As a tech expert, I’m used to disappointment when it comes to gadget failures. Actually, we’re all used to it. Too used to it.
Just last night, I put an endlessly restarting Apple HomePod mini into an early grave. My “smart” speakers spout gibberish when I’m not even there. I have smart bulbs that ignore my commands. The list goes on.
So when a humble Bluetooth speaker that I’d accidentally left outside endured a soaking Brooklyn thunderstorm last summer, I assumed the worst. Heck, I’d been planning on replacing it anyway–it was a few years old, and a tech gadget, so naturally it was due for an upgrade. No big deal.
But the dripping speaker, a Soundcore Motion+ that I’d reviewed back in 2019, surprised me when it powered right back up, sounding as good as it had the previous night.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been that surprised—the Motion+ is, after all, IPX7-rated, meaning it’s designed to withstand immersion in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes. Still, I’ve seen tech gear with higher IP ratings wilt after being looked at the wrong way, so I was impressed by the Motion+’s endurance.
It takes a lickin’, but keeps on tickin’.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
Without ever making a conscious decision, I ended up just leaving the Soundcore speaker outside for the rest of the summer. I may have brought it in once or twice to recharge it (the thing has terrific battery life, seemingly more than its promised 12 hours), but otherwise it was out in the elements for months, enduring several more thunderstorms, heat, humidity, and—worst of all—days on end of direct sunlight, which eventually faded its black rubberized exterior to a ghostly white. Oh, and the bugs, lots of little red bugs crawling all over its shell and inside its speaker grille.
No problem! The Motion+ kept going, cranking out tunes for our backyard barbecues without skipping a beat. Sure, it was looking pretty beat up, but it still sounded good.
Then the fall came. We secured the backyard for the coming winter, stacked our outdoor chairs, brought in the umbrella, and–once again–I just kind of left the Soundcore where it sat.
As fall stretched into winter, we got more rain, temperatures dipped, and we got a fair amount of snowfall. For days at a time, the Motion+ would be buried in a snowdrift.
By March, the mercury was coming back up, and at one point I noticed the Soundcore speaker lying on the deck next to a shattered ceramic pot, a victim of an aggressive pack of neighborhood squirrels. I let the speaker sit out there for at least a week until my wife finally brought it inside.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
At that point, I just assumed the Motion+ was dead, and I’d already purchased a discounted Beats Pill as a replacement. All I needed to do was toss the Soundcore into a recycling bin.
But as we settled in for our first outdoor barbecue of the season, we fired up the brand-new Beats speaker and the sounds was… kinda meh. Not terrible, not great.
Where’s that other speaker, my wife asked. The old Soundcore, I said? Don’t bother. It’s dead.
Nonetheless, we picked it up off the floor, brought it outside, and turned it on. It worked. And it sounded pretty good. The battery still had a 70-percent charge, by the way, and I know I haven’t charged it since last fall.
Now the Motion+ is our backyard speaker again, and the Beats Pill is in a closet somewhere.
What strikes me about the resilience and longevity of this particular Bluetooth speaker is my surprise about it. Maybe it’s because I focus primarily on smart products, which have vanishingly short shelf lives. In the smart home market, it’s common for devices to conk out, flake out, or get bricked by their manufacturers after just a few years or less. I’m just used to it.
But we shouldn’t be used to it. We should expect more.
Just ask my little Bluetooth speaker, which is about to start another sweltering and soaking summer in the open air. Something tells me it’ll be fine.
And with that, please excuse me; I’ve got a brain-dead HomePod mini that needs to be put out of its misery.