Soundcore Flare Portable Bluetooth 360° Speaker
by Daniel Smith
What a nice product. What a surprise. I am a big Sonos user - so everything in terms of streaming music seemingly gets compared to one of the Sonos products. Now I know this is a bluetooth portable speaker - and the Sonos is not - so let’s just leave that alone.
This is another free product from Anker via their PowerUser program. I have reviewed quite a few of their wireless chargers - but never one of their bluetooth speakers. Soundcore is Anker’s audio brand and while they sell budget friendly offerings - they are still pretty good. I played a range of songs through this speaker - and while it won’t win any awards from the audiophile world it is great at what it is - something I would take to the beach with me and not worry about it getting soaked.
The speaker is decent size, easy to set up, and waterproof (IPX7.) I have yet to test it’s waterproof claim, but I will. The interesting (yet not totally needed feature for me) is the ambient LED lighting. It’s cool - and will make for some fun conversations if this thing made its debut at a party - but that is it.
Anker is also touting a mobile app for tuning this speaker. I haven’t put too much time in to playing with the app - but it seemed pretty basic. You can control the LED light and also set different playback EQ modes.
All in all - this a fine speaker for its price point.