This Bluetooth speaker is plenty loud with my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ in the shower. I keep the phone in one of the rooms nearby, and it hasn’t had any hiccups using it like this. I only briefly experimented with the FM radio mode, but the instructions are very minimal, I haven’t listened to FM in several years and not at all where I live now, so I have no idea what stations I could expect, so I gave up on the radio mode before giving it a full try. So far I’ve only tried the speaker three days in a row playing through parts of “The Witcher (Music from the Netflix Original Series) by Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli”, and it sounds great.
The suction cup on the back works great. I wet it before I stick it in the shower. If I temporarily put it on any other smooth, flat surface, I make sure the suction cup hangs over the edge slightly because the one time I didn’t, it stuck too well and was hard to remove. Where I place it in the shower, I can just slide the whole thing up to the edge of the shower surround to remove it easily.
It does seem to remember what volume you last had it set to, although it has no control over your phone’s master Bluetooth media volume level, and some phones automatically reduce that volume each time you connect via Bluetooth, but that’s not this Bluetooth speaker’s fault.
The first three days, I hadn’t detected any obvious distortion with everything cranked up to max, at least for using while showering purposes. The fourth day, I heard some distortion on one particular track of the aforementioned soundtrack.
The waterproofing has been very effective so far. The attached plug that protects the charging port seems quite robust for protecting it, although I’m a little afraid that I might accidentally tear it off at it’s “hinge” sometime, but that fear might not be very warranted. I don’t have usable finger nails so the plug was a challenge to pull out in order to charge, hence my fear that I might try too hard sometime and tear it off.
I’m disappointed about a few things. The bigger disappointments are:
1. The price seems a bit steep. I haven’t researched a ton what similar products cost and my experience with Bluetooth speakers is still minimal, so that’s just my gut reaction.
2. When you turn it on or plug it in to charge, the light comes on no matter how you had it set the last time you used it – it doesn’t remember how you had the light set on your previous use. If within view, I find the light distracting and annoying. When the light comes on while charging, I have to press the “TWS” button (the instructions don’t say what that stands for) many times to cycle through the light modes until the light turns off. When you merely turn the speaker on to use, it only takes two presses of the “TWS” button to turn the light off. I would rather have a minimal LED indicating when it’s charging, and when it’s full. I have no idea if the lights in any mode indicate a battery full or battery low. See #3 below.
3. Also regarding charging, the instructions say to charge it for five hours before the first use. I didn’t follow that strictly, however I noticed that my phone that I have paired with it indicates the alleged battery level of the speaker when it’s on. I say alleged because what it’s reported so far has been inconsistent. The 1st time I turned it on, it was 90%. The 2nd time it was 80%. After charging it an hour it said 90%, then after another hour it said 80%. All of this was before I actively used it for more than a minute’s test, and I turned it off between each battery check while it was charging. After each of the four days of use, it said 80%. As I use it and have more to report about the battery %, I’ll edit my review.
The smaller disappointments are:
A. It uses Micro-USB instead of USB-C. Especially at this price point, I feel it should have the more dependable USB-C instead. It’s a relatively small thing, but USB-C is at least four and a half years old now, more and more variety of devices use it – Android, wireless ear pods, even Macs and the one end of new iPhone chargers, and I can’t wait for Micro-USB to go away completely. At least it does come with a USB-A -> Micro-USB cable, and it’s longer than the ones that come with some accessories. I try to remember to check if a device uses USB-C or Micro-USB, but I forget sometimes.
B. I find it annoying that a voice announces when you turn it on, it’s in Bluetooth mode, and that it’s connected. This is in common with the only other Bluetooth speakers I have, which are much smaller, not waterproof, and were free to me from a company I bought furniture from. I’m not sure if any other way (lights) would be better, and it’s just a slight annoyance. I think the cat’s scared of it, too. 🙂
VERY small point:
1a. Even though the charging port is so well protected from moisture with the built-in cap for it, I tend to want to rotate the speaker so that the port is at the very bottom. Rotated like this, the power button is to the left of the very top. I think it just barely bothers the OCD in me.
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