When it comes to portable outdoor Bluetooth speakers there’s no shortage of choice, especially in today’s crowded tech marketplace. Not all models are created equally, however — Here are a number of considerations you’ll want to weigh if you’re planning on sharing your tunes with Mother Nature.
Design
How will you be using your speaker? If you’d like to leave it, say, in the backyard to provide regular background music during a grilling session, big box stores like Home Depot sell a number of cleverly disguised offerings posing as various coloured rocks, or spotlights. Some can even be partially buried in the ground for a sleeker appearance.
Fancy bringing the party to the campsite instead? Kill two birds with one stone by investing in a unit that serves multiple purposes, like the Buckshot Pro by adventure electronics specialist Outdoor Tech. Not only does it pump out a surprising amount of bass from the diminutive frame, but a flashlight is built in to help navigate the wilderness after dark.
Durability
Seeing as how weather is unpredictable in, well, most places not called California or Hawaii — or swimming is on your list of favourite activities — you’ll want to make sure the speaker can withstand the elements. This where the IPX rating comes in, short for Ingress Protection, measuring how resistant to water and dust a device is.
Ranging from 0 to eight, the former offers no protection while the latter is rated for use in water more than a metre in depth. For the beach, look for an example bearing a rating of at least IPX5, which protects against streams of water.
Here’s a good read about IPX ratings, including what they mean and why they’re important.
Battery life
Nothing is worse than jamming to a favourite song under the sun and then suddenly, silence. Check for the battery mAh under the specifications — the higher the number, the larger the capacity and thus the longer listening sessions will last between charging. The Outdoor Tech Turtle Shell 3.0, for instance, has an onboard 3600 mAh battery boasting a playtime of approximately 20 hours.
Extra features
Your cellphone does many different things, so why shouldn’t your portable speaker? Like the Buckshot Pro that doubles as a flashlight, other models on the market feature things like a microphone for taking calls, colourful LED lighting to turn any area into a disco, and power bank functionality to juice up digital USB gadgets on the go.
Connectivity
Most people are familiar with the pain of trying to pair two stubborn Bluetooth devices and refusing to cooperate. Making things far easier are speakers that have NFC (Near Field Communications) functionality, which is the same technology used by tap-to-pay systems. Simply putting one next to a similarly NFC-enabled smartphone or tablet will connect the two instantaneously.
There you have it, 5 things to consider before picking up your next outdoor portable speaker for that camping trip, backyard cookout, or road trip.
