Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsI don’t understand the hype...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2021
I gave this a try when a lightning deal came along having seen it in many “cute” room setups. First and foremost, I do not understand the hype, at all. The design is beautiful, the retro look is flawless and the packaging made for such an enjoyable opening experience, however, the function of the product itself is well, a little useless.
Firstly, the interface is the worst. Even following the instructions I struggled to grasp the basics of the controls and features (I am by no means a Luddite). This made for annoying navigating especially when it automatically connects to your phone always, so unless you manually go into your phone settings and disconnect every time, your phone will immediately ring via the speakers. Secondly, the speakers aren’t even that great quality and the battery life is so poor that it won’t even last the night without being on charge which is such a shame because its only redeeming feature is the beautiful clock display. Thirdly, the app which needs to be used with it is glitchy and unintuitive (and requires you to make an account for no good reason besides marketing), at a glance it appears you can customise everything but the actual use of the pixel art is severely limited. Finally, the nail in the coffin for me, was when my neighbours were somehow able to connect to the speaker via bluetooth (from quite a distance) and scare the living daylights out of me by playing music from their phone - this is of course because of being unable to turn the bluetooth off.
Overall, the design is lovely but the function is completely pointless besides that of a glorified clock, and even then the battery doesn’t last. I could understand paying up-to £20 for something like this but the current price is just not worth it, and I really gave it a good two-week try.
