Ultimate Ears BLAST Portable Waterproof Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Speaker with Hands-Free Amazon Alexa Voice Control - Graphite Black

I was looking for a Bluetooth speaker that could work in the shower, at the beach, at the office, and everywhere else. This is the perfect speaker for almost any occasion. It doesn't have quite the power of a Bose or other expensive brands but for the price, it has really incredible performance. With the built-in Alexa, you literally can't go wrong.The Alexa functionality is sort of a bonus for this device. It's a great all-around blue-tooth speaker, but with Alexa built in you don't have to use it with your device which his really awesome. Given that I use Audible constantly for book reading this is the perfect shower speaker. I just say, "play my book on audible" and it picks up right where I left off without any fuss.Battery life is great and this device charges very quickly as well. I also rock this with my Surface Pro 4. It has built-in blue-tooth and terrible speakers. So I just turn this baby on and connect to my surface to watch movies and TV when I"m on the go. It's a huge improvement over the Surface Pro speakers. If you're looking for the MOST VERSATILE SPEAKER this is it. Buy it!

I got this when it was on sale for cheaper than the UE Boom 2. It does have a few problems, but in the end It does exaclty what the boom does for the same price.Sound quality is pretty good. Comparable to my dads Bose Soundlink Color. It’s very loud for its size, and can easily be heard all around the pool area or my room.No, Alexa isn’t perfect. You CAN now use Spotify with voice controls, though. Outside, i was yelling across the pool, with music playing and she couldn’t hear me. Inside, if I’m not playing music she can usually hear me if I’m in the same room. When playing music, it’s hit or miss, unless you’re within 5 feet of the Blast. But I’m the shower, it’s always heard and understood me, even with music playing. But I knew all this beforehand from comments, and i just considered it a cool bonus feature bc of the added price.The only thing I don’t like it that the dock is so expensive and pretty necessary, driving up the price.

When it works it's great but there were many drawbacks. Unless you have Spotify premium you can't use Spotify on this device over Wi-Fi only Bluetooth. Alexa can't tell you what the battery is at and you need to have both the Alexa app and the UE app which is annoying to keep switching between both. But for me the biggest issue I had was not even a full day if owning this device it was on an endless loop of unresponsive resets. After looking for a way to troubleshoot the only option was found in the ue website and it had a warning of permanently damaging the device. Like I said when it works it's great the sound for the price is very good, but to have a device that can only be reset by harming it, it's not worth it.UPDATE 6-2-18After a month of using the speaker I had to get it replaced because it wouldn't turn on at all. After having the new speaker for a few weeks I can say this speaker is riddled with issues. The speaker requires premium paid subscription services to be used affectively over WiFi and even then it does not meant they will work. After using the new premium Spotify features for 3 days it was working great and now suddenly it skips every single song. It's one thing to have to worry about possibly having a speaker with faulty hardware, but when I have to be wary of software updates there is a problem.

The sound quality with UE has always impressed me. I love that this speaker is light and easy to take on vacation. Its portability and waterproofing is great for the shower/bath or beach. I recently took it on a road trip because my friend's van doesn't have audio hookups and it was perfect to bump for up to 4 hours on medium sound. I use the speaker's Alexa feature at home while I'm cooking dinner. The only thing that sucks with this speaker is the battery life. If you forget to leave the speaker on and leave for a few hours, it's on critical battery. I always feel like I'm charging this speaker so bring a charging cable where ever you go. I love the feel of the speaker too. It's sleek and easy to use as long as you're familiar with Alexa enabled products.***I never wanted a full time Alexa speaker as it feels like she listens to your conversations. I like that I can easily turn the speaker off and know that she's not able to listen to my everyday conversations.

Just received this yesterday after the incredible one day sale for $99. The packaging is very secure and professional. The set-up using the app was seamless and all the described functions worked perfectly. No problem with the wi-fi in my large home. The response time to voice commands is slightly slower than the Echo, but we are getting spoiled. I have an Echo Alexa, which I enjoy, but the sound quality on the Blast isfar superior, well rounded and very warm. The only issue us I have to mute the Alexa when I want to use the Blast in the same room. If the Blast goes on sale again, grab it for the portability and sound.Changing my review from 5 to 2 stars. It no longer keeps a wi-fi connection for more than 2 minutes. The Echo right next to it works fine.Update: A firmware update seems to have fixed the wi-fi connection issue. They have also added a Spotify direct play. As the product firmware is being constantly updated, many reviews are out-of-date.