MH Tech Review: JBL Pulse 3
The JBL Pulse 3 is an impressive little speaker. It's the perfect party companion, with its Bluetooth connectivity, lava-lamp style LED lighting and waterproof exterior. Hook it up to your phone and keep the party rolling for up to 12 hours without power.
Setup
Setting the speaker up is a two-minute job. Open the fancy looking box to find the even fancier looking speaker. It comes partially charged, so it’s ready to go straight out of the box. Turn it on, hit the Bluetooth button (fairly obviously the Bluetooth icon), and pair it with your phone. You’re now ready to stream your favourite music through this little gem.
Optional: get the Connect+ app from your app-store of choice (Android & iPhone supported). Ensure you’re still Bluetooth connected, and away you go with customising your speaker’s colours, behaviour & sound profile. Piece of cake.
Connect App
Control the speaker's settings via the connect app for Android and iPhone. It enables you to control the speakers sound settings, as well as set the led lighting mode to suit your situation.
One of the coolest features, if slightly novelty, is the photo colour matching LEDs (I like to call it chameleon mode). The app lets you take a photo, and have the app mimic the prominent colour within the photo. Like a chameleon!
Sound Quality
This speaker sounds good. It comes with 360-degree speakers for the mid to high range, as well as two larger speaker drivers at either end for the all-important bass. With these powers combined, you've got some serious audio power.
Battery Life
At 12 hours of playback, the JBL Pulse 3 isn't the market leader when it comes to battery life, but 12 hours is a fair amount of time by any standard. If you're an absolute party animal, you'll be charging once every 2 days, but for the occasional listener, you'll find yourself charging once to twice per week. Not a huge chore by any means.
Waterproof
This speaker plays music underwater! Technically, the IPX7 waterproof rating means that the speaker is able to be submerged up to 1 metre without damage. Personally, I'd leave that for someone else to confirm. I'll be keeping my speaker high and dry, thank you. Obviously charging whilst near or in water is out of the question
Maxing It Out
For me, the true test of a speaker is how it handles loud music. To put the JBL to the ultimate test, my three year old son and I put together a little concert in our living room! The results were good, but not great. We partied hard, but not that hard! We hit the speakers limit, with the occasional spots of distortion and cut outs. In general, though, the sound quality was fairly good, even at loud volumes
Specs
For the detail oriented amongst us:
- Power 20WRMS
- Frequency response - 65Hz - 20kHz (-6dB)
- Connect+ app support for Android and iPhone
- 12 hours of playtime
- IPX 7 waterproof
- 360 degree light-show & sound
- Bluetooth connectivity
- Speakerphone
- Voice assistant
The round-up
Overall, this speaker is awesome. It does everything it says on the box, and in style! Its portable, loud, bright and fun. What more could you ask for?!
