Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review

Recently I got my hands on the “World’s toughest earbuds”, as they claim. I went out on extensive research (read: asked chatgpt) for earbuds I can use for running. Given the humid weather and random rains in Singapore, the earbuds I was looking for had to be at least splash-proof, but ideally waterproof. Jabra achieved an IP68 rating for the Elite 8 Active Gen 2, which ticks my waterproof box.

So I picked these up from Amazon during Black Friday and was excited to try them.

First impressions: the material is nice to the touch, the earbuds fit my ears well, and the sound quality + ANC are not bad at all. Previously I’ve been using the Beats Fit Pro earbuds, which feature a different design, and those wingtips often tickled my ears, giving me a sort of discomfort.

I’ve been using the new Jabra for about 10 days now, have done a few longer runs, and they haven’t slipped/dropped out. Oh, did I mention they connect with my Garmin Fenix watch without any problem and work well during “no-phone” runs?

I actually like them so much that I’m using them as my daily driver for listening to music while working. Tried them for a few calls as well, and people on the other end complimented the microphone quality.

To be balanced and mention some issues: initially, the earbuds didn’t automatically reconnect with my iPhone. Every time I took them out of the case, I had to go to the Settings -> Bluetooth menu on the phone and connect them manually. This was fortunately addressed by a firmware update from Jabra and now they automatically connect to the phone as soon as I take them out of the case. By the way, this firmware update was a bit of an awkward process because the instructions in the Jabra Sound+ app didn’t refresh; the app was showing something like “upgrade in progress, it can take more than 30 minutes,” while in fact it was done already. I didn’t know it was done, so I just left the app open on this screen for ~2 hours. Anyways, it all worked out in the end.

Special mention: the smart case is a great idea. Connect to anything with a 3.5mm audio jack (airplanes, old TVs, etc) with the included cable and the case streams the audio via bluetooth to the earbuds. Or you can also connect the case to devices that have USB-C audio output (typically newer devices).