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Review: H2OAudio Interval: A Music Streamers Tradeoff
For many years I have been somewhere between a casual and competitive swimmer, much moreso on the casual side these days admittedly. As swimming endless laps in the pool tends not to be the most exciting or scenic way to approach fitness, I have always enjoyed audio distraction while swimming. In college WAY back in the day, they had music pumped in underwater...just the radio or whatnot but acceptable. Later on, I used various swim-proof MP3 players and eventually settled on a waterproofed iPod Shuffe as my weapon of choice. This worked well enough until the increasing domination of music streaming services caused my stored collection, that which could be synced to said iPod, to stagnate. Up until now there has been no way to access the world of streaming media, specifically Apple Music in my case, underwater. A company called H2O Audio recently released a product that looks to take on this issue. They were kind enough to provide me with a review unit and pair of goggles so I could take this new system for a test drive. How did they do?
The Basics
So what is the H2O Interval? Basically, it is a case that doubles as a Bluetooth receiver that allows the Apple Watch to be used for media consumption underwater despite the lack of headphone port and the limitations of Bluetooth radio signals through water. It is a frame/clip that attaches to the Watch (you have to remove the straps first) and then attaches to swim goggles to sit on the back of your head while short waterproof headphones run to your ears. Once connected to the Watch, via Bluetooth just as with standard BLuetooth headphones, buttons on the back of the Interval allow for controlling playback and volume, even underwater.
The Interval is waterproof with an IPX rating of IPX8 and is submersible to 12 feet. The included headphones are adjustable with five sizes of ear tips included. When attached, the short headphone cables stay out of the way of any swim strokes, and did not interfere with my swimming form during testing, and did not introduce any more drag than my previous iPod Shuffle setup. Being that the Watch is not completely enclosed inside a case, the Interval is officially compatible with Apple Watch Series 2-5, as Series 0 and 1 are not designed to be swim proof. The H2O Interval retails for $119.95 on H2Os website.
Pros
As mentioned, for a very long time, I have used an older iPod Shuffe, waterproofed by a third-party seller on Amazon, as my primary lap-swimming MP3 player. It would attach to the back of my goggles, in much the same way the Interval in this review does. It would then connect to waterproof swim-proof earbuds and I would be set for a session in the pool guided by the music of my choice. This worked well for the most part BEFORE Apple Music and podcasts became the primary way I enjoyed audio entertainment the the car, gym, or on a plane as I am while writing this review. However, prior to the introduction of the H2OAudio Interval, I faced a significant limitation with my preferred audio entertainment in the pool. Namely, as to music, the iPod Shuffle, for various reasons I’ll assume lie in the realm of rights and preventing piracy, never did get access to Apple Music. My playlists, both of the carefully curated variety, and the fairly useful Apple generated ones, were unable to sync to the stalwart Shuffe. As I (and much of the music-listening population) moves away from locally-stored music and toward cloud streaming, the selection of music that I have on my actual hard drive to sync gets smaller and smaller each day as a percentage of my collection. Podcasts and audiobooks COULD be synced to the Shuffe, but faced their own challenges, mainly in that the Shuffe was really intended to live up to its name, and not allow selecting specific tracks. Decidedly non-useful when trying to find a podcast or keep audiobook chapters in order amidst your music with no screen present.
All of that serves as background to where the Interval truly shines. For the first time that I am aware of, there is now a means of accessing Apple Music and spoken audio while in the water. I’d be happy to hear about any other solutions out there, but for now this appears to be it. The way this works is the Apple Watch (without its band) basically sits “inside” the Bluetooth module of the Interval, attached to the goggles in a similar way to my old Shuffe setup. The same sort of swim-proof earbuds then deliver audio to your ears. While this seems like a fairly convoluted method to get audio underwater and seems to defeat the purpose of bluetooth if the Bluetooth module literally CONTAINS the watch.
This is necessary due to the lack of any headphone connector on the Watch. As bluetooth cannot effectively transmit its signal through any functional amount of water, the earbuds themselves cannot house the module, as works with other form of wireless exercise headphones.
As would be expected by having the bluetooth module sitting flush with the Watch, I had no issues with signal dropout as can be the case with some exercise-focused wireless headphones. There really is nothing to interfere with the the signal. I ran the Interval through three 1-hour lap swim workouts in a pool and the battery survived all three hours, so again, while I did not run it through extensive battery tests, I was satisfied by the battery life at least for your average fitness swimmer. Not currently being in a position to train for a distance swim, I didnt get an opportunity to try a longer swim.
The other part of the Interval package is the app. My Swim Tracker works with the Interval system to provide lap and distance tracking while using the Apple Watch in a position where the native Workouts app can’t really do it. In my testing, this worked as advertised. When you open the app on the Watch, it asks you for access to Health data (as an aside, this this the first time I’ve seen this done from the Watch itself instead of through a companion app. I like it and commend H2O Audio for embracing Watch app independence). I’ll address the shortcomings of this app in the next section, but in my test pool, it appeared to accurately track my laps. You can set the distance of the pool you are using on the home screen, so accurately tracking laps meant distance appeared to be accurate as well.
Cons
While the Interval system works as advertised and definitely solves the issue of being able to access the full spectrum of your media while underwater, it is not without a few trade-offs along the way. What you primarily give up by necessity of using this attached to your goggles is the accuracy of the Apple Watch swim tracking features. Because the Watch is not on your wrist or arm, you lose heart rate tracking and stroke detection, two of the key components in accurately (and completely, for us OCD data tracking completists). Both of these are the result of having to compensate for the lack of a headphone port on the Watch and the bluetooth limitations inherent in trying to transmit through water. The Interval app attempts to compensate for and overcome these limitations by providing rudimentary lap and distance tracking while the Watch is affixed to your goggles, but there is no way to accuratley capture strokes or heart rate from that position.
Aside from the primary concern about effective swim tracking, the Interval functioned as advertised and intended, and is not uncomfortable or burdensome to wear.
Conclusion
To sum things up, the Interval system very much does what it claims to do and does it fairly well. It unlocks the ability to listen to music from Apple Music or other streaming services that can be synced and cached on the Apple Watch, or audiobooks or podcasts if that is your thing. This addresses an increasing concern about how to get music or media to play on an underwater device when streamed music can’t be synced to a standalone MP3 player the way our older collections could. The unfortunate trade-off to this is loss of the ability to track more detailed swim metrics, mainly stroke detection and heart rate, since the Apple Watch needs to be on your head and not your arm. If this is a trade-off you are willing to make to have access to Apple Music underwater, then the Interval does it well.
A thought that did occur to me as I was testing this out was how this might work with folks who now have multiple Apple Watches. Many people now keep an older generation Watch around for things like sleep tracking, and the recent price drop on the Series 3 might motivate more people to do the same. In this case, admittedly a pricier option, what might be an ideal solution is to treat one Apple Watch as a music vector and use it with the Interval system and forego tracking altogether. The other watch could then sit on your wrist as intended and serve the swim tracking function. This has a certain appeal as the Apple Watch and Interval combination is still the only way that I am aware of to get access to Apple Music and the like in a swim-friendly format.