I’m not surprised to discover that Suunto has given the Spark some protection against sweat and rain. The IP55 rating doesn’t extend to the charging case, which is reasonably compact and slim enough to slip into a pocket or running belt if you need to carry it with you.

Suunto provides two control methods, but neither are the type I like to see on earbuds built for exercise. There are touch panels placed on the outside of both buds, which I usually find to be fiddly to use when running or with sweaty hands. Even Suunto states that single-tap controls can be easily triggered by accident. Fortunately, the controls are well spread across the speaker units, and accidental triggers were rare. These touch controls can be tapped or held to skip back and forward a track. They can also adjust volume or play and pause audio. You can additionally use them to turn on metronome and workout tracking modes. That's all great, but I would have liked them to also switch between EQ modes.

The head gesture controls aren't as successful. This uses some pretty standard motion sensors found inside most smartwatches to register head nods or shakes to answer or reject a call or skip a track. I’ve used these on Suunto headphones previously, and my experience hasn’t been great. If you’re walking or sitting on a bike, they’re absolutely fine. When you run, your head naturally moves around a lot, and that does lead to accidentally setting off the controls. It quickly gets annoying.

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