The JBL Reflect Aero may look like most sports headphones on the shelf. Its round frame has wings that ensure it doesn’t slip around during workouts. But there’s more to these headphones than meets the eye. One obvious difference from other workout headphones is their waterproofing. With an IP68 rating, these wireless earbuds aren’t just waterproof. You can submerge them in 1.5 meters of salt or fresh water for 30 minutes without the music stopping.
But wait, that’s not all. JBL doesn’t stop there. The headphones have other top-notch features like active noise cancellation, touch controls, in-ear recognition, and up to 8 hours of battery life. Design-wise, the JBL Reflect Aero aren’t much different from other sports headphones. In fact, they look a lot like Bang & Olufsen’s Beoplay E8 sports earbuds, except those are a bit chunkier and definitely not suitable for smaller ears, while the JBL Reflect Aero have the nice honeycomb pattern on the side that faces your ears.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]So we won’t go into the finer points of the design and instead focus on the details that make them stand out. For example, the charging case has a strap that allows you to wear them around your wrist or attach them to your backpack so they don’t fall out on the go. Perhaps the best aspect of the JBL Reflect Aero’s design is the touch controls with helpful sound instructions. You can even program two of those touch gestures to control the volume – something the popular AirPods Pro line didn’t offer until the release of the second generation, months after the JBL Reflect Aero hit the market.
There’s a lot to like about the JBL Reflect Aero’s performance, as it does most things well. For example, the Ambient Aware feature is great. We found that it lets you hear enough of your surroundings to have a conversation with another person while the music is still playing at about 50% volume.
You can also pair two devices at once, so you can easily switch between your phone and your laptop, for example, if you get a call on your phone while watching a movie on your laptop. There’s also very responsive in-ear detection, which is very good at detecting when you take an earbud off or put it back on. The microphone sounds very good when you’re on the phone, so you can be sure that the person you’re talking to can hear you clearly.