ReviewedByPhil

Buy it at Amazon: Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Compact, clear/bright sound, fully featured waterproof travel speaker.

The Bluetooth speaker comes with a microUSB charging cable, male-to-male audio cable, and instruction manual. The speaker is a compact cylinder with a fabric wrapped grill exterior and rubberized top and bottom rims. Inside are two 6W drivers and dual passive radiators located on the top and bottom. It's got a chunky knit wrist strap loop, and below that you'll find a rubber door to protects the USB charging port, AUX-in port, status LED, SD card slot, and pinhole reset. While this speaker has a waterproof rating of IPX6, and can get wet but not fully submerged, it is only water resistant if the rubber door remains closed. When charging, the LED indicator will be orange and turns off when the battery is fully charged. The unit will take about 4 hours to charge and lasts up to 6 hours of continuous playback at 70% volume.

On the opposite side from the ports are the playback controls: power/mode key, plus and minus for volume and track navigation, and play/pause button. There are 4 audio source modes for the speaker: Bluetooth, FM radio, TF card, and Aux-In. Switching between modes is performed by short pressing the power key. In all modes, the sound from the speaker is clear and bright with boosted high frequencies that add a touch of extra sibilance in the upper ranges. The volume on this speaker can get decently loud too without much distortion creeping into the audio. The bass ranges are a bit lacking in presence, but despite this bass beats are generally tight and punchy. What impressed me was the clarity and sound quality from the FM radio mode. I was expecting the grainy muffled audio that you sometimes get from portable radios, but when used in areas witha strong signal like outdoors or near a window, the stations it picked up were crystal clear and sounded CD quality. Of course, if the signal is not so good, there's plenty of static and the speaker is a bit picky when it comes to location, orientation, and what objects are nearby that might amplify the signal (oftentimes, holding my hand above the speaker gave the signal enough boost for clear audio, but I'm not going ot hover my hand over it constantly just to listen to NPR). In radio mode, you scan for local radio stations by pressing and holding the play/pause button and it'll store any decently strong signals it encounters. After the speaker has found all available stations you scroll through them the same way you'd skip tracks in a playlist, by short pressing the plus and minus buttons. You cannot, however, choose which stations to save and which to discard. In all modes, volume can be adjusted by long pressing the plus and minus keys.

One cool feature of this speaker is if you have a two of them, you can pair them together for true stereo playback with one playing the left audio channel and the other playing the right channel, but unfortunately I don't have a second unit with which to try out this feature. I have seen this feature on other speakers and have liked having that capability, but I can't vouch for the ease of setup or connection quality using the Sbode M350s from my own experience. The speaker also supports wireless calling when connected to a phone over Bluetooth and call quality is clear without too much lag. Overall, this compact speaker has a lot of features and surprisingly good audio performance packed into its small frame. Its weatherproof and durable design makes it great for travel, using outdoors, or even in the shower. Just keep in mind that it does not sound as awesome when it is waterlogged, just FYI!

Buy it at Amazon: Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker [Affiliate Link]

Buy it at Amazon: Sunrise Simulation Alarm Clock [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Easy to setup, helps w/gradual waking, a good reading light, loud alarm.

You'll receive the clock, a 4 ft microUSB charging cable, a power adapter, and an instruction manual. The clock is made of a plastic housing with translucent frosted front panel. The diameter of the clock/light is about 6.75". There are two ways to power the clock. You can use 3 AAA batteries, which are not included, or plug the unit into the wall with the USB cable and adapter. If you use both the batteries and the wired plug, the batteries serve as backup power if the clock is unplugged or during a power outage to save the time and settings.

There are buttons to control the brightness of the LCD, the light ring on the face for a nighttime or reading light, and volume of the alarm/FM radio. You can even turn the time display off if you need it really dark at night to sleep. The clock can display both 12-hour and 24-hour military time format. There are 6 "tunes" you can set for the alarm that include nature sounds like birds chirping, ocean wave, and several melodic songs (with nature sounds thrown in for good measure). There's also a standard beeping tone and a setting for the FM radio as the ringer. The light on the front also can be set to a fading rainbow or a fixed color.

The keys on the front are touch sensitive and the instruction manual is pretty good at walking you through the setup process which only takes a few minutes. To two interesting features on this alarm clock are the sunrise and sunset simulations. For sunrise simulation, the light on the face starts off dim 30 minutes before your alarm is set to ring. It then gradually brightens up to full brightness until your alarm goes off. This simulates how sunlight would gradually lift you out of sleep rather than a blaring alarm going off suddenly in the dark. This gentle waking is supposed to allow you to wake up more refreshed and well-rested. The sunset mode is the opposite. Provide the clock with a sunset time and it'll illuminate 30 minutes before your selected time at full brightness and ramp down until it goes off 30 minutes later. It's supposed to help you wind down and relax before bed.

The FM radio is a nice feature because if can be set as the alarm or you can just listen to it like normal. You can't choose the station band though and you have to rely on the auto-scan to find your facorite stations and put them in the presets. I don't know what the max number of stations is but so far it's saved up to 23 stations without a problem. Note that the time is not displayed while in radio mode. If you set the alarm to play the radio, it'll ring with the last station that you listened to. You can snooze the alarm for 5 minutes by tapping the snooze key in the middle of the light. To stop the alarm altogether, press any other key, and to turn off the wake up light, tap and hold the sun icon.

Overall, this alarm functions well and waking up to the light really does seem to be less stressful than being pulled out of sleep all of a sudden by loud sounds. The speaker isn't the highest quality, but it's not really designed for hi-def playback. The lowest volume is also quite loud in my opinion, but I suppose that's the purpose of an alarm clock, so you hear it. I like that the clock has a light and radio alarm function, something a lot of battery operated clocks no longer support. It's also great that the charging cable is a standard microUSB, so it's easy to replace.

Buy it at Amazon: Sunrise Simulation Alarm Clock [Affiliate Link]

Buy it at Amazon: AceKool Bluetooth FM Transmitter and Magnet Mount [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Clear audio, fast charging w/strong magnet mount, easy to install, setup, and use.