AYL Soundfit Waterproof Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Speaker

I’ve been offered a few different bluetooth speakers in the last year, and I’ve turned all of them down, because lets be honest…a lot of them are very similar, if not just the same product with a different name attached to it. Until AYL offered me their SoundFit Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker. Finally, something a little different, and rugged enough that I can put it just about anywhere and enjoy something better than the tinny little speaker in my phone, or the bigger, but still tinny, speakers in our tablets. So let’s dive in and enjoy all the nifty things this AYL SoundFit can do!

Up until now, the Liztek PSS-100 I’d tested out had been just fine for all my wireless listening needs. It was a marked upgrade from those little bitty speakers in our mobile devices, and was loud enough to fill the room with sound. I didn’t want to take it outside for fear of an errant spray or splash, for being tumbled by a overeager pooch. Plus, there was a very loud (and increasingly annoying) lady’s voice telling me when it was “connected”. But AYL’s SoundFit cures all those ills, and then some. See, I’d kind of resigned myself to losing out on a decent low-ends due to the small size and nature of these speakers. And then AYL comes in and shows me what I was missing, aurally. I attribute that to their design and powerful 5w driver. The highs are crisp without being tinny, the sound is full and rich, and you lose no detail in the playback. It’s not reference-quality, but for a speaker that fits in the palm of your hand, it’s pretty awesome.

AYL went the extra mile with their SoundFit Bluetooth Speaker, because it’s rugged as all get out too. Safe from drops, spill, dust, dirt, sprays and rain (IPX5 water resistance rated), short of driving over it with the truck, I don’t know what I could do to kill it. I accidentally dropped it on the tile, and let me tell you I was more worried about the tile. The speaker never missed a beat! It also paired (quickly, too!) with everything we have without any hiccups or issue of any sort. You get your choice of colors, a convenient carry strap, a bag to store it, and charging cable, a 3.5mm audio cable for wired connections, an anti-interference mic, top mounted controls and shock-absorbent rubber casing, and a mounting screw for bikes or accessories?! And a 3-year warranty? Are you kidding me? For only $29.95? This one is a no-brainer. I’ve had it for weeks listening for about an hour at a time, and it’s still on it’s initial charge! You get up to 12 hours of charge off a full charge of only 4 hours from empty. I think this AYL SoundFit is a keeper and I’m glad I got to try it.

Connect with AYL:

• Online
• On Amazon
• Buy yours from Amazon right here!

I received the above product(s) free of charge from AYL.  I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion.  My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.

Advertisement

Taylor Bluetooth Body Fat SmartScale w/ SmarTrack App

 

I’ve covered a couple of different bathroom scales on here, and most of them have been fairly basic. I have one from Ozeri that measures body fat, bone, muscle and water levels too. I’m very happy with it. One even had it’s own “app”. But until now, I’d not had one with bluetooth. In steps Taylor, a Salter Housewares brand, with their Taylor Smart Scale with Bluetooth, model 7222F.

It has the fairly standard tempered glass surface, this time with stainless steel strips inlaid for the measuring of all those extra metrics like body fat, body water and muscle mass. And it then beams those numbers via bluetooth to your paired smartphone or tablet via their SmarTrack app. At least in theory, that is, because I could not get the app to register me, despite multiple tries on my phone, tablet, and over both our FiOS wifi and 4G network connection. Which, essentially, renders the features that most folks paid extra for useless. Shame. The idea behind easy and convenient tracking of your weight, and your fitness, is a good one, but one of these days these companies really need to understand app development and that it’s more than throwing a few dollars at an IT company that bid the lowest to cobble together what amounts to placeholder to be able to say you “have an app”. It has to work, people.

Okay. Deep breath.

Aside from the incredible amount of frustration caused by this, the scale in and of itself is accurate, and while the numbers were slightly off from the other body fat-measuring scales we have here in the house, that can simply be chalked up to the fact that they all use “estimates” from small electrical signals sent through the body, and so many factors can skew that, I’m not going to begrudge a scale a few percentage points here and there. Up to 8 people can use this scale with basic non-bluetooth tracking features, an “athlete” setting for those that work out regularly, and a bright, dual-line backlit LCD readout with “touchscreen” controls. All this and it operates on 3 AAA batteries. Unfortunately, most of the advertised features like true tracking, cloud storage, and compatibility with MapMyFitness, RunKeeper and other popular apps are inaccessible due to the native app being useless. So it quickly becomes less and less a value because, let’s face it, you paid for those features. I wanted to like this product so much more, and I’ve had Taylor, Salter, and Homedics scales before that were fantastic. This scale is, as a scale, flawless. It’s all the advertised extras that caused the premium pricetag that are rendered useless by a non-functioning, junk app. For that reason, I find that I can’t, at full retail, recommend this product, because so many of the potentially wonderful features advertised cannot be accessed, and they’re built into the price tag. Too bad.

Connect with Taylor Precision Products:

• Online
• On Facebook
• On Twitter
• On Amazon
• On LinkedIn

I received the above product(s) free of charge from Taylor Precision Products.  I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion.  My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.

Sentey B-Trek H9 Bluetooth Headphones w/Mic Ls-4560

 

So, it seems when Sentey makes a product that hits, it hits a home run. But sometimes, it’s just a foul ball over the left field fence. Not quite a homerun but a solid hit none the less. This is one of those. You’ll recall from my last Sentey Flow headset review, the sound was nothing to write home about. These B-Trek Bluetooth headphones fix that in spades. The sound is pretty good. The 40mm drivers have even tones, decent bass, and don’t sound tinny or blown out. Wired or wireless, the sound is quality. These are Bluetooth V4.0 compatible, and have been tested to work solidly with my laptop, hubby’s Nexus tablet, and our phone. It holds the connection well too. Where it falls short, again, is in the “gaming” category.

See, the last thing I want to hear is the carnage and destruction inherent to one of hubby’s Battlefield 4 multiplayer sessions. Especially while I’m painting my nails. And we thought this headset would be the solution. But, despite pairing with the Playstaion 3 with ease, try as we might we could not get sound through these headphones to save our lives from the unit. Not for the game, for Amazon Prime videos, for music…nothing. Just static and ticking. It was a huge let down. We have an email in to Sentey about this, but as of this writing we have yet to hear back*. If you want a decent set of bluetooth headphones that won’t break the bank, these fit the bill. If you want it for PS3 (or PS4, one assumes) gaming, you might want to look elsewhere.

I don’t feel the lack of PS3 support should be a dealbreaker. The sound is good, they seem well constructed and of better materials than the Sentey Flow headset I mentioned previously. They also fold up for travel, come with a spiffy hard-ish travel case that holds the headset, the charging cable and the 3.5mm wired connection. The wired connection also works without having the lithium polymer battery charged (Sentey reports battery life of over 8 hours!), so your tunes aren’t dependent on your battery either. You have play, pause, skip and volume controls on the headset as well (device support dependent, obviously), which is nice. They fit my head, and even hubby’s big ‘ol pumpkin head, so they should fit just about everyone nicely. The ear cushion cups are snug enough for workouts or light jogging, but know that prolonged listening during these activities might cause some trapped perspiration, but the upside is there’s very little sound bleed from the earpieces. They were comfortable to wear and not so heavy that you feel like your head weighs an extra 10lbs. Overall we’re fans of these Sentey B-Trek Bluetooth Headphones, but there’s definitely room for some improvement here.

*A quick note: I attempted on 2 separate occasions to get some support from Sentey about the PS3/Bluetooth issue. Both went unaswered. I’m dismayed that, knowing this product was sent as promotion and knowing that I would review it, and their after-sales support, they ignored me. Maybe they’d be better about product support with a paying customer, but I’ll leave my readers to draw their own conclusions here. Major disappointment for us, though.

Connect with Sentey:

• On the web
• On Facebook
• On Twitter
• On YouTube
• on Flickr
• On Amazon

I received the above product(s) free of charge from Sentey.  I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion.  My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.