Suunto Wing 2 Review

Price

The Suunto Wing 2 costs £149, which does mean a drop in price from the first Wing (£169). That makes it cheaper than the Suunto Aqua (£159), but not quite as affordable as Suunto’s Sonic headphones. I’d say the Sonic are the standout options in Suunto’s headphone range.

Outside of Suunto’s own headphones that price puts it up against the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2, which at £169 do cost more. There’s also the Shokz OpenSwim Pro (£159), which offers both Bluetooth and music player streaming and the likes of the Nank Runner Diver 2 Pro (£148.54), which also offer two listening modes.

So these aren’t cheap, but they are less expensive than the original.

Design

• LED lights offer new modes
• Easy to access controls
• Comes in black or red colours

The Wing 2 looks identical to the original Wing. It retains that neckband design that’s become a look synonymous with bone conduction headphones. There’s your pick of all black or red and black colourways, with physical volume controls to one side and a multifunction button on the other.

There’s titanium in the main body and silicone to create something that’s flexible and sturdy to sit around the back of your neck. At 35g, they’re roughly the same weight as the Wing and have the kind of heft or lack of it that makes them very comfortable to wear over longer periods.

Suunto still includes strips of LED light on both sides that aim to offer a boost in visibility for nighttime or early morning outings. Those lights (once enabled in the Suunto app) can now blink in sync with your running cadence or work with a new turn and brake mode.

This activates the lights when you stop to turn your head at traffic lights or suddenly brake when wearing them for cycling. I’d still say the lights need to be bigger and brighter to be more useful, but I like the idea that Suunto is making this a feature that’s more ingrained with activities you’re likely to throw them on for.

The controls are solid, largely because they take a lot of inspiration from the setup on Shokz headphones. The volume rocker is easy to reach and the multifunction button is a breeze to play and pause audio. You do still have the option of using head movement controls to bypass the physical ones, letting you nod or shake your head to accept calls or skip a song.

I still find these gestures a bit too sensitive in some scenarios like running where you do inevitably move your head quite a lot and can set those controls off accidentally.

Next to the volume rocker is a USB-C charging port along with a proprietary charging port that works with the accompanying powerbank charger. This charger also includes a USB-C port to let you power up your other devices.

Interestingly, the level of durability has changed. The Wing 2 carries an IP66 sweat and waterproof design as opposed to an IP67-rated one. What that means is that you’re getting headphones that are better equipped for getting caught in heavy downpours. That’s as opposed to the increased protection for submerging the headphones in water, which you get from the IP67-rated Wing. It feels like a sensible trade off in moisture protection.

Features

• Wind cancelling feature works well
• Boost in battery life

The wind-cancelling technology Suunto employs to combat blustery outdoor conditions is pretty effective and a nice quality that Suunto offers over other bone conduction headphones. This helps if you need to handle calls through the onboard dual microphones.

The call quality isn’t the crispest you’ll find on a set of bone conduction headphones, but worked well enough and certainly performs better when there’s less external noise to compete with.

Overall, I liked what the Wing 2 was capable of mustering up and appreciated that performance in windier conditions. As far as being the best-sounding bone conduction headphones or a marked improvement on the Wing, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’d still put them just below the likes of the OpenRun Pro 2 and the Nank Runner Diver2 Pro.

Battery life, on paper, does see some improvements. Suunto promises up to 12 hours battery along with 24 hours of battery from the powerbank charger. A 5-minute fast charge mode gets you an impressive 3 hours of playtime to play with.

Like most bone conduction headphones, listening volume dictates battery performance and Suunto expresses its battery claims based on listening at 60% volume. I found that from one hour’s listening with the outdoor mode, battery drop was on average 7-8%. In the normal mode for an hour it was closer to 5%. So the numbers roughly seem to add up here and do seem to signal an improved performance on the first Wing.

There are few extra features worth mentioning that Suunto includes that are built around using onboard motion sensors to provide neck mobility assessments to assess spine flexibility or the jump assessment to assess fatigue. You can also turn on neck fatigue alerts to make sure you’re not straining and causing stress or potential injury to your neck.

If you own a recently launched Suunto watch, you can connect the Wing 2 over Bluetooth to get read outs of your real-time data. I found the assessments a little flaky when performing them and on a good few occasions randomly closed the Suunto app without saving data from assessments.

Sound Quality

• Similar performance to original

The approach and technology used to deliver sound to your ears is the same as before. Suunto uses bone conduction technology with two sound modes available to better cater for listening indoors and out. The normal mode is designed for most listening scenarios and promises a more balanced sound. The outdoor mode is, unsurprisingly, designed for outdoor use and essentially boosts overall volume.

I found the sound performance on the first Wing perfectly fine without pulling up any trees. With the Wing 2, I’d say it’s more of the same. There’s the promise of upgraded audio tuning and the normal sound mode does undeniably provide a more balanced profile, albeit it doesn’t excel in any particular area.

On New Order’s Age of Consent, I could experience that familiar bone conduction struggle to produce punchy bass. I’d say Shokz and Nank offer something meatier in comparison.

On David Bowie’s “Heroes” mids are smooth in places but things feel a bit boxy. Treble performance sits more on the grainy side. Switch to the outdoor mode and there’s a notable uptick in volume and a little more emphasis on elevating treble performance and overall clarity.

Unfortunately, you do experience a bit of a bone conduction tickle when you up the volume and an increase in sound leakage as well. That tickle never felt bad enough that I ever wanted to whip them off and stop using them.

Should you buy it?