£19.99 via Kitsound.co.uk
With the summer in full swing people will be going on days out and off on holiday and what a better than having some music by the poolside. We had the chance to review the Kitsound Hive2O Waterproof speaker.
I have reviewed quite a few different Bluetooth speakers from Kitsound so I was looking forward to testing this speaker. It arrived with perfect timing as I was heading for a week in Italy for my holiday.
Kitsound have mentioned this speaker has the following features:
The speaker only costs £19.99 so it falls into the budget range of Bluetooth speakers and on first impressions, it’s not bad its made of plastic with a soft touch rubber design and a driver on the top covered by the speaker grill. The bottom of the speaker you have the power button/pairing covered with a rubber base. On the sides, you have one side that has a micro USB port covered with a rubber cover and on the other side also covered with a rubber cover is a post for a 3.5 Aux port if you wanted to hardwire this speaker.
Now as mentioned I took this on holiday once I took this out of the packing and gave it a full charge that took 4 hours to do so. I used this speaker over the whole week I was in Italy and if am totally honest I was a bit disappointed with some parts of this speaker.
Kitsound tells you this speaker is waterproof and testing it they are right it is waterproof I put this speaker in the pool and took it out and it worked fine once out of the water. However, Kitsound state this speaker would be perfect for that poolside chill time and when I placed the speaker on the side of the pool when ever water got under the speaker it simply cut out. Not what I was expecting from a speaker that makes claims it would be ideal for this kind of use.
Another issue with this speaker is the battery life on the packaging it says you get 8 hours of playtime I call tell you for a fact you do not get 8 hours we got 4 hours battery life at best. Kitsound needs to look into this as you don’t want to take this to the beach for it to only run out of battery midway into the day.
I also do not like the fact this speaker does not have any controls everything has to be done via your phone. You do however get a Bluetooth range of 10 meters if you just wanted to listen to an album. I was listening to the new Pink album which is great by the way.
Sound wise I can’t fault kitsound the speaker when powered sounds great it got a really nice range with lots of detail and even a low bass when required. I expect this was due to the passive bass radiator used. Pump up the volume and you might expect is to be a little tinny but not from kitsound it sounds great.
The fact you can pair this speaker to another and create a stereo pairing is great for those who want to have a couple in different areas of the garden. Size wise its very portable as the speaker its easy to pick up ( Size: H 91mm x W 76mm x D 73mm) meaning you can pop it in your bag and off you go.
At only £19.99 its a good speaker for having by the beach or poolside as long as you keep it away from the water as I find the waterproofing a bit questionable. It did still work after you took it out of the water but to have it on the side of the pool where water can get to it just made it cut out. I also found the fact I could not get 8 hours of playback a bit disappointing.
However, if your looking for a speaker that offers 5 watts of sound and don’t mind controlling the sound and track selection all via your phone it will do its job and at only £19.99 if you lost it I would not be to stressed due to its low price.
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