Braven BRV-X Outdoor Water Resistant Bluetooth Portable Speaker Review

Introduction

If you're into 'Braven' the weather (pun intended), this rubber coated portable Bluetooth speaker might be the one for you. Rated as IPX5 water resistant, featuring a genius cover for its sensitive internals and touch-buttons that can even be used in the rain, you must be wondering how exactly this product sounds?

Music everywhere in this day and age, I can barely bring myself to leave the house without some kind of beat pumping in the background. Working on my computer sees Spotify cranking all day, there's a decent sound system installed in my car, and when I go to have a good old BBQ with my mates - something needs to fill the gap. In comes the Braven BRV-X portable speaker to the rescue... or maybe two of? If you're wondering what I mean, read on to find out.

Specifications

As I said previously, this product is basically fully rubber coated (attracts dust), helping it gain an IPX5 water resistance rating. This number means that the product can resist a 6.3mm nozzle projecting water against the device with no harmful side effects.

You can connect this speaker to your device through two separate options - Bluetooth or a 3.5mm jack. The latter of these two means you have to pop off the back cap to access the internals, resulting in the water resistance part of the product being basically nullified.

The BRV-X features a 5200 mAh battery held within and is unfortunately charged via the provided DC power pack only. There's a handy outlet USB port in order to service your smartphone or tablet. However, only running at 1A and connected to the 5200 mAh battery means you're unlikely to find much use for it and once again, to use these features means removing the waterproof featuring of the product.

There's an awesome battery indicator on the back which contains five bright LED lights displaying exactly how much is left in the tank, alongside the AUX in and a special switch labeled as 'Outdoor/Indoor', and as according to the packaging, this switch should be changed depending on your location. The indoor setting will provide you with a slightly quieter, but more full and deep sound, whereas the outdoor mode will pump the speakers at full volume and help project your tunes against nature. This is certainly something I haven't seen before and an awesome inclusion as noise is often simply carried away outdoors.

Another cool inclusion is the ability to pair two devices together. Similar as what's seen in the LUXA2 Groovy Duo, you can simply connect one device to your smartphone and use this as somewhat of a relay - sending the signal to a second BRV-X and it will project the same sound, at the same time, from the same Bluetooth product. This means that if you're outside at a family BBQ or running a house party, you can have adequate sound in different parts of your house running off one playing device.

Pricing & Availability

We were able to find the Braven BRV-X listed on Amazon at the time of writing for $141. Is that a bit expensive for a portable speaker? Read on and we'll do our best to cover that.

What's in the box?

Now this product does not come with a carry case, but there's a reason for this. The product IS the carry case. Because of the "rubber overmolding combined with high-impact plastic" structure, Braven provided a carry strap located within the packaging. A quick setup of this strap will look like as seen in the image below.

According to their documentation, this strap can be used either as a carry handle or a way to tie down the product to objects. This is extremely useful if you're looking to secure it on the outside of a trailer or especially some supporting beam on your boat for fishing or other leisure. Also included is a lanyard, the quick start manual, an A/C adaptor with plenty of different country adaptors (US/EU/UK/AU), and a short 3.5mm male-to-male auxiliary cable.

PRICING: You can find the Braven BRV-X Portable Wireless Speaker for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Braven BRV-X Portable Wireless Speaker retails for $141.00 at Amazon.

Canada: The Braven BRV-X Portable Wireless Speaker retails for CDN$231.41 at Amazon Canada.