I’d recently been toying with the idea of getting a contraption to waterproof my iPod for swimming. After spending some time googling my options I was more confused than when I started. I have an older shuffle and the options for cases that are still available were limited to non-existent. It seemed like I’d need to get a new iPod or a device solely dedicated to swimming.

Around the same time, I got an email from Julie at AquaGear.com. She told me she’d read my blog and was wondering if I’d be interested in doing a product review for their site. Her timing was impeccable. I told Julie I’d been looking into getting a waterproof MP3 player but was overwhelmed with options. Julie told me she’d do some research at her company and she what was suggested.

Julie emailed me back with a few recommendations and product information.There was one that caught my eye.

The Finis SwiMP3 player was the sleekest model I’d seen and it didn’t have a lot of parts to fuss around with. It has 2GB of storage and clips right to the goggle straps. The device has no ear buds and instead uses bone conduction audio transmission. Yep, music right to my skull.

So that’s what I went with.

The SwiMP3 player arrived just a couple days later and I was super anxious to try it out. Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties getting music loaded. I tried on both our Mac and PC and wasn’t able to get either computer to recognize the device. I emailed Julie about the problem and she and her team put me in touch with Finis to get it resolved.

I asked the Boyfriend to see if he could figure it out. Sure enough, it was user error. I’m still not entirely sure what the problem was. My best guess is that it wasn’t charged enough to load. Whatever it was, he figured it out and loaded it with a couple hours of Girl Talk for me. He pretty much rocks.

I can’t express enough how happy I am with this product. It stays securely in place while I swim. I hardly even notice it’s there, which was my biggest concern.

The sound quality also far surpassed my expectations. The first time I used it I shared a lane with Patrick and asked him more than once if he could hear the music, to which he answered no. It feels like it fills the whole pool with sound so I find it hard to believe I am the only one who is jamming out.

It definitely helps pass the time. Good thing, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the pool lately

While AquaGear.com offered me a discount on this product to review it for their site, all opinions are of course and as always my own.