Customer Reviews

Tunebug SH-0000-01 Shake Portable Surface Sound Speaker - Retail Packaging - White

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Purchased Tunebug as a way to listen to music while riding my bike. I was amazed at the ability to ride, hear music, engage in conversation with others riding bikes without sweaty earbuds or wires to manage.

The Shake includes a neoprene mount for a vented bike helmet and a three strap mount with velcro like fasteners for a skateboard, snowboard or in our case equestrian helmet. I'm using the neoprene mount on a bike helmet while my wife uses the three strap mount for her horse helmet.

Affixing the straps is relatively easy, however you should play with the placement on the helmet for the best sound. About 2/3 of way from the front to back of the helmets in the middle seemed to sound best. We bought two Shakes - paired one with an iPhone and the other with a Blackberry. Both worked well, easy pairing and streaming music begins automatically if you have the iPhone (or iPod Touch) paired. I noticed the the iPhone had better sound - mostly because of the EQ feature of the iPod functionality, while the Blackberry required some tweeking of it's own EQ settings before I was able to hear better bass response.

Volume was very good and in fact had to turn the volume down a few times depending on the song. If you have an iPod, soundcheck on is a good option.

Riding uphill the music allowed me to motivate myself by rocking to some good tunes. Downhill riding about 35 MPH, you could hear wind noise, however driving a convertible as you increase speed requires you to turn up the radio in the car, so it was expected. I really didn't want to take my hand off the handlebars to increase the volume while traveling 35 MPH downhill.

As for my wife on horseback, she loves it. Allows her to trail ride, work the horses and enjoy the outdoors even more. The music seemed to have a calming effect as well on the horses. She also listens to "books on tape" or lessons that have been turned into MP3's on iTunes. She's the main reason why I had to buy a 2nd Shake as mine went missing.

The Shake also works well as a portable speaker by placing it on any flat hollow surface - cooler, garbage can, hood of car, even leaving it on top of a helmet with the volume all the way up allows you to share your music with others when you're hanging out after a ride. It's quite a conversation piece.

Overall we're very pleased with the purchase of Shake. It does take some fine tuning with the placement of the helmet mount to get the best sound, however there's no cord management, no sweaty, dusty earbuds to clean off and best of all you can hear all of the things around you. Headbud is good term to describe it as the music literally surrounds your head.

I have a 2-mile daily bicycle commute that gets a bit boring, so I was excited to receive the Tunebug Shake as a birthday present. Unfortunately, I experienced the same problems - plus some - as Richard, another reviewer.

First, the sound quality. I watched the video on the Tunebug website for helmet positioning and did the same. I also tried a variety of other placements, as well as trying different strap tightnesses. The sound quality is great - in my 8' ceiling garage. As soon as I'm out on the road with wind in my ears and cars going by, it fades to so quiet that it's hard to hear. If I'm listening to a song I know, I can follow along fine, but new songs are essentially incomprehensible. I tried listening to a podcast for about 10 seconds before I gave up - understanding only every 5th word doesn't make for a good listening experience. Turning the volume up, unfortunately, is no cure. When the volume is at 100%, it sounds like a badly-tuned radio, full of static.

Second, the spotty Bluetooth. The human body is comprised mainly of water, which absorbs radiation, including Bluetooth. So it's not really that surprising that the signal from my pants pocket to the top of my head - basically the widest cross-section of the body possible - would not work so well. It's particularly irritating when pedaling - at the top of the stroke, my leg is close enough to my head for some audio, but when I push down, I get a drop out. Tunebug includes an audio cable, which I attempted to use, only to quickly discover that it's much too short to run from the top of my head to my pocket. I guess they expect only shorter people to use this cable, or people who keep their phones in a breast pocket.

Third, the battery. This is what pushed me over the edge to return the product. My ride to work takes 15 minutes. The ride back, 10. So I think I used the thing for a grand total of 45 minutes. It sat inside for a couple of days when it was too hot for the bike, but it wasn't on. Nonetheless, the battery died after about 30 seconds of audio. If it hadn't taken 6 hours to charge to begin with, I suppose I wouldn't mind so much.

Last, the controls. They're capacitive, not real, buttons. Which, again, makes some sense - you don't want the strap pushing the buttons on top of your helmet - but irritatingly, every time you try to move the device around on the helmet or adjust it, you end up either turning it on or turning it off by having your hand near it. It's just one more thing they apparently didn't think through very well.

Overall, I'm really disappointed. I had hoped to enjoy podcasts, or at least music, on my way to work while keeping my ears free for music. Like Richard, I'll have to keep looking.

I commute to work on the streets of New York City, so I need to keep my ears free to stay on top of what's going on around me. But I also do some freelance music writing, so I have to listen to a lot of music on a regular basis. Fortunately, the Tunebug Shake provides a great solution to my problem. The device pairs easily with my Droid, and plays music in a way that is safe and not distracting for my commute. The volume is more than adequate, and the bluetooth works great (no skips or hiccups or whatever.)

I really love this little device, but in the interest of full disclosure, here are a couple of caveats. It won't sound as lush or full as earbuds or headphones. It sounds like a pretty good ipod speaker dock that is floating on top of your head, but with a more surround sound feel. Also, the buttons are super sensitive, to make it easy to adjust volume up or down on the road. It does make it touchy to handle when you are charging it or whatever.

Other than those two minor quibbles, the device is just really cool to hold or look at, does exactly what I need for it to do, and works without glitches.

The Tune bug shake was a lot better than expected! I'll talk about it's features.

4/5

Sound quality
very very good. Much better than expected! when i turned it on without attaching the helmet, the sound was not too loud. HOWEVER, when you attach it to the helmet, the sound vibrants the helmet and the volume is very loud. I was very satisfied with what I could hear.

Bluetooth
Easy to connect. I connected it to my HTC HD7 phone and the sound was very good. I kept the phone in my breast pocket when snowboarding. Unfortunately I haven't tested the range, but from my head to my breast pocket, the sound was crystal clear.

Battery life
First time use was 5 hours flat. I tested it. The second time was just the same. So far, I was impressed with the life. On the website it claimed it can do 5 hours. I am usually a skeptical buyer so i expected about 3. We will see how long it will last for 5 hrs each fully charged usage.

Ergonomics
The touch sensitive buttons work extremely well if you don't have any gloves on. If you have, say snowboard gloves (nice and thick) it's harder to press the buttons. I have to fiddle on my head for the right button. Kind of an inconvenience, but forgiven.

The Gecko mount and velcro
I first tried the velcro attachment to no avail. It was hard, mainly because my helmet vents were very small. I'm sure on a bike helmet there would be no problem. However, the velcro strap in itself was very disappointing. The quality of the velcro was very poor. Strings/threading was coming off like holiday wrapping. Straight out of the box! I don't know how well it would last if used. Think about it, a 0.50 cent velcro strap keeps your 100.00 tunebug in place? I don't think so.

The gecko mount performed a lot better than expected. After following the easy instructions, the gecko mount was very very good. it kept the tunebug in place when i snowboard. the easy plastic notches keep the sound nice and clear, even when I blast down the mountain.

One thing about the mount is that i wish it was metal, or a stronger material than plastic. I am afraid that after constant use, the plastic will give up soon, leaving the gecko mount useless.

Durability and waterproofness:
When i was boarding, i caught an edge and flipped at least two times. The tunebug played on and was still attached to my head. I am happy with that.
Another time during snowboard backcountry, my body was facing the mountain and i caught an edge. I fell backwards and downwards the mountain and the tunebug was still attached. These two experiences may help you get an idea of its durability and water proofness.

Socially
I can hear my friends talking to me while still listening to music. Usually during snowboarding, you have to take out your headphone or pause the music to listening and converse with your friends. Usually at the end of the day with headphones, my ears are sore because of headphones pressure on my ears. With the tune bug, they stay as comfortable all day long. Also, my friends can hear the music emitting from my head. Though I receive the best sound quality, we all can get our dance on the chair lifts.

Overall

I am very pleased with the tunebug so far.I expect it will last for a few years before the lithium battery is dead. I hope the gecko mount will last as well.

Pros:
-good sound quality
-excellent connectivity
-waterproofness
-tunebug's durability and stability

Cons:
-If they can make a HTC HD7 with 3G connectivity last for 15 hours, the can improve a battery life with the tunebug. 5 hours is impressive, but 10-12 hours would be better
-the durability of the gecko mount and velcro strap (needs improvement for the long run)
-I wish there was a pause/start option. The tunebug can only turn off the whole tunebug or turn it on. It isn't the same.
-I wish there was a skip-track option (not too necessary, but people would demand it)
-Much more room for innovation. The tunebug is great, but it can be much much better

If anybody has questions or needs something to evaluate, let me know!

happy shopping!

I purchased the Tunebug Shake to use on my bike commute. I'm an early adopter type and was ready to take a pricey gamble on the shake. Over a c-note for a single purpose piece of gear is a bit splurgy, but I gave it a try.

Unfortunately, the results were quite disappointing. I'm not sure if I got a bad unit or if the results are typical of the tech.

First, I charged the device using the included USB cable plugged into my USB wall adapter (cable included, wall wort not). Once that was done, I easily paired the Shake with my iPhone 4. It was simple and I was encouraged. Using the strap, I attached the Shake to my helmet (Trek Interval). I tried various postions, but the sound quality was never great. I certainly could hear the music, but it was similar to listening to a tranisistor radio. The sound was muddy and raising the volume quickly led to distortion.

The biggest issue was yet to come...

When I tried to use the Tunebug Shake while on my bicycle, the sound was intermittent. I can only guess this was caused by the Bluetooth dropping out as it seemed to happen in rhythm with my pedaling. I don't regularly use Bluetooth ad2p, so it is possible this is a flaw with the iPhone 4, but I've not heard anything about this issue.

I returned the Shake and my search for safe music on the bike continues...

Overall I rate this as a 2. Mainly because of battery life, battery recharge time, and bluetooth. I am not a fine music person so the music quality to me, was fine and it was plenty loud enough.

However when it came to the battery it lost all its luster. Takes way to long to recharge and the charge runs out in 1.5 hrs. It also does not hold a charge overnight. So to get max time you have to take it right off the charger.

The bluetooth would loose connection if you move your head around very much, results in a lot of skips in the music.

So for short rides this will work fine if you remember to have it charged right up to the time you leave and hold your head still. But for a serious cyclist forget about it.

I was hesitant to purchase this based on the reviews here but I decided to go ahead and try it. My results were absolutely great but YMMV.

I am using this on a daily bike commute of 32 miles round-trip. I'm riding a road bike on trails and expressways so I get a pretty good mix of noise/conditions. I have the TuneBug paired with an iPhone 4 which is in a bike mount on the stem of my bike. I haven't experienced any bluetooth issues and so far battery life is great. I will update in a week or two when I have had more time to test battery life.

Volume level is more than adequate for road riding. I set the level on the TuneBug to 1 below max. I turned it all the way up and then down 1. I do the rest of my adjustments from the phone itself. Today I had to turn it down a bit and will probably turn it down a bit more for my next ride. The music was clear and not distorted at all. It was wonderful to enjoy my music while still being able to hear traffic. I only had the audio wash out twice due to a very loud vehicle along-side and in those cases I often find even headphones to be lacking (I've only ever tried headphones that allow background noise through when biking). There was one song I was listening to that starts off very quietly that was a tad hard to hear but I could have easily increased the volume for that.

The most important thing is the pay attention to mounting. The TuneBug needs a good, solid contact with the helmet and the audio quality/levels to vary as you move it around a bit. I am using the nylon strap on a road helmet and it is easy to install and plenty secure.

I highly recommend this for long bike commutes if you want to safely enjoy some music on the way. Do take the time to play with the mounting at home before you head out on the road with it.

I love the Tunebug Shake. It is really nice to be able to hear music and all the things around me like cars, other cyclists and dogs. The sound quality is remarkably good. The battery time is really about 1.5 hours on a full charge. I believe I read it was supposed to be 5. No way that is right.

I find that I have to keep my Ipod on a armband strap because I carry my cell phone in a back pocket on my jersey. Even with Blue tooth disabled on my phone, if they are that close together the music cuts out every 20 seconds or so.

The mounting to my cycling helmet was challenging but not impossible. The instructions included are pretty terrible but you can figure it out with some tinkering.

The overall value is great and the increased safety is priceless.

I did a LOT of research about this item before ordering it for my boyfriend's birthday. I thought it would be a pretty cool gadget for a guy who has all the gadgets out there and rides his bike for exercise everyday. I was looking for bicycle speaker systems and found nothing like this! I was concerned about the mix reviews about it not executing as well in terms of sound quality, battery life etc. ANYWAYS...I took a chance and ordered it. I am writing this review now that he has got to use it for a while and actually experienced the whole thing outside on his regular bike routine. This is what he told me: sound is great, sounds loud enough if needed, the attachment strip holds it perfectly fine, battery life gives him about 4 hours (he fully charged it as soon as he opened the box), his phone (android) works great over bluetooth with it, yes buttons are a bit sensitive but doesn't bother him. The Tunebug does what it's supposed to do. Overall he is in love with this new thingy that he didn't even know existed. It turned out to be the perfect gift and I would highly recommend it as it is unique and looks as cool as it is.

I just purchased my Shake and have taken it out for two bicycle rides. The sound was reasonably good for my purposes--listening to Podcasts. I was impressed by how unaffected it was by wind-noise compared to the many types of headphones I've tried.

But on both rides, the fully charged unit died after about 30 mins. The Tunebug website states that it should last "...About 5 hours depending on volume, audio source, and content being played through the Vibe."

I phoned their technical support number (not toll-free) three times, and each time got a generic recorded message saying "The person you have dialed can't take your call now...". Seems like a very rinky-dink outfit.

I did get a response from to an email inquiry to Tunebug support within 2 hours, but the response didn't make me very happy. Along with some suggestions to loosen the strap that attaches it to your helmet, he concluded with the following:

"With normal setting, you should be able to get about 1.5 to 1.45 hours before having to recharge."

Q. So why does your website say 5 hours?
A. "Some idiot came up with that number in our early marketing which was hired to help us get product to market."

So if you can live with a speaker that lasts 1.5 to 1.45 hours on a 3 hour charge, this one's for you.