Samsung Gear IconX: Fitness and heart rate tracking

The IconX are being pushed primarily as fitness headphones, and to that end they do a solid job. They can work with or without your phone, but you'll need to sync with S Health in order to analyse your stats.

Particularly handy is the ability to take the IconX out for a run without your phone and still being able to track your distance and heart rate. All you do is hold a finger on one of the buds for three seconds, listen for the voice assistant to confirm, and you're off.

However, without the phone you won't be able to track your location (no built-in GPS on these) or elevation, so it's worth bearing that in mind when you come to syncing the data back with S Health. You also won't be getting the extra motivation from Samsung's incredibly sarcastic-sounding trainer - just some of the basic prompts in the earbuds. However running without the phone means longer battery, which is a previous thing on the IconX.

We found the heart rate tracking to be decent, but not quite hitting the readings of the chest strap gold standard. We tried it with a Polar H7 strap and got varying results depending on the intensity of the workout.

On a gentle jog, pictured above, the heart rate readings between the two were very similar, with an identical peak reading of 164bmp, but on more rigorous runs we found the IconX fluctuated a little more aggressively, tracking higher rises in our HR than the strap - something we've come accustomed to seeing on many optical trackers.

While it's taking its readings from inside the ear instead of the wrist, the IconX are still using optics, and like wrist-worn devices are prone to added "noise" from clattering around during a run - which will always throw the accuracy off a tad. The key, again, is to ensure you've got the right wings and tips attached to it's a snug fit, which will mean better accuracy.

So how do they compare to the Bragi Dash in terms of fitness features? Much the same, including the heart rate tracker, but the notable omission in the IconX is waterproofing for swim tracking. They're sweat-proof, but you won't be able to take them for a proper dunking. On the other hand, they're $100 cheaper than Bragi's offering.