The H20 Audio Tri Pro bone-conduction headphones offer both Bluetooth and music player streaming, as well as a solution to stop looking for something new to load into your headphones. The new Playlist+ feature allows users to transfer offline playlists from third-party music streaming services including Spotify and Apple Music, giving the Pro even more appeal.

Not only is the H20 Audio one of the most versatile bone-conduction headphones I've come across, it has enough battery life to get you through a marathon and comes at an attractive price that rivals the best bone-conduction headphones to buy now.

The H20 Audio Tri Pro will be available in March 2023 with the new Playlist+ feature, and at $179 will rival the best overall bone-conduction headphones like the Shokz OpenRun Pro. Currently, the price is discounted to $159 on H20 Audio's website and online retailers like Amazon.

What you get from the Tri Pro is a very light pair of neckband-style bone-conduction headphones, more plastic and slightly cheaper than the titanium and silicone mix found in most bone-conduction headphones. Fortunately, they are comfortable to wear for more than an hour of listening, and while the weight is not specified, they are clearly a lightweight design.

The fit is generally fine from a fit perspective. However, wearing them during a swim, with or without a swim cap, requires a bit of finesse. The first time I swam, when I put the headphone arms under the cap, the speakers were too far away from my ears.

The three physical buttons on the right side of the headphones are closely aligned with each other, which is fine for underwater use, but may be difficult to distinguish while swimming. It might have made more sense to place them on the underside of the headphones, or at least a little more spacing between them.

To make them suitable for swimming, they have an IPX8 waterproof rating, and H20 Audio claims they can withstand a depth of up to 3.6 meters for "unlimited time."

There is a magnetic charging point inside the headphones, which requires a dedicated charger for charging and music transfer. However, with Playlist+ mode, there is another way to transfer music.

Along with the headphones, very standard earplugs designed for swimming are also included, which are intended to reduce water noise in the ears when submerged and to get the best sound.

The H20 Audio Tri Pro allows users to listen to audio in two ways, one via Bluetooth and the other by transferring audio files to the headphones' discreet built-in 8GB memory.

H20 Audio says it has introduced a bone-conduction speaker that is slimmer than the one in the Tri headphones, and that speaker has also been enhanced to provide better sound.

The sound quality of bone conduction is not great, whether used for swimming, running, or desk work. It does have some of the characteristics one might associate with older generations of bone-conduction headphones, but this is not a good thing. Vibrations are noticeable at high volumes, and performance generally falls short of the more balanced sound profiles heard with more affordable bone-conduction headphones such as the Shokz OpenRun, OpenRun Pro, and Haylou PurFree BC01.

My favorite drum and bass-centric Hospital Records podcasts and bass-centric tracks on Spotify's Songs To Test Headphones playlist (or Tom's Guide Headphone Demo playlist) It sounded quite muddy to me when I listened to it. On Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy," the overall muddiness, boxy midrange, and far from sparkling high-frequency performance are strongly felt. On the Avalanches' "Since I Left You," it sounds a bit muted, and while it's not jarring to listen to music or podcasts, it's not great either.

This performance also comes into play when used for swimming, where the H20 Audio's interesting Playlist+ feature comes into play. This is the company's answer to finding new things to listen to in music player mode without having to connect the headphones to a computer and drag and drop files.

Playlist+ allows you to sync tracks from music streaming services by essentially recording it while playing from the headphones in Bluetooth mode. Pairing the headphones with a device in Bluetooth mode, playing music from a streaming service, and double-clicking the + button on the headphones will provide an audible notification that the headphones are loading music. This can also be done from the included H20 Audio app, which also allows the user to set a recording time limit.

Now, there are a couple of problems with this feature: first, if you want to load a lot of music or a long playlist, you must play the music with the headphones on and paired, which can take several hours. The volume level of the loaded audio will be the same, so you need to make sure the volume is loud enough.

Additionally, if you start playing something and then double-click the + button, the beginning of the song may be cut off. If interrupted by a call, it will also affect the recording. This is an ambitious feature, but it needs to be taken seriously. Swim tests playing back recorded music showed a tendency to randomly skip through folders.

The H20 audio's poor sound quality also extended to calls, as the microphone, which supports hands-free calling and can give commands to the smart assistant, was affected by wind noise and seemed unable to handle ambient background noise from traffic and crowded outdoor spaces

The H20 was not able to handle the noise.

According to H20 Audio, the Tri Pro has a battery life of up to 5 hours, which is not as long as other bone-conduction headphones in the same price range of 8-9 hours.

One must also consider battery life in Bluetooth mode versus streaming music player mode, the latter of which is undoubtedly more demanding on the battery. Swimming for 40 minutes in music player mode reduced the battery by 25%, as did an hour of Bluetooth streaming at a fairly loud volume.

What we like is that the battery status displayed when the headphones are turned on is expressed as a percentage.

The H20 Audio Tri Pro appears to be a versatile bone-conduction headphone and can easily import music to its internal storage without having to sync with a computer. However, H20 Audio's Playlist+ feature is not the answer, and there are too many drawbacks to recommend this bone-conduction headphone at this price.