Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: One last workout

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: One-minute review

The Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 arrives as an updated version of the Jabra Elite 8 Active, which were released in September 2023. They were sporty truly wireless earbuds and we were big fans, stating they were “everything you’d want from a pair of fitness earbuds”.

For Gen 2, Jabra is still promising buds and a charging case that can withstand the rigours of a tough workout and stay put in the process. Now it’s increased the Elite 8 Active’s spatial sound powers, and promises improvements with how they’ll block out the world with ANC and HearThrough modes.

Outside of those upgrades, it’s largely the same experience as using the Elite 8 Active Gen 1. They offer a great, reliable fit without ear hooks and bright, customizable sound with good but not class-leading battery life.

These are set to be Jabra’s last set of Elite true wireless earbuds, as it’s decided to shutter its consumer headphone business. It’s a genuine shame because the Elite 8 Active Gen 2, while not a necessary upgrade for Gen 1 owners, is one of the best true wireless sports earbuds you can buy that also work great outside of workouts and are well worth the money in our opinion.

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2: Price and availability

• Priced at £229.99 / $229.99 / AU$329
• Released: June 2024

The Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 launched in June 2024 and went on sale for $229.99 / £229.99 / AU$329. That does mean they come in pricier than the Elite 8 Active Gen 1, which are currently available for $199.99 / £199.99 / AU$329.

These are definitely true wireless sports earbuds that sit at the top end in terms of pricing. They’re slightly more expensive than the Beats Fit Pro, but do remain cheaper than the Beats Powerbeats Pro and the Sennheiser Momentum Sport, which unlike the Elite 8 Active, uses ear hooks to keep them secure during your sweatier sessions with them.

• Value score: 4/5

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: Specifications

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: Design

• Same reliable fit as Gen 1
• Charging case now slightly heavier
• Added USB-C to 3.5mm cable

Essentially, the design and the way the Elite 8 Active Gen 2 sits and operates in your ears hasn’t changed from Gen 1. You can pick it up in black, coral, navy blue and olive (pictured) colors, with its liquid silicone rubber coating which has a pleasingly soft touch to it.

Like Gen 1, it’s using Jabra’s ShakeGrip fit to keep them inside of your ears without the need for wingtips or ear hooks. Again much like its predecessor, the fit is great: they really do really stay put without aids. There’s not many earbuds that achieve this kind of secure fit when your exercise time gets more intense without adopting some sort of earhook design, but these really do the job of remaining secure. They’re comfortable too, I’ve used them for over an hour-long workouts and they’ve not caused any sort of irritation.

While there’s nothing here to add extra security to its fit, Jabra does still include large, medium and small silicone eartips to improve sound isolation and help you make sure you enjoy the best ANC performance, with the ideal fit inside of your ears.

Jabra builds physical controls once again into the exterior of the buds, which can be customised in Jabra’s Sound+ companion smartphone app. These controls allow you to handle calls, adjust volume, skip back and forward through tracks and are some of the best controls I’ve used on fitness-focused earbuds, especially when you’re on the move. The controls are more reliable to press than to swipe or tap on touch controls, which seems to be the route a lot of other earbuds opt for. Jabra’s approach works great here, and I found the volume control support particularly well integrated into the buds.

In terms of its defence against moisture, it’s the same as Gen 1 with Jabra sticking to an IP68 water resistant rating. This gives it one of the strongest levels of protection against moisture you’ll find on a set of earbuds: we dropped the first gen into a glass of water, no trouble. The case also carries an IP54 rating, which isn't as strong a defence against water, but does mean as a package the Elite 8 Active Gen 2 offers good protection against sweat, rain and a splash of water or two.

The charging case has slightly jumped in weight, likely to account for its added smarter powers, with a physical button in front to pair with your devices and a single LED light above to indicate pairing and charging status. At the base is a USB-C port to charge the buds or you can use the accompanying USB-C/3.5mm cable to enable the new spatial sound mode when connected with other devices like a monitor or TV..

• Design score: 5/5

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: Features

• New LE Audio smart case
• Improved ANC and Heathrough modes
• Bluetooth 5.3

The headline news here lies with the case, which Jabra is calling the world’s first LE Audio smart case. That case allows you to enjoy spatial sound from devices such as TVs and screens built into gym equipment, by using a physical USB-C to 3.5mm cable jack to plug the case into that device, and stream audio from the case. Then when you stick the buds in your ears and have spatial sound enabled in the app, you can enjoy that surround-sound listening experience. It’s a revolution to no longer need cabled headphones for gym equipment.

On the listening front, Jabra says it’s improved the effectiveness of the ANC and HearThrough modes on Gen 2 to be twice as effective at cancelling out sound. There’s Bluetooth 5.3 to offer reliable connectivity, support for multipoint sharing and a welcome Bluetooth range of up to 10 meters.

Inside of the companion smartphone app, you’ve got scope to tinker with that sound and enable a Spotify Tap mode for quick access to the music streaming service. There’s fast pairing for Android devices and you can summon your smartphone’s assistant, whether that’s Siri or Google Assistant, straight from the buds.

In terms of audio codecs supported, it’s the same AAC and SBC ones offered on Gen 1, which might be a source of bad news for serious audiophiles, though I’d expect that’s not going to be an issue for those grabbing these predominantly for workouts.

• Features score: 4/5

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: Performance

• Same enjoyable, workout-friendly sound
• ANC mode good but not best in class
• Spatial sound case mode could have its uses

The remit of the Gen 2 Elite 8 Active is the same as Gen 1, to offer a sound that’s a great fit for workouts. There’s the option of active noise cancellation, but like its predecessor it’s not Jabra’s best available advanced ANC support. There’s also a HearThrough mode, which can be tweaked in the app to control the balance of your sound and exterior sounds, to give you more or less awareness of your surroundings. You can also choose to have neither of these modes in play as well.

When you head into the companion Sound+ app, you’ll be met with an equaliser, six EQ presets and the scope to build custom ones. There’s also a Dolby Spatial Sound mode, which is designed for when you’re exercising in front of a screen. So, maybe watching the TV on a screen built into a treadmill as opposed to listening to music. This Spatial Sound mode is also now extended to the case. It feels like quite a niche feature to add in here and actually more of a useful feature when you’re not in the gym with them. They’re a nifty solution for when you’re flying and don’t want to use those free wired headphones.

These are buds tha sonically sound solid when you’re working out and when you’re just working at your desk. To me, the sound profile doesn’t sound all that different from the first generation Elite 8 Active. It’s a sound quality I’d describe as bright, powerful with plenty of bass warmth. They don’t give you the best they have to offer in sound straight out of the box, but once you’ve tinkered with things in the app, you can get something that helps that treble sparkle and achieve overall a more balanced sound whether you opt for bass-heavy songs or prefer things far more relaxed.

It’s a similar story for call quality, where there’s six microphones in place to deliver calls to your ears. The call quality overall here is very good for a truly wireless earbud. Calls offer good volume and the clarity overall makes them ideal to break your workout for an important call.

Jabra claims that the ANC support on the Gen 2 can cancel out twice as much noise as Gen 1, but does stick to the same adaptive hybrid ANC support, so that ANC adjusts based on your environment. It’s particularly designed to help battle more blustery, windy conditions such as the sort of intrusion you get running or cycling.

I’d say that the ANC performance has been good overall. I’m not wholly convinced it’s twice as good as Gen 1, but I’d put its performance below the top-performing ANC-packing truly wireless earbuds. Inside and outside, they muffle the sounds around you in an effective way as opposed to entirely drowning them out. I found that running near busy roads did an effective job of drowning the sounds in my environment. While they don’t entirely block out wind, they do a good job of muting it. It was a similar story using them in a gym and dampening the sound of the gym speaker system.

It’s a similar story with Jabra’s HearThrough mode: I can’t say I noticed a discernible difference between Gen 1 and Gen 2, but it remains one of the best examples of a mode that wants to achieve a better balance between interior and exterior sounds.

In terms of connectivity, I’ve had some good and a little bad here, which wasn’t really the case with Gen 1. In general, connecting to a range of devices including an iPhone, Android phone, Android tablet, MacBook Air, a connected rower and an Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Forerunner 965 has been fine. With the iPhone, I’ve experienced the buds disconnecting and reconnecting during some listening time. It could have something to do with running a beta version of iOS on my iPhone, but this isn’t something I’ve experienced on the previous version. Thankfully, it’s only happened a couple of times, but it’s not ideal.

For battery life, it's more of the same here with Gen 2. Jabra promises the same battery numbers with and without ANC in use. It’s up to 8 hours of music streaming with ANC in use or 14 hours with ANC turned off. When you factor in a fully charged case, you’re getting anywhere from 32-56 hours depending on that ANC use.

My experience suggests certain EQ modes in use also offer quicker drain on battery, as does listening volume. For over an hour of use with the ANC enabled and the bass boost EQ mode, the battery dropped by around 30%. For a similar workout without ANC, it was half that. So I wouldn't say those promised numbers entirely correspond with my experience of using them.

Fortunately, Jabra does still include its useful fast charge mode, which gives you an hour of listening time from a 5-minute charge. You've also got the convenience of wireless charging if you happen to have QI-certified setup.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 review: Scorecard

Jabra Elite 8 Active: Should I buy?

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How I tested

I used the Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 for two weeks, using them for a range of workouts including indoor and outdoor runs, gym workouts like indoor rowing, cycling and strength training. I also used them for travelling on trains and buses and using them for work.

In terms of pairing to devices, I paired with an iPhone, Android phone, Android tablet, MacBook Pro streaming from services and apps including Spotify and YouTube. I also tested with the Garmin Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch Ultra to test the connectivity support for smartwatches and sports watches. I also paired them with a connected rower and treadmill.

I have over a decade of experience testing and writing about consumer technology and that includes a big focus on sports headphones. I’ve tested sports headphones and truly wireless earbuds across a range of prices from budget to premium, so have a good idea of the good and bad in this category and what makes a great pair of headphones for exercise.