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By now it should be clear that the future is wireless—and streaming. For runners, this means we no longer have to deal with bouncing cables tethering us to bulky music players. Nor do we have to listen to the same few songs every time we head out the door.

The latest model that advances this concept is the Mighty Vibe, a second-generation device that streams your Spotify playlists on the go, without the need for your ever expanding smartphone.

Mighty has been around for a year now, but this new device brings some welcome improvements over the original device —an hour more battery life and an improved antenna that delivers a better connection.

What Is Mighty?

Launched on Kickstarter in early 2016, Mighty is a tiny hard drive–based music player that’s a dead ringer for the iPod Shuffle—its slightly larger, but the button layout is all too familiar. The biggest difference, however, is that you don’t have to own the music it plays. Instead, it leverages your Spotify account to store up to 1,000 songs. Best of all, it’s built to take advantage of off-line playback, meaning you can download those tunes and leave your phone at home.

Mighty Vibe comes in three colors: zazzy black, gully blue, and mooshu red. Mighty

This second-generation model will play for more than five hours on a single charge, whether you’re using Bluetooth headphones or have an old-school pair of ’buds plugged into the 3.5mm jack (which doubles as the charging port). And, when you’re using wireless headphones, you won’t experience any dropouts.

With the first version, I found it best to clip the player to the shoulder strap of my backpack during run commutes to the office to avoid any connectivity troubles. But, since using the Vibe, I haven’t experienced a single hiccup in the signal, even with the player clipped to the back of my waistband.

Playlists and Spotify Premium

Just like the original Mighty, the Vibe works only with Spotify and allows you to only sync playlists or podcasts. Unfortunately, you still can’t download complete albums or individual tracks. You can get around this, however, by creating a playlist for an album or artist, then syncing that via the companion smartphone app. It’s an extra step, but it works.

To download songs to your device, you must have a Spotify Premium account ($10/month). That subscription, however, also allows you to skip as many songs as you like—and you won’t have any advertisements breaking your focus on your 20-miler.

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Connectivity

Mighty worked under the hood to improve the quality of the connection not only for audio playback but also so it works with more devices. The first version had trouble pairing with some Bluetooth headphones, the company says, but it hasn’t found any models in its testing that won’t work with the device now. Indeed, among our favorite pairs, including AfterShokz, , , and , all connected quickly and seamlessly.

It’s also exceptionally quick to sync your tunes. This, however, requires you to be in range of your WiFi network. Once configured within the Mighty app, you can select from your Spotify playlists and the songs sync over WiFi. We found a 150-song playlist transferred in just a couple minutes—of course, your transfer time can vary depending on the speed of your broadband connection.

Alternatives

Mighty isn’t the only player that can leverage streaming audio on your runs. The Apple Watch Series 4 taps into Apple’s large catalog of music, and even allows you unfettered access to any song you want if you’re wearing the version that has a cellular connection—no need to download songs before your run.

Then there is the Spotify-enabled watches from Garmin—Fenix 5 Plus and —and the new Samsung Galaxy Watch. These three function much like Mighty in that you can download your Spotify playlists to the devices for off-line playback. But you can also add your own mp3 files to each device as well.

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So, why choose Mighty? The obvious reason is you may not want to replace or upgrade your GPS watch just to add the ability to play music. In that case, Mighty will set you back only $86. Another reason, which we really appreciate, is the physical buttons to change playlists, adjust volume, and skip tracks. Depending on your headphones, it can be a tricky sequence of clicks and swipes. And it’s all but impossible to dig through the menus on these smartwatches to change your tunes when you’re on the move.

Annoyances

Maybe I’m just spoiled by the quality and clarity of Alexa and Siri, but, damn, the computer-generated voice Mighty uses to announce your playlist names is just dreadful. It’s a husky female voice that drones on slooooowly. It sounds exactly like what I imagine Alexa would if I drowned an Amazon Echo in my toilet.

Jeff Dengate Runner-in-Chief Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner's World, guiding the brand's shoes and gear coverage.

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