ear, there is no distorted sound, there is no sense of tamponade. Everything happens in that little transducer that rests on the ear and that, against all prognosis, it manages to keep listening even.

The surprising thing is that, despite this different way of transmitting the sound, the experience works. There is no isolation, but it is not what you are looking for here. You can hear the music, the podcasts, whatever you want … and you are still connected to what surrounds you. In water, where any other system fails, they continue to comply.

Suunto has adjusted the equalization thinking about that: in outdoor environments and, above all, in immersion. Dry, sound is enough; In pool, better than expected. There are no forceful serious study, but a solid, coherent and much more refined proposal than I imagined.

Running and swimming with them

Before trying them in the water, I’ve been running with them months. Literally. I immediately noticed that the important thing was not as much the sound quality and the feeling of freedom: nothing inside the ear, nothing that falls out when moving, and the music always present without disconnecting from the world. Ideal to go through the city or by roads without losing sight or hearing what surrounds you.

You didn’t have to adjust them every little, or worry about whether they loosen up. They simply worked. Besides, Its three buttons (two on one side, one in the other) allow to change volume or pass song. All great. But although they had convinced me, the best was yet to come.

The first time I used them in pool I felt a certain astonishment. Not long, but when I did it used to be without music because all the previous solutions had seemed a commitment: they were uncomfortable, unreliable, or directly fragile. In fact it came from using some Sony NW-WS413 –With its humble 4 GB– since 2022.

With the aqua you do not have to juggle: The placing, you start the session from the headphones themselves (without the mobile, thanks to the 32 GB of internal storage) and throw yourself into the water.

From the first length, something changes. Music accompanies you. And you keep swimming the same, without worrying about anything. There are no cables, there are no rubber ones that come out. The band that surrounds the head does not move. It does not loosen. It does not bother. It is as if it were not.

But the most interesting comes later.

These headphones listen to you swim

At the end of the session, the data appears in the Suunto app: Posture, head angle, respiratory frequency, sliding in stroke. Technique metrics that I had never seen in headphones. And that, at least in my case, they told me something I didn’t know: that I breathe badly.

Or more exactly, that I do it asymmetrically, with my head turning more to one side than to the other. They had never told me in the training. Nor had he noticed it. But there was the graphic.

Yes indeed: There is no real -time feedback. What you get is a later readingas if you had a silent coach who takes notes while you swim.

It is true that the app could go further in its interpretation of the data – phalta context, lack of concrete orientation – but as a starting point, impresses. It is another way of seeing your body in motion. To listen to you from within. For a future version it would be great to be able to listen to real -time instructions and not just see results a posteriori.

They are headphones very focused on health and exercise, not only from sport but also from functional, from mobility, symmetry, etc. For example, they have warning of vertical fatigue if they detect that we are too long with the neck in the same position. They also allow two minutes testing to evaluate the health of our neck based on its flexibility, rotation angle, etc; o Salto capacity (with height of the jump, time in the air, impulse speed …).

They are clearly headphones that understand health as more than exercise and sport, they go for the most basic foundations of their territory.

By the way, Aqua promises about ten hours of autonomy, which in my tests have remained between seven and eight in most occasions (will I be losing hearing?). But the best is not that. The best thing is that the loader works as an external batterywith the ability to recharge the headphones twice.

It is a magnetic base that hooks firmly, with USB-C, and that allows you to go on a trip-or the very intrepids, to a very long journey-without worrying about running out of charge. These are details that make the difference between a showcase and one designed for use.

Are they worth what they cost?

They cost 200 euros. It is not a cheap whim. And if you just run or bike, probably with some Sonicsome Wing or some Shokz Openrun (All cheaper) You will have enough.

But if I swam frequently, and you want something that not only endures the water but understands it, the Aqua Suunto have few real alternatives.

And besides, they are not just to listen to music. They are also to listen to you. To learn how you move. How do you breathe. How can you improve.

They do not magic, of course. They will not make you an Olympic swimmer. But they do return you A feeling that in sports technology begins to scarce: that there is something new. A real advance. A product that is not limited to doing the usual with another design, but explores a territory that others set aside.

And under water, it shows.

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This device has been assigned to test by Suunto. You can consult How do we do the reviews in Xataka and ours Business relations policy.