Anker Soundcore Flare 2 Bluetooth Speaker, with IPX7 Waterproof Protection and 360° Sound for Backyard and Beach Party, 20W Wireless Speaker with PartyCast, EQ Adjustment, and 12-Hour Playtime, Black

The media could not be loaded.  I ordered 5 of these for the kitchen at Squid Lips, the restaurant that I work at, and I place them all around the line to create a bluetooth surround sound system, they’re kind of hard to see in the video but some of them are in view. They definitely sound a lot better when there’s all 5 of them connected instead of just one so they serve their purpose pretty well. They are great speakers and they can get really loud if you want them to, the battery life is a little disappointing though, it said they have a 16 hour battery life but most of the time they really only last about 8 hours on a full charge. I keep them plugged in over night at the restaurant and then I get them all out at the beginning of the next day and I usually have to charge them after they’ve been on for 8 hours for about 45 minutes before they’re pretty much completely charged again so they at least charge up pretty quickly. I haven’t tested if they’re water proof but the material that they’re made out of seems like it would make them pretty waterproof if they did get splashed or something.

I’ve been wanting Bluetooth speakers that I can connect a dozen or more together for parties. When I saw this pop up on Linus Tech Tips on YouTube, it was like someone answered my prayers. I ordered 6 of these and I’m very pleased for the most part and I will rate this as a 4 out of 5 stars.The good,The sound quality is great, and being that it is also has an adjustable EQ in the app, makes it very nice. The batteries seem to power these for about 8 hours with the lights doing their thing. I am getting closer to 10~11 with the lights off. This is about halfway up on the volume control, and I’ve not turned it up higher, because these are surprisingly loud. The base boost does work really well, but it is not necessary if you are using the EQ.The units all feel SOLID, and in fact, I’ve actually tossed them all onto the floor of my son’s room, which is carpeted and then played the Call of Duty grenade toss to wake up my son. Trust me when I tell you this, these things cranked up with CALL of Duty will wake up any sleeping teenager. Lucky for him two of these was for him.These absolutely work fine in the shower, in fact, I’ve discovered that my son sings in the shower, we can hear him through the walls. The have worked fine in the rain storm as well, I had zero issues with water getting all over them. I’m very satisfied with that feature.Pro Tips---Linking them together is easy, but, connect only one of them to your phone or tablet or laptop via Bluetooth, otherwise they will all connect automatically to your devices. This will make it much easier to sync.The bad…These speakers appear to charge via USB-C only, however it does not appear to function as a speaker that a PC sees, which is a bit of a disappointment. I have some PC’s that don’t have Bluetooth at the shop, so it would have been nice to be able to connect these as desktop speakers. This is a missed opportunity for Anker. Also, we have new speaker phones with 4 USB-C outputs for connecting external speakers, and unfortunately, these don’t work. Another missed opportunity.It is really difficult to see the buttons on the top of the device; they should have made them with thicker, or is its bigger icons that you can at least feel what is it. Anker should paint them a color like white, or hell make them illuminated from below. I’m starting to form the muscle memory on where the buttons are at based on where the rubber piece and logo is on the sides. I should not need to memorize that.The UglyThe lights, the different patterns are very limited to really about four settings. I wish I could have more control over the colors, and the patterns. The app does not give much customizable options. Also, if these were able to connect to the PC’s, it would have been great to sync these up to the RGB in my computers.The application is very limited, and really the best feature is the EQ. In fact, other than the EQ, I’m hard-pressed to justify having the app installed.Audio delay… when watching video’s… I’m on fiber optics at my house and at my work, we have multiple trunks into our building. I’m on very high-end laptops and some very power work stations and gaming rigs. If I’m watching videos there appears to be about a 1.5 second delay in audio. This was not meant to be PC speakers. My cell phones and tablets have about a 2 second delay with the audio from the videos on YouTube, Twitch, Vimeo, Netflix or TikTok. Granted, this is very nice for just listening to music, which is what this device is intended for, but don’t expect to see synced up audio with video.

I bought this to replace my previous one which after being used on a daily basis has decided enough is enough. Managed to find one as it appears to have been discontinued in favor of the Soundcore Mini Flare. I love the depth of sound coming from this little speaker. It certainly beats any others I’ve tried over the years.

I'm not sure if it's waterproof yet but the sound is great

So, I bought this 2 years ago. The battery life, even without the lights on isn't great. With the lights on? Pfffft.My second issue with this item is that music with heavy bass literally shorts this speaker out when you're using the bass boost. What's the point of it then? I usually use this speaker in conjunction with my phone (an iPhone) and can't listen to bass heavy music at more than half volume or the speaker just shuts itself off, then immed turns back on. I have done a factory reset. Twice.In addition to those issues, the speaker will begin to shut itself off when battery life reaches half way. This didn't start for about a year after purchase.The sound IS fairly good-as long as you don't use bass boost or want your music loud. Lol. I don't hate this item and would probably purchase again-however, I'd have preferred to understand its limitations first.

Functions as described for sound level and quality.

Soundcore is hugely successful brand by Anker, and a popular choice on Amazon. The Flare 2 is the successor to the various Flare series of Bluetooth Speakers, all of which have received high praise for the quality of sound you can get out from them. With this latest version, Soundcore have enhanced the 2x drivers and upgraded them to 10 watts each, giving the Flare 2 a 20 watt output. The Flare 2 also connects to the Soundcore App to give you different ‘sound profiles’ and granular control with a dedicated EQ mode, light effect controls and battery status. You also get the infamous ‘bass up’ button, which enhances the low end frequency response, and two LED Light Array rings that can flicker to the beat of your music. The speaker uses USB-C to charge and supports an input of 5 volts 2 amps for fast charging that takes around 3.5 hours to fully charge. The speaker is also waterproof with an IPX7 rating, not that you’d want to willingly submerge it in water, but it’s nice to know you can.The first thing to note is that this speaker does not actually have a 360 degree speaker array, but it does create a good illusion make it seem like it has. It has two 10 watt drivers on the left and right sides of the speaker - making it technically a 180 degree sound system - it sounds different depending on your position and location as you move around the speaker. Above each driver is a bass radiator which helps to push more air from the tiny drivers giving better bass response from this small unit.The main problem with this speaker is that it's sound characteristic is highly inconsistent, and I feel you can only get it to sound ‘good’ within certain conditions. On its ‘default’ sound profile, the speaker sounds very weak and tinny until you turn the ‘bass up’ button on. This does considerably increase low end response and can quite literally save the speaker from sounding bland and rubbish, but it doesn’t do enough to satisfy and songs can still sound a bit tinny. All of the other sound profiles (voice, chill and flat) are effectively useless and each sound very similar making only minor changes to the sound signature.The custom EQ profile however will allow you to crank up frequencies to +6 dB and create a tuned sound profile to get the most out of this speaker. By increasing the low end to almost full, you can get a satisfying bass response - reducing some of the mid frequencies will overall reduce muddiness of the sound and boosting the highs will give you more detail - effectively saving this speaker from its mediocre sound. Some songs will unfortunately distort with this EQ profile at lower volumes, but unfortunately the speaker has to have this aggressive sound processing in order to sound good. I have included a screenshot of what I think is a good sounding EQ profile if you want to test it out.The problem is, when you turn this speaker up past 50%, you start to loose low end bass response on all of the different sound profiles, and once you hit past 70% the speaker turns into a harsh distorted tinny mess of sound with effectively no bass. The speaker drivers cannot handle loud volumes which isn’t ideal especially as advertised for outdoor parties.Soundcore have removed the 3.5mm aux input that was on the previous Flare versions meaning the only connection to the speaker is wireless Bluetooth 5.0 - which isn’t a problem for me but an AUX input cuts any Bluetooth latency that can occur whilst watching films. In my experience after testing this however, the audio latency with video playback is near indistinguishable on iPhones and worse on Android devices. It is important to note however that even though this speaker uses Bluetooth 5.0, it is limited to only connect to one device at a time which is a big missed feature. In terms of battery life, SoundCore advertises 12 hours but you will get less than this depending on volume and use of the LED’s and Bass Up - in my testing with the LED’s & Bass up always on at around 30% - 50% volume, I got around 10 hours of use which is ok.I’ve also experienced strange Bluetooth connectivity issues with this speaker. This may be limited to my unit, but I’ve had the Soundcore App not detect the speaker, issues with pairing to new devices, the volume controls on my devices not working on the speaker, the speaker will randomly unpair and reconnect stopping music, and also times where the speaker has completely crashed and stopped working. I have factory reset the speaker according to Soundcore instructions but it hasn’t fixed these kind of issues. Once connected however, the range is fantastic and the speaker stays connected upstairs even if I go downstairs, mainly in part to the speaker using Bluetooth 5.0 which has much better range.Anker’s support has also massively dropped as well, don’t bother trying to call them as you’ll be put through to a company who works as just an answering service that won’t be able to do anything apart from check your order number & will just advise you to send an email detailing the problem instead.Overall, I have to say this is a decent little speaker if you’re willing to compromise and manage your expectations. You can get some decent sound out of it, providing you’re happy to play with EQ settings and stay under 60% volume - however, I feel that you’re not getting a good deal because you can’t crank this speaker up like its advertised to be able to. In-part to the various connectivity issues I’ve had, I've ended up sending it back but I may purchase another one in the future to try again because it sounds good at medium volumes.If you found the photos & this review helpful, please consider clicking on the helpful button below, it helps me out!

Good sound quality, it sounds better if you turn the bass up feature on (in my opinion) and the rgb lights look good, but the soundcore flare mini seems better value at £41.99 and sounds just as good but doesn't get as loud. So, if you don't need a really loud speaker i would recommend the flare mini over the flare2. And they are both ip67 water proof which is a bonus.

I have had this device for around 3 weeks, I usually love ANKER products and I purchased this to upgrade my SoundCore.The sound quality was very poor, this would sound okay at low end but when the volume increased it sounded worse. I attmpted to correct this using the EQ on the app but this ultimately helped for a few days but after a few days of using that, the speaker became unsable. The sound on anything above 20% would just have a loud distorted noise to it, like a fart noise.The battery on the unit I felt was very poor. After half an hour of using the device it would show on my phone as 80% and it would then go down just as fast. I love anker products and in the past I loved their speakers but this one is not for me. I will return and move back to my other soundcore speaker.Update 20/08 Anker support have been in touch and have corrected the current issues I have had. Anker have some amazing CS.

You can disable the mood lighti9, you can't disable the Bluetooth or bass lights, I shouldn't have to measure cut and stich a piece of fabric just to stop the thing producing light, it needs a night mode, I don't need a light to tell me its on when it is connected I CAN HEAR IT. it's a really stupid design oversight for people who would want to use it as a white noise device but can't do so out of the box. It's not even a cost issue it's a lack of thought and planning issue which does not fill me with confidence as to the quality and lifespan of the product.

An excellent product but unlike the Flare+ it doesn’t do stereo, despite the Amazon listing saying it does (as at July 2020). This was key to my decision in purchasing but had to return in favour of the Flare+. If you want to pair 100 speakers (who wouldn’t?) then the Flare2 is for you. But if, like me, stereo is more important (albeit from 2 speakers), then the Flare+ is what you need. But both sound excellent.