Last October, Adidas partnered with Swedish headphone maker Zound, best known for its work with , to announce . One of them was the FWD-02 Sport headphones, which were supposed to be released last year. After a delay, however, they are finally available From this month.
adidas
As a reminder, the FWD-02 Sport is a pair of running headphones with replaceable tips and wings and a force sensor so you can control them wearing gloves. They are also IPX5 certified so they are sweat and water resistant. Adidas and Zound claim you can expect up to 6 hours of playback from the earbuds, with the charging case providing another 19 hours of battery life before needing to go to an outlet.
The case features a mesh top layer, which Adidas said helps the buttons dry faster when you need to store them. The FWD-02 also includes an awareness mode that allows ambient sounds to be filtered out so you can stay safe while using them for outdoor exercise.
At $170, the FWD-02 headphones face stiff competition, particularly from the . While they’re $30 more expensive, they include active noise cancellation, a tweak many people like, and Apple’s H1 chip for hands-free Siri access, one-touch pairing, and other iOS-specific features. The lack of ANC isn’t an issue for a sports-focused pair of headphones like the FWD-02, but it’s a feature that more and more people are looking for in their next pair of headphones.
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