The promotion of the BRAVEN Ready Pro speaker states: Man-made and nature-tested, this is a waterproof Bluetooth speaker that isn’t afraid to get a little (or a lot) dirty.
The speaker is rated IP68 waterproof. This means: “IP68 is deemed fit enough to withstand dust, dirt and sand, and is resistant to submersion up to a maximum depth of 1.5m underwater for up to 30 minutes.”
Other features include:
- 14-hour playtime form rechargeable 2600mAh battery bank
- Bluetooth pairing
- TrueWireless™ Technology for a “powerful, immersive left and right stereo experience”
- Shockproof
- Voice control
- Flashlight
- Action mount, which is compatible with most of GoPro’s existing ecosystem
- USB output port
- Noise-cancelling speakerphone that makes crystal-clear calls
- Supports use of voice control from Siri, Google Voice or other assistants.
On test: BRAVEN Ready Pro speaker
I have tested a few Braven speakers and I have been generally impressed. The sound is good for these relatively small speakers and they boast lots of features that make them great for outdoors use, if you should so choose.
This is the largest Braven speaker that I have reviewed. But it is still small enough to be easily portable. I can pick it up in one hand.
You can choose to rest it on its base, carry it with a handy strap or affix it to a mount, similar to how you would affix a GoPro. To be honest, I have no idea why you would want to do this!
Perhaps I am a bit old for cycling or skiing around with a speaker blaring music, apart from the fact that this is quite a large item to be attaching to a bike or, hmmm, a helmet?! Then again, I know there are vehicles in some countries that are fitted with an action mount on the outside so, perhaps, if you are looking for a spontaneous outdoors disco or music festival then the removable mount attachment might be just the very thing. It’s just not something I will ever use.
Aside from this, the speaker does sit very nicely on a flat surface and has good no-grip feet.
The speaker easily pairs with my iPhone. Then all you need to do is turn on whatever music app you use. There is a Braven app that can be used on your phone. This is basically the same as playing music through Amazon or whatever app you use.
The speaker fills with music. The sound is pretty good. We are not talking the highest spec of sound here but for a price of around £107 it is pretty good.
The bass is fine. At higher volumes the sound becomes a bit fuzzy at the edges and slightly tinny. But, for an outdoors use speaker that can travel anywhere, it’s really pretty good.
You get that? It’s pretty good sound quality.
I like that the speaker is very robust. It’s built of a durable-looking material and copes with drops and knocks. I did drop it and bang it around and it never skipped a beat.
I submerged the speaker in water.
It is also waterproof because I dared to place it in a bowl of water! After submersion it sounded a bit fuzzy for a while but then it dried out (in a few minutes) and sounded like it did before.
The on/off buttons and volume controls are very difficult to see in almost any light. Why not make the symbols a different colour so they can be easily read?
I found the voice call feature was fine from my end but when I was on the phone to HubbyG he complained it echoed.
It’s useful to be able to recharge, for example, a smartphone from the in-built USB port and the battery really does last a long time when playing music. It could easily be 14 hours but I didn’t time it all. I think the portable nature of this speaker is excellent.
I have no idea how to switch on the flash light. Apparently it is 500 lumens but where is the on-off for this? I don’t like long and complicated instructions but the info that came with the speaker was very basic. I found an instructions pdf on-line. This helped with other aspects of the speaker but it still didn’t show me how to turn on the flashlight. Does anyone else know how to do this?! It could be that I have missed something because I can see where the bulb is at the front of the speaker!
For more info see Braven Ready Pro speaker.