There are a lot of great sets of true wireless earbuds out there, but not as many that are built for an active lifestyle. Some can’t stay in a runner’s ears, some aren’t equipped to handle a sweaty user and others can’t isolate your music as you are running near traffic. The Sennheiser Momentum Sport has all of your bases covered and they do it all with some particularly unique features.
In the box, you get the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds, a USB-C to USB-A charger, three sizes of ear tips (including the ones that are installed on the earbuds) and three sizes of ear fins to help secure the earbuds in your ears when doing more strenuous activities. It also comes with a lanyard that secures to the case.
The design of the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds is very sleek, with the small, rounded charge case and the small, comfortable earbud design with interchangeable ear tips and stabilizers. There is an ingenious rubber cover for the USB port on the charging case to protect from water, dust or anything that can cause issues for you. The Momentum Sport Earbuds come in black, graphite and green, which is nice to see at least a couple of fairly unique colours for earbuds.
“The Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds deliver clear sound quality with good bass, suitable for music, podcasts, and calls.”
I tested the green and they look fantastic. The earbuds and case also feel great, clearly made durable for rougher use cases than the average earbuds. In keeping with the needs of athletes, the earbuds are rated IPX5 water resistant, meaning they can easily handle sweat or a splash of water, just so long as you aren’t submerging them in water. The 3 microphones per earbud using beamforming help with their noise reduction.
Connecting the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds is easy enough, although doing it through the Sennheiser Smart Control app lengthens the process a little, and the need to press on the earbuds outside of the case to make them searchable is more annoying than just opening the case on many earbud models. The app also sends you back and forth between its setup and the phone’s settings, which makes it feel a little redundant.
The fit on the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds was perfectly fine for my ears. The ear fins slide right under the ridges inside your ears, doing a great job of holding them in place. My ear tends to be ideal for medium-sized ear tips, so I rarely need to swap them out for a different size, but I did test taking them off and putting them back on. It was very simple as they just slid on and off but secured nicely. You need to make sure to use the provided clear ear tips, though, to ensure one of the Momentum Sport’s biggest features is available to you: built-in fitness tracking.
That’s right. The Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds can monitor your heart rate and body temperature. Using a sensor just below the ear tips, the earbuds report reasonably accurate (compared to my watch and a couple of spot tests with a thermometer) metrics to your Sennheiser Smart Control App and a number of compatible fitness trackings apps, like Apple Health, Strava, Zwift, and the Polar Flow App.
Sennheiser’s typically clear sound quality and good bass delivery come through on the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds. Whether listening to music, a podcast/audiobook or taking a phone call, you are getting crystal clear audio with an appropriate application of low-frequency sound, meaning your music will have that bassy pop, but the vocals are not muddy as if being passed through a subwoofer. My only gripe is that they don’t get particularly loud for my taste. Sure, you don’t want them to get too loud, thus avoiding permanent damage, but I generally like my content a little bit more prominent in my ears.
On the bright side, the ANC on the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds is decent enough that you are never trying to make out what you are hearing over the sounds around you. When out on the street walking or when I had my wife test them while running (Sorry, but my knees do not allow me to test that part), the ambient sound of the hustle and bustle of the streets around us was significantly reduced, allowing me to clearly remove the noise.
“The Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds are built for an active lifestyle with unique features like built-in fitness tracking.”
The wind reduction, a feature that you can turn on in the app, was a little more iffy than the ANC. Direct wind blowing on me left me hearing the wind, arguably louder than if I didn’t have earbuds in at all. It was better than not having the setting on at all, but still not ideal.
The battery life was more than sufficient for what is needed by most users at about 6 hours for a single charge (5.5 hours with ANC on), keeping in mind that the case can recharge the earbuds multiple times as well. also worth noting that the case itself is capable of Qi wireless charging, so while there are earbuds with better battery life out there, the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds, especially with their particularly niche purpose, will never fail you.
The Sennheiser Smart Control app is one of my favourite applications for earbuds that I have ever used. In addition to the clear indication of your metrics, you have a fantastic equalizer and very intuitive settings that don’t need much of a learning curve. Clear control over your noise cancelling functions, the ability to set up sound zones, smart pause your audio when removing an earbud, saving on battery life by limiting what audio codecs are used, adjust the sensitivity of the pressing of your earbuds to activate certain controls and so much more.
The $329 USD price is one thing, however, that stopped me in my tracks. Yes, the Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds do a lot more than most earbuds do, but for a similar price, you could get a very good set of earbuds and a modest wearable that would give you a lot more fitness tracking ability than the Momentum Sport can do themselves.
If you are someone who doesn’t want to wear a smartwatch of some sort, then you can justify the price to get a function that you can’t get elsewhere, but many athletes now rely on a wearable already for their metrics, making those functions no longer worth the extra price. At that point, you can get earbuds with even better ANC and a bit more sound for a lot less.
The Sennheiser Momentum Sport Earbuds are good earbuds, but I can really only recommend them to people who need the functionality it offers because they don’t already get that functionality via other means. Otherwise, you’re getting quieter earbuds with lower battery life whose clarity, while great, doesn’t stand head and shoulders above many of their competitors to justify a nearly 30% higher price in some cases.
- Hear more than music: Unleash your workout’s full potential with Sennheiser’s sport sound profile, adaptive ANC, transparency mode and robust bass for immersive sound and focused training
- Fitness tracking powered by Polar: In-ear sensors for real-time heart rate and body temperature tracking, syncing seamlessly with apps and devices for insightful health and performance metrics
