VARO Portable WiFi + Bluetooth Multi-Room Speaker, Water-Resistant Speaker, Sidekick (iOS Only)

I was a little skeptical about these since the name seemed a little unfamiliar, but am glad that I took a chance. These are surprising good WI-FI speakers and I’ve found a lot of fun ways to utilize them already. My goal was to find a portable speaker that I could take with me to outdoor gatherings, BBQs, on the boat, at the beach, etc., while also being able to use it at home for streaming music. To be honest I never looked too closely at the specs. But after getting it I noticed all of the various inputs and knew that it was going to be fun to mess around with. This was my first Varo but I’ve since added two more to network, another Vibe and the Cube. There are a lot of things I like about them. The instruction manual that came with it was really simple and easy to understand. It walks you through the setup and since I’m not a techy person, that was a huge plus.The app is amazing. Very easy to navigate and when I received my second and third speaker I was able to assign names each speaker, adjust the levels and get everything set just the way I wanted. I use them mostly for Spotify and Youtube and have never had any issues. Songs are super easy to find and I LOVE that I can have one thing playing inside, and a completely different genre in another part of the house. Also, when friends are over and want to take turns picking songs, you don’t need to pass your phone around. They can install the app quickly and then choose songs from their streaming services. It’s really convenient.A totally unexpected perk was being able to use this in my home studio. Sometimes I don’t want to do playback or practice guitar through my interface/DAW, so I can use the aux connection to connect to effects processors and other equipment… like a nice alternative to amps or big studio monitors. It’s also perfect for getting a little better sound from my digital piano by going right into the aux. As for the sound, it’s really good despite not being super high end audio, but I was not expecting that. Very clean tones, great volume control, distinct mids, bass and respectable high ends. If you have an EQ on device you can adjust it even more.Negatives. The only thing I’m not crazy about is the “Starting Up” voice that chimes when powered on, but that’s it and it’s really not that bad. Others in my group thought it was really cool. All in all, I am really happy with these and am already planning on ordering the subwoofer tower for my Cube. A couple friends have ordered too and I’ve only heard good things. Definitely a smart buy for anyone who wants a nice sounding portable WiFi speaker with lots of input options!

For starters, the sound is just as is... For the price is just sound, it is not a great sound, because the bass is not well controlled, and at low levels it can compare to an even 5 dollar speaker. But when it turns up to maximum the things get even. Even worst... Because it is true the bass gets "high" but it start to compress and distorts a little. I don't know if it is my unit but a strange noise like it it's rattle-ish even at low levels, so I think mine is broken.Also talking about connectivity, is worst than the sound. To start the list, you have to wait over 20 seconds to the unit starts, because of the wifi, then you switch over to Bluetooth... Why? Because simply enough the wifi does not connect properly 😒 I mean, it "connects" but don't play any sound, and even on iPod it is a pain to try connect via airplay or what ever.Then you switch in to the Bluetooth connection, that takes other 5 to 10 seconds to "ready to pair" and the other 3 seconds to connect, after almost 1 minute trying to pair your speaker, you have to deal with the terrible sound, that it is clear-ish, to the level that if you turn maximum to "have some bass" it starts to pierce your ears.Final approach? Spend the same money on something else... Ah also... The IP rating... It's a joke... Trust me

I was looking for a water resistant speaker for the bathroom and didn't want a Bluetooth speaker because they automatically pair with the last device when powered on. This won't work for me because the kids and I all need to use the same bathroom speaker when we each need to take a shower, etc. With the AirPlay feature, it's easy to start audio playback on your device and then just choose the speaker from the AirPlay menu.I had some trouble initially getting the speaker connected to WiFi and setup, but I eventually figured it out. The correct iOS app you will need is called Soundlogic WiFi Controller.Once I got the correct app, setup was fairly similar to other connected WiFi devices. Once connecting to the device WiFi, you'll then connect it to your home 2.4 GHz WiFi network. After it connects it will probably perform a firmware update. The firmware update worked on the first try, but after the speaker restarted the app said it couldn't find it. Powering the speaker off and exiting the app before powering it back on and opening the app fixed the issue.I like that I can rename the device so it is easy to find in the AirPlay menu. The speaker supports AirPlay version 1, not AirPlay 2. This means you can't use AirPlay for multi-room audio. However, for what it is and considering the cost I think it's a reasonable choice.