I Finally Stopped Counting Lengths:
My Experiment With Bone-Conduction Headphones

I have been swimming several times a week for around three years now. Mostly in a 25-metre pool, with the occasional open-water swim thrown in.

And for a surprisingly large part of that time, I have been counting lengths.

Not just counting lengths, either. I have tried counting them in different ways, thinking about the distance in metres, trying to remember how many I had done, and generally looking for increasingly creative ways to occupy my brain while staring at the same blue line at the bottom of the pool.

The problem with swimming

Swimming is supposed to be relaxing. I actually enjoy it. But there is something strangely repetitive about swimming up and down a 25-metre pool several times a week.

There is also an endless stream of technique advice running through my head. High elbow. One eye in the water. Keep the head still. Tummy tucked in. Kick from the hip. Don't cross over.

I meditate, so sometimes I try to use the time in the pool in a similar way. Other times my brain decides that swimming is the perfect opportunity to think about business ideas, recipes, things I need to do, and absolutely anything other than swimming.

Then I look at the clock, turn around again, and realise I still have another forty minutes to go.

Then I saw the headphones

I had seen adverts for waterproof swimming headphones before. They looked interesting, but the prices were enough to make me keep swimming without them.

I also had the obvious question: how on earth does Bluetooth work underwater?

Then I came across a Reddit post with the basic idea that swimming with earphones could make a huge difference. The swimmer was using them to listen to podcasts and was able to swim for an hour, three times a week.

That got my attention. A little research revealed the important bit. Bluetooth is not particularly good at travelling through water, so the headphones need their own built-in MP3 player. Suddenly the idea made much more sense. And there were cheap versions available for around €40.

The €38 experiment

I found a cheap pair that ticked the boxes I was looking for: bone conduction, waterproofing and an MP3 player built into the headphones.

The pair I bought cost me €38. It was cheap enough to feel like an experiment rather than a serious investment.

They arrived well packaged, already charged, with reasonably straightforward instructions. Getting music and podcasts onto them was also simple. I connected them to my laptop and copied the files across.

The sound quality was never going to compete with my normal earbuds. Bone conduction is a different experience and underwater swimming is hardly an audiophile environment anyway. But it sounded perfectly good enough.

Getting everything on my head

The slightly more complicated part was getting them on with everything else I normally wear for a swim.

I use earplugs when I swim because they help prevent the dizziness I can sometimes get in the water. Then there are goggles, a swim cap and now a pair of headphones sitting around my ears.

My eventual setup was earplugs in first, headphones positioned just behind the ears, then the swim cap pulled over my ears and the headphone speakers. The band sits outside and below the cap.

It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Once I had done it a couple of times, it became pretty straightforward.

The first underwater test

Then came the moment of truth.

I got into the pool, pushed off from the wall and had one of those brief thoughts that perhaps putting an electrical device next to my head and then getting into a swimming pool wasn't the smartest thing I had ever done.

Obviously, nothing happened. And the podcast was there. Clear and audible underwater.

There was more background noise than I expected. Bubbles, water moving around my head and the sound of exhaling all become surprisingly noticeable. But the voice from the podcast was clear enough to follow. Music worked too.

And then something strange happened

I started swimming and, for the first time, I didn't care how many lengths I had done.

My watch could count them. I didn't need to.

Instead of staring at the blue line and wondering how much longer I had to go, I was listening to something. The swim became less about getting through a set number of lengths and more about simply swimming.

I noticed that my stroke felt smoother and cleaner. I wasn't constantly thinking about finishing the session. I could just keep going. And at some point I realised I was actually smiling while swimming.

What I like

• They genuinely work underwater.
• Podcasts make longer pool sessions much less repetitive.
• The built-in MP3 player solves the Bluetooth problem.
• The setup is relatively simple once you have worked out the best position.
• They were cheap enough to try without spending a fortune.

What isn't perfect

• The sound quality is not the same as normal earbuds.
• Water, bubbles and breathing create more background noise than you might expect.
• Getting headphones, goggles, earplugs and a swim cap all working together takes a little practice.
• You need to load your podcasts or music onto the headphones because Bluetooth isn't the solution underwater.

The verdict

For me, the biggest benefit isn't the sound quality. It is the fact that I have stopped counting lengths.

That sounds like a small thing, but it has changed the way I approach longer pool sessions. My watch can deal with the counting. My brain can listen to something else.

The headphones aren't perfect, but they don't need to be. They do exactly what I wanted them to do: let me listen to podcasts while I swim.

I will keep these.