I received permission from a local motel to use their pool (for a small fee) in the mornings for self-directed physical therapy. I wanted to work for an hour, but how was I to track the time? I don’t wear a watch any more. I have an album or two in iTunes that run exactly 60 minutes, but I certainly don’t want to take my phone into the pool or to play music through the phone speaker and disturb anyone else nearby. I received a CultofMac email featuring splash-proof Bluetooth headsets, but even at their sale price, I didn’t want to spend that much money. I went looking on Amazon. I found these.

They are a hard plastic Bluetooth headset with over the ear shaped ear buds. $9.99. If they didn’t work, I wasn’t out much. If they did, I’d found a bargain. I used them today. I paired them before getting into the pool (I need to work on that process, because when I started them up and shut them down, they started to call my husband.), then I began playing the album. Each time the song changed, I moved to a new exercise. I placed my list of exercises inside a weighted snack baggie and put it beside the pool for reference.

The headset is very basic. It has a USB port for charging. It has three buttons marked reverse/+; play; and forward/-. The instructions refer to a Bluetooth key, but there is no indication about which button is the Bluetooth key. Instructions are included with the headset, but they are written by non-native English speakers. I’m muddling through the usage process, but mostly by trial and error.

To make sure I didn’t get any phone calls during my session, I put the phone in DoNotDisturb. It’s not that I didn’t want phone calls (I was unlikely to get any anyway), but if I did, I had no idea how to accept the call and switch back to the iTunes, so I avoided that problem. In short, the headset worked exactly as I needed it to do — it allowed me to hear music on my phone while I was in the pool. It worked great.

I’m glad I waited until now to do this workout, because before now, I don’t think I would have had the stamina to do the sixty minutes and not be completely exhausted. As for the headset, there are a lot of them out there, but this inexpensive pair is off to a solid start.