Halo Sport 2 headphones want to improve athletic performance with new smarts

The original Halo Sport used neuropriming to get athletes and musicians ready to learn better. While it was a unique idea and has found its way into industries like cycling and the military, it cost $699 for the average person to get their hands on a pair.

Announced at CES 2019, the Halo Sport 2 slashes the price of the wearable to a much more reasonable $399, bringing it line with high-end headphones from the likes of Sony, Bose and Beats.

Hands on: Halo Sport 2 review

It's also undergone a redesign, getting a more industrial look with exposed adjusters and some greenish-blue accents for flair. It looks much more unique than the Halo Sport, which looked like a pair of customized Beats.

Part of that redesign is a new priming layer. Instead of connecting three priming layers to the underside of the strap, there's just one that you snap in, allowing users to setup and use the Halo Sport 2 with less hassle than the original.

To gain some parity on more traditional headphones, there's now Bluetooth audio support. Previously, you needed a wire to listen to music. But now you can listen to your music wirelessly as you neuroprime for your activity.

Read this: How Halo will tailor its pro athlete wearable for regular folks

The Halo Sport app is also getting an upgrade, adding tracking, reminders and nebulous "new content". We're not sure what that means just yet, but it could mean insights or recommendations.

Halo is going big on accessibility with the Halo Sport 2 as it found out that people started using the original for things other than hardcore fitness - like music or gaming.

Halo Sport 2 is available for pre-order now on Halo's site, and there's a special pre-order price of $299. It'll start shipping in early April.