![]() The grumbles from my partner downstairs confirmed that suspicion. The first thing I noticed when I powered it up was that a 20W speaker seemed pretty loud in a quiet house. Pairing mode was activated simply by holding down the Bluetooth button for a second, and was near-instantaneous from both laptop and phone. The Flare 2 arrived in a colorful box containing the speaker, a two-foot charging cable, and a basic instruction manual. It can also pause a track or turn the speaker off entirely, handy if you’re not standing nearby. ![]() An accompanying iOS and Android app, compatible with most recent Soundcore speakers, lets you control things like EQ, volume, and light pattern. The internal battery gives up to 12 hours of music playback and takes around 3.5 hours to fully recharge from flat. As I get along with my neighbors and would prefer to keep it that way, I did not test that claim. Apparently over 100 of them can be joined in this way, with the sound and lightshow synchronized across them all. Speaking of parties, if you’ve got more than one Flare 2 available, you can wirelessly connect them together using what Anker calls Part圜ast. Does that mean you should play your favorite tunes from the bottom of the paddling pool? No, but the Flare 2 will handle rain, splashes, or a partygoer dropping their drink over it just fine. That flap helps give the speaker an IPX7 rating, which means it’ll handle immersion in up to a meter (3.3 feet) of water for half an hour. Above it sits a Bluetooth pairing button, while below is a USB C charging port, underneath a rubber flap. The dual 10W drivers pump out plenty of sound for a small speaker, and there’s a button on the back to activate the BassUp feature that does, well, exactly what the name suggests. There’s also a dedicated button for those LED lights, letting you turn them off entirely or change their pattern. ![]() ![]() You can also answer and end phone calls with that button, as well as activate your phone’s voice assistant. The top of the speaker has a few different buttons that control volume, power, and play/pause/skip. That’s true, at least, until you hit the power button and the LED light rings on the top and bottom kick in. If that’s what you’re after, take a look at the Flare Mini instead.Ĭylindrical and slightly flared at the base (hence the name), the fabric-covered Flare 2 looks like many other mid-size portable speakers. Measuring 6.3 x 3.5 x 3.5″ (16 x 9 x 9cm) and weighing 1.3lbs (590g,) the Soundcore Flare 2 is small and light enough to take car-camping or drop in a bag when you’re heading to the beach, but probably a bit too big for your carry-on. We’ve reviewed a lot of Anker gear over the years and it’s rarely disappointed, but how well does the Flare 2 compete in the real world? It’s in a challenging part of the market, though, and a solid list of features doesn’t mean much when there are several other companies making good portable, sub-$100 Bluetooth speakers. Well-priced and promising everything from “powerful 360° audio” to water resistance and its own light show, it sounds good on paper. The Flare models form much of its portable speaker range, with the most recent being the mid-sized Flare 2. Things have changed a bit lately, though, and while there’s still a lot of junk out there, the odd diamond in the rough has appeared.Īnker, one of our favorite tech accessory companies, has lately been expanding into the audio market via its Soundcore brand. Finding one that looked and sounded good enough for daily indoor use, yet was still durable enough for the outdoors, long proved hard to find. I also wanted a speaker equally appropriate in my living room as it was beside the pool. The small ones had weak sound and battery life, the larger ones were too big to take beyond the backyard, and most weren’t really durable enough to deal with the rain, dirt, and knocks they encountered. If I’m honest, though, there was always something about them that disappointed. ![]() The idea of being able to fire up my favorite tunes around the BBQ, at the beach, or beside the campfire has long appealed, and I’ve owned a number of different models over the last decade. I’ve always had a soft spot for portable Bluetooth speakers. ![]()
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