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If you are streaming most music to this speaker, it will work fine. Anything with intermetant pauses like audiobooks however, will be a nightmare. Why? I looked into it and the answer is complicated.
The bluetooth protocol has a feature where when streaming audio, the channel will "open" and "close" depending on whether or not sound is coming in. It makes sense because if your phone is connected but not actually spitting out any sound, why bother putting power into the actual sound-making part of the speakers? Just have the receiver be powered and wait for sound. Then once it detects "oh hey, I'm getting sounds. Time to actually start making noise" it opens and the speakers power up. The channel stays up until a certain amount of silence and then it goes back to sleep. The threshold for how much sound is required for it to go "open" and how much silence it takes to "close" again are both properties set by the manufacturer of the speaker. Not the transmitter, the receiver.
In an effort to squeeze every bit of battery life out of this thing that they could, Amazon made the noise threshold high and the shutoff time small. That means it spends less time "open" due to false alarms that music was playing or extra silence after you're done streaming. In theory the result is more battery life as long as you are using it to stream continuous sounds.
Here's the problem. If your music has spots of silence, or you're listening to an audiobook, these two things combine to constantly open and close the channel mid-stream. The opening is not instant, and so the first half second or so of the sound after the silence is cut off. With audiobooks, pauses are fairly frequent. That means INFURITIATINGLY, the beginning of nearly every sentence is cut off. Some small quips fall through the cracks entirely, and now the character in my book who has lots of one word replies is relegated to silence. Which was confusing before I figured out the problem.
I want to be clear, this is not a feature inherent to all bluetooth technology in general. I have other bluetooth devices that do not do this. It is the manufacturer settings on this speaker specifically that do this. There are other culprits like car bluetooth audio as well, but most devices do not have this problem. Unless they're cheap and want to pump up their battery life via software without upgrading the hardware itself.
For a lot of people, this will be a non-issue. This design decision will improve the battery life for like 95% of users, but for some specific users it will make it utterly unusable. I suspect this is a trade Amazon is happy to make, and I don't blame them at all for doing it.
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From the manufacturer
Speaker & Cable Bundle
2-piece bundle that includes a wireless 2.1 Bluetooth speaker and 3.5mm male-to-male stereo audio Aux cable.
33-Foot Wireless Range
Portable Bluetooth speaker with 33-foot wireless range and 2 internal 2.5-watt speakers for streaming music, podcasts, and more from your device.
Connect a Variety of Devices
Included cable connects your smartphone, MP3 player, or tablet to a car stereo or portable speakers. Works with any 3.5mm audio jack or AUX-in port.
3.5mm Jack & Cable
3.5mm aux-in jack for connecting non-Bluetooth audio devices and male-to-male stereo audio cable for transmitting audio in stereo format.
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Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2018
Color: BlackStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2017
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Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017
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Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017
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Top reviews from other countries
Fernando Cobos
Invierte en algo mejor. En el metro o el mercado encuentras cosas iguales a menor precio.
Reviewed in Mexico on January 24, 2019Color: RedStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
Invierte en algo mejor. En el metro o el mercado encuentras cosas iguales a menor precio.
Reviewed in Mexico on January 24, 2019
Imagina que escuchas un teléfono o laptop cualquiera y le subes el volumen a doble o triple del máximo permitido. Bueno, eso eso es lo que obtienes con esta bocina, mas volumen pero no calidad. Algunos dirán que por el precio no debes esperar mucho, pero es que, te vas al metro o aun mercado y encuentras bocinas que suenen igual (o incluso mejor) a menor precio. Recomendaría invertir en algo un poco mejor.Reviewed in Mexico on January 24, 2019
Lo único que puedo destacar es la autonomía de su batería, no mienten, todo el día a volumen moderado sin problemas. Y no me atrevo a dudar de su vida útil, otros productos de AmazonBasics jamas me han fallado en ese sentido, de muerte temprana de la batería o algo así.
También la conexión bluetooth es muy estable y se enlaza sin problemas.
Aun así no me llena, ya estoy tramitando la devolución.
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Hector Hdez
INCREÍBLEMENTE ASOMBROSA!!!
Reviewed in Mexico on September 12, 2018Color: BlackStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
Saf123
would recommend to others too
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2021Color: BlackStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
Anoop Mohan
Happy with the performance
Reviewed in India on August 25, 2017Color: BlackStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
Davies
Good sound + Robust + Good Battery life
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2018Color: BlackStyle: SingleVerified Purchase
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