Sennheiser’s New Earbuds Measured My Heart Rate (and Broke My Brain)

In theory, jamming health-tracking features into earbuds should simplify the number of devices you need to wear while working out. In practice, I didn’t care for the way the Sennheiser Momentum Sport earbuds worked or felt.

Sennheiser Momentum Sport 

From workouts to running, MOMENTUM Sport is your ideal training partner. Its semi-open design minimizes noise caused by your body’s movements and allows some external sound for natural awareness.

Pros

• Solid audio performance in most modes
• Face-tap feature for pausing audio
• Anti-wind mode worked well

Cons

• Heart rate tracking requires use of Polar app
• May be too large for some people?s ears
• High price for total features

Price and Availability

The Momentum Sport earbuds are available now and retail for $329.95. They come in black, graphite, and olive colors.

The Problem With Fitness Convergence

I wouldn’t blame you if the thought of tracking your heart rate on a run through your earbuds was a tempting one. I’ve found the idea compelling too. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if AirPods add the ability in the not-too-distant future.

But Sennheiser is not Apple and doesn’t have the same influence over the platform where the data lives—or how data travels between devices. Sennheiser doesn’t even fully do the fitness part itself. It has partnered with Polar so you’ll need to download Polar’s app and sign up for an account with that company too.

Getting the data out of the earbuds is part of the problem here. The Sennheiser app will show your current temperature and heart in its app, but to track or record it, you will need to connect through Polar. To then get the benefit of using the Polar app, you’ll need to keep your phone with you while you run.

Personally, that’s kind of a dealbreaker for me. I specifically bought a cellular Apple Watch so I can run without a phone. A cellular Apple Watch allows me to make a call in an emergency and stream music to my watch without needing to sync content ahead of time. My watch already does heart rate tracking. Temperature tracking? It’s neat, but I didn’t find it particularly useful.

Does anyone lifting weights or running need to be alerted to their rising temperature? There have been toasty summer days when I knew I was overheating simply because I felt hot, so I stopped and walked.

These Sport earbuds hinge on their fitness features. If you’re not using those consistently, or even semi-often, then what’s the point? There were a lot of these types of questions that were breaking my brain as I tested the earbuds.

While I didn’t care for the way some of the fitness features worked, my biggest problem with the earbuds was their size and fit.

Good Sound But Uncomfortable Fit

I don’t know if the extra health sensors inside the earbuds made them chunkier or if this was just the design Sennheiser wanted, but the earbuds are physically big. I don’t think I have small ears, but the Momentum Sport barely fit inside them.

The size of the earbuds stretched my ear enough that it was uncomfortable to wear them for more than about 30 minutes on a run. I could wear them longer, but then much worse ear fatigue would set in.

Funny enough, despite the tight fit, I did need to use the swappable rubber ear hooks so that the earbuds wouldn’t slip out once sweat was introduced into the equation. I wasn’t crazy about where the rubber wings hit inside my ears either.

While fit and comfort could be a dealbreaker, your mileage will vary here. I do worry that these are just too big for a lot of female athletes or people in general. These did not fit in my wife’s ears.

On the sound front, I found the Momentum Sport earbuds to be full and rich. Pop songs sounded vibrant and energetic. Dua Lipa’s newest album was punchy, and full of disco-tech when listening on these earbuds.

These are great-sounding earbuds when they’re in their default mode or using active noise-canceling. The transparency mode let a good amount of surrounding noise in, but the music quality did suffer some as a result.

There’s an anti-wind mode that works surprisingly well. I don’t run too fast, but I did hit a downhill point when the wind was blowing up and these were able to suffocate the hissing sound completely.

That brings me to another feature of the Momentum Sport: touch controls. I hated how sensitive the touch controls were on the earbuds themselves so I ended up turning them off. I did use the surrounding tap feature that allowed me to double and triple-tap the part of my face below my ear to pause or play music and control the modes.

Sony has this feature for its Linkbuds and I love it. It’s super hard to use touch controls on earbuds while running, but I have no problem tapping my face while moving.

Overall, the feature worked well on these Sport earbuds, but I did get a few false positives. Two to three times the buds would pause or randomly switch modes, even when I didn’t tap or touch my face. I think it was because of the way my jaw moved. I love the functionality of the feature enough that I would probably put up with a few miscues, but I’m not sure everyone will want to.

Should You Buy the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds?

The Sennheiser Momentum Sport earbuds are for people with big ear holes. That’s a little crude, but it’s hard to get around the fact that these are physically large and either won’t fit everyone or won’t be comfortable.

If you’re confident they will fit you, however, then the audio is a strong reason to consider them. They are a solid pair of earbuds, just at a much too high price. As for the main draw of tracking heart rate or temperature, I’m still confused about who wants that but doesn’t already have a device with that functionality.

Sennheiser Momentum Sport 

From workouts to running, MOMENTUM Sport is your ideal training partner. Its semi-open design minimizes noise caused by your body’s movements and allows some external sound for natural awareness.