Buckshot Pro Wireless Speaker/Power/Flashlight review
Outdoor Tech’s Buckshot Pro is a lot of things – it’s a wireless Bluetooth 4.0 speaker, speakerphone, portable USB power source, and flashlight. It ships with a rubber bike mount which can be used to attach it to more than handlebars, and some stickers which seem to be designed to attract Bigfoot.
It boasts an IPX5 rating on the packaging, which according to their blog means it was only tested to keep out water and not testes against particulates (dust, mites, lima beans). This means it can get wet and should still function (rain, super soaker, toddler attack,) but if it drops in the water pull it out immediately.
It also claims 32 feet Bluetooth range, but what you get really depends on what your phone can support and what the environmental interference is. It works to a decent distance, your experience may vary.
Sound
It’s nice and loud. You’ll hear it as long as you’ve got the speaker facing up and not down (which I did the first time I powered it on.) I’m not particularly impressed with the low end bass on this, but it’s a small speaker and not a subwoofer you’d be standing next to at a rave wondering if you can actually touch the sound you’re seeing.
It’s about the perfect sound for a camping speaker, great sound for being on a bike as long as you point it toward your head, it’s not quite a bring the party to this room speaker, but it’s ok. All this is subjective of course. I think for outdoors they did a pretty good job with it.
It does have a slight cardboard cup sound to some of the music I’ve been playing, I don’t know that that’s surpassable in something this size however.
I don’t have a good way to test the speakerphone aspects, so let’s assume it’s the best on the planet.
Flashlight
It has ambient and directional settings as well as flashing.
It’s a decent looking around a basement flashlight, but it doesn’t seem to be powerful enough to hold back the ravages of night and fling back the opaque curtains.
It’ll help you find your keys or get you to a bathroom from your tent though.
According to the spec booklet the device has an 80-200 lumen rating. I assume the 80 is the ambient and the 200 directed. I left my 200 lumen flashlight at home so I can’t compare. It’s good for spot illumination, but you’re not going to light a stage with it.
The flashlight head detaches so you can access the charging functions of the device. It has a ring that screws up to hold it on, so no worries about losing your head.
Portable USB power source
The unit packs a 2600mAh battery, however the spec sheet seems to claim that only 700mAh of that is available for charging. I’m a bit confused by that claim. Maybe it’s a misprint, or perhaps I’m reading it wrong.
With the unit playing I get about 530mA positive flow of juice, which is about 300mA short of 1.1amps (as the phone is using 250mA resting). This might be my M9 not wanting to play nice with the charger, or it may just be conversion loss. Not the world’s fastest charger, but then again that is more of an afterthought with these.
+513mA on the disconnected EVO 4G LTE, your device will vary in charge speeds, but it still seems a little on the low side. Actually, I’m wondering if they didn’t mess up in the documentation where it says “Charging out: 5V / 500 mAh (max 700 mAh)” and meant mA as I’m getting 500-570mA.
The 1.1amp would be for charging the device then.
Overall
I like the Buckshot Pro. As a camping device I think it’s brilliant, although I would have liked to see it ship with a carabiner or some non-bike mount way to carry it where it can be heard.
I really wish they would have included a line-in so you could save some Bluetooth juice on both ends, but you can’t have everything.
I absolutely despise the vol up, multifunction, vol down setup as there’s no tactile telling which is which if you’re not looking at the thing. This lead to me turning down the volume when I wanted it up and vice versa. A rubber plus on one side would have helped immensely.
What you may not know about how I do these reviews is I have no idea what the device costs until this line when I go and look up the link, and now that I have I’m like ho… whoa there… that’s … well, not horrible, but about $25 more than I’d like to see it at. But new products prices drop and I can hope for that here.
The Outdoor Tech Buckshot Pro is available from Amazon for $79.99.
