Michael Fereday journeys to infinity to check out a light show
With the number of small-to-medium Bluetooth speakers currently on the market, manufacturers are looking to different ways to make their product stand out from the competition. Attractive packaging and adding extra functionality are just two ways I have noticed recently. Thumbs Up!, the company responsible for this next offering, has gone for the latter method by introducing a light show feature to its Infinity speaker.
With dimensions of 170 x 87 x 55mm (W x H x D) and weighing 360g, this oval shaped device is perhaps not the ideal size or shape for slipping into a pocket but a bag would suffice. I was a little disappointed that Thumbs Up! had missed a trick by not including one in the box along with the supplied USB and audio leads. One reason for my disappointment was that a cloth bag could double as a cleaning option to remove the finger smears that build up on the front surface, which was a mirror, of this Infinity speaker.
Why, you may ask, have they built a mirror into this device? The answer is that this mirror, along with the ten lights surrounding it, and the built-in LED Equalizer, are meant to deliver the promised light show effect as the music inspires light flashes disappearing into infinity (the concept not the device). Again I was disappointed.
While I was not expecting something as visually impressive as the Morecambe lights, that were a regular family trip when I was growing up, the Infinity light show was extremely pathetic to say the least. On some occasions there was not even a flicker and it was not until I switched to a wired, rather than Bluetooth, connection and turned the volume up that some intermittent flashing occurred. I could ascertain no actual correlation between the tempo of the music being played and the lights being reflected in the mirror, though.
While offering little evidence in terms of a light show, the mirror made an excellent repository for finger smears. It was almost impossible to pick up or move this speaker without leaving behind a calling card that would stand up in court behind you. In this respect the device was top of the class.
Covering most of the Infinity speaker’s body is a black, compressed, rubberised material with integrated metallic grills at each end for the two 3W speaker units. Sockets on the rear of the unit are available for linking non-Bluetooth audio devices and charging the unit’s internal 1200mAh Lithium battery which, almost as if to compensate for the poor light show, provided over 18 hours of reasonable playing quality from a single charge.
Arranged on the top of the unit is the Infinity speaker’s control panel. There are options to stop/start, increase/lower the volume level plus cycle backwards and forwards through Bluetooth supplied tracks. Unfortunately these controls have been arranged to form the infinity symbol with the result that they are rather close together. I often found that my clumsy fingers would hit the change track control rather than volume adjustment which did become annoying after a while.
If you can put up with the disappointing light show and awkward control layout, then you can look forward to reasonable audio quality with impressive battery performance. Do not, however, expect the Infinity unit to double as a speakerphone; unlike many Bluetooth speakers, It does not have this capability. Michael Fereday
A mixture of good clear audio but poor light show effects.