Photo: Nicole Radja

THE BEAT GOES ON I have three words to describe my reaction to Yamaha’s BODiBEAT: tech support, please! Stepping up where I’d felt the Nike+ falls short, Yamaha’s music player promises to select tunes in sync with your workout effort through the use of a heart monitor clipped to your earlobe. Depending on the mode you select, the player will function like a trainer, encouraging you to pick up your speed by choosing faster songs or simply keeping you on track by playing similarly paced tunes. It’s brilliant in theory but befuddling in execution. Sure, the gadget comes chock-full of ways to track your training progress after you’ve downloaded the accompanying software onto your PC, but I wasn’t up for the manual’s 50-plus pages of reading to determine how to do so. The frustration was amplified as I started my run and found only BODiBEAT’s preloaded tracks—generic techno with a metronome-like ticking sound—streaming through the headphones. Where was my Feist, Beyonce and Usher? As for the headphones—which you have no choice but to use because of the unusual USB-port plug—explain to me why such a technologically sophisticated device comes with old-school earbuds that barely stay in your ears. No sooner had I started my workout than I reached a conclusion: I’d rather expend my energy pounding the pavement than pounding my head against a computer screen for the sake of a souped-up sound system. $300 at BODiBEAT.com.

NEEDS WORK!