Powerbeats Pro 2 Review: 12h44m of Battery, and a Heart Rate Sensor That Quits

The headline feature does not work

DC Rainmaker tested the heart rate sensor the way heart rate sensors get tested: against a Polar H10 chest strap, an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and a Garmin Forerunner 965, across cycling, running and intervals.

Indoor cycling was acceptable until the hard intervals, at which point the data stopped completely. Running intervals dropped out repeatedly and needed several fit adjustments before locking on at all. Trail running he calls one of the worst optical heart rate sensors he has tested in a long while, dropping out constantly at moderate effort.

And before any of that, he spent more than ninety minutes failing to get the sensor to work with an iPhone or a Mac at all. He got readings only by moving to Android, where it paired with Strava and Wahoo Fitness, while continuing to fail with Peloton, Zwift and Garmin on iPhone.

The device's behaviour when it is unsure is to send nothing rather than send something wrong, which is the right design and means long gaps in your workout file.

SoundGuys describes the readings as comparable to an Apple Watch. They did not test against a reference strap. When one source measures against three references and another does not, the measurement wins.

The battery, on the other hand

TechGearLab measured 12 hours 44 minutes against a claim of 10.

Nearly three hours beyond specification, with a case holding four and a half more charges and a five-minute top-up returning about ninety minutes.

That is a genuinely excellent result and it is the strongest reason to own these.

Cancelling that keeps up with AirPods

SoundGuys measured about 83 percent of external loudness removed and places that in line with the AirPods Pro 2.

TechGearLab's breakdown, which they carefully qualify as applying when the seal is achieved, is 20 to 30 dB in the bass, 15 to 32 in the midrange and over 30 in the treble. They scored the category 7.5 out of 10, the best score they gave these earbuds in any category.

The seal caveat carries more weight than usual here. An ear hook pulls the housing at an angle, which is why five tip sizes come in the box.

Two labs, fifty points apart

SoundGuys: 7.6 out of 10. Good fit, good cancelling, good Apple integration, and a microphone they rate excellent on an iPhone with effective background noise cancelling.

TechGearLab: 56 out of 100, eighteenth of twenty-three. Call quality 2.7 out of 10, described as grainy and staticky, like a broken radio. Comfort 4.5. Sound 5.8. Their summary calls the whole thing a good design idea that failed to deliver sound, comfort or useful features.

That is an unusually wide gap and the call quality score is most of it. A difference in test handset is the likeliest cause and it is speculation. What is not speculation is that you should make a call on these before the return window closes.

The hooks are the trade

TechGearLab: comfort 4.5 out of 10, 2.5 hours before fatigue, ear hooks blamed.

SoundGuys: secure enough that they never slipped during workouts, with pressure building behind the ears after a few hours.

Those describe the same object. A hook that holds an earbud through a sprint is a hook that presses on your ear, and no design solves both at once.

And the small print

No multipoint at all.

IPX4, which SoundGuys notes is weaker than what rival sports earbuds offer, so no showers and no submersion.

And the one that is hardest to forgive: both SoundGuys and DC Rainmaker report that an iPhone cannot play music and transmit heart rate to gym equipment at the same time. That is precisely the moment the feature exists for.