How stable has your sound/music playback been thus far?

Over the past two weeks, I did a share of runs using a couple of music apps and a combination of own and DRM-protected media. On several runs, I eventually experienced sound dropouts which became more persistent the longer the run went and at least once, I had a complete Bluetooth stack crash on the watch, following which the headphones would no longer reconnect.

What apps are you using? What headphones? What’s been your experience?

Here’s a list of some of the observations. In all cases, the phone wasn’t around.

Run 1: About 40 minutes
Headphones: Aftershockz Titanium
Watch placement: Left hand
Music: Pandora

About 15-20 minutes in, the music starts to cut off. By half an hour mark, the dropouts in sound are persistent.

Run 2: About 55 minutes
Headphones: Aftershockz Titanium
Watch placement: Right hand
Music: Google Music

No cutouts in sound throught the entire run

Run 3: About 90 minutes
Headphones: Aftershockz Titanium
Watch placement: Left hand
Music: Google Music

The run starts pretty good and for several miles I start to think I turned the corner on reception issues, which should have been probably due to a poor choice of app (Pandora). But around half an hour mark, cutouts appear. Around 35-40 minutes, they become as constant as with Pandora. Around 44 minute mark the music stops. Soon after the headphones give an alert of actual Bluetooth disconnect. I tried turning the headphones on/off, reconnecting to them via watch settings, toggling Bluetooth on the watch – nothing helped. The watch wouldn’t connect to the headphones, period.

Run 4: About 40 minutes
Headphones: Bose Sport
Watch placement: Left hand
Music: Google Music

I didn’t listen to the music for the entire run: a bit in the beginning, then paused, then some more. No dropouts or issues on that run.

Brad_Olwin

I use AirPods Pro and have very few dropouts but rarely run with headphones. Ran intervals for 2h with few dropouts. I listen while walking to and from my car to the parking lot or walking to buildings on campus. Few dropouts. Google Play Music with my own downloaded mp3 files

Yak Ima

No issues so far using Google Music and Jaybird earbuds

@Yak-Ima Longest run?

Yak Ima

@NickK longest run has been around an hour or so

Bulkan

@Yak-Ima said in How stable has your sound/music playback been thus far?:

No issues so far using Google Music and Jaybird earbuds

I’m telling you @NickK Jaybirds Vista are awesome

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Bulkan said in How stable has your sound/music playback been thus far?:

Jaybirds Vista

I still have the Dash Pro and work well

Will try my luck with older Bose Sound once I can run outside.

Massimiliano Mirannalti

I have tested today S7, Google Play Music and Sennheiser Momentum 2.
1hr walk, only DMR music downloaded locally on the watch.
Connection was stable, only a couple of small bumps. Quality was good.

Bulkan

Works perfectly with Jaybird Vista. @NickK

Brad_Olwin

@NickK I have been using AirPods Pro quite a bit now and no significant issues.

Gareth Stockdale

First time I did not have my phone ( lost armband!), so I decided to try Google play on the watch and downloaded my playlist. Using my aftershocks aeropex. It was a pretty terrible experience. It seemed that when the phone was detecting my wrist rotation during my arm movement on the run, it would just continually cut out. If I placed my wrist in viewing position to see the clock face, I would get perfectly fine playback.

Back to armbands

@Gareth-Stockdale Did you try moving your watch to another hand? Are you running latest versions of Wear OS and all? Did you use Suunto app?

I have a feeling Aftershockz BLE radios are on the right side of their headphones (or left side depending on the model), so the watch being on an opposite hand isn’t the most optimal arrangement. Likewise, any apps using CPU would be competing with music encoding.

That being said, my latest runs are fine. No issues. Music from Google Music, a lot of it DRM, and Suunto app.

Gareth Stockdale

@NickK thanks, I shall try an arm swap and let you know

Gareth Stockdale

@Gareth-Stockdale @NickK wearing it on my right hand, I had perfect playback!

Brad_Olwin

@NickK Interesting observations with playback! When I start out it is bad and gets much better. I don’t know if this is interference or some other problem. For the first 0.5km I get a lot of dropouts and then stabilizes and is great. I am using AirPods Pro for my earphones.