Why bother having a small and tidy wireless speaker if you aren't actually going to travel with it? Perfect for carrying in bags and clipping onto backpacks, portable Bluetooth speakers are great for taking your tunes wherever you go, and we've found one that will let you go all the way to the pool. We review the Polk BOOM Swimmer Bluetooth Speaker.
If we're being honest (and we rarely aren't) Polk have missed a trick with this one by not naming it the BOOM Piggy Bluetooth Speaker, because check out that tail. The tail is used to wrap around just about anything and hold the speaker in position. If you want to mount it on railings, no bother; if you want to strap it to to your bag, easy.
But here's one: if you wanted to attach it to the kids paddling pool so they can listen to their favourite (annoying) songs, definitely no bother. The Polk BOOM Swimmer Bluetooth Speaker can withstand a three feet depth submersion for up to half an hour. If it can do that, we're guessing it's completely fine with a bit of rain and the kids splashing about.
It is also shock and dust proof, so even if you are planning on taking it somewhere dry, you still know it will stand up to a bit of rough handling. Or, you know, in the shower as well, thanks to the suction cup attachment that it also ships with. The Polk BOOM Swimmer Bluetooth Speaker has a lot of versatility, and thanks to the plain yet bright styles, it could fit in in most situations - and for a long time, too. The built-in battery has a life of up to eight hours, with only a two hour charge time.
In use we found it perfect for absently carrying around. It's light enough that you'll be confident the twisty tail is holding it securely to whatever you wrapped it around, and also that should you bump or ding it, it'll switch on and stream every time with no issues.
So, the sounds... well, the unit as been designed to give you the ability to link one with another to create stereo sounds. That's great, but with only one to test we can report only on what we heard from a single unit. Unfortunately we'd hardly call the sound quality 'room-filling', and clearly the Polk BOOM Swimmer's 2.4W speaker has been built to deliver close-up sound.
Which, once set up near to the listener, it did quite well. There is just the one driver, so the sound will never be as immersive or as rich as stereo, but the quality was crisp and clear, and highs and vocals were handled well. Bass is somewhat lacking from it, although placing it on a solid surface with the suction cup helped to improve the resonance. That said, having this with you for a picnic, or indeed a lengthy hike or camping trip, would be a God-send.
A really useful mounting system, coupled with a decent noise-maker, makes the Polk BOOM Swimmer Bluetooth Speaker a worthy consideration.
£49.99
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