The Braven BRV-1 (Brave One) is a portable speaker announced at CES that can be used with Bluetooth or a 1/8-inch headphone jack that allows you to take your music almost anywhere in any weather.
The speaker puts out three watts per channel for a total of 6W sound. The speaker contains a 1400mAh battery that can play for up to ten hours via Bluetooth, or presumably significantly longer using the 1/8-inch headphone jack. Both the battery capacity and watts per channel I was asked to update by a Braven representative, although their site lists what I wrote (5W,) for the wattageand 1200mAh for the battery.
I guess if you have a rip-roaring party and forget to bring the speakers in and they got soaked, you’re set, but otherwise this feels like beautiful design overkill.
The BRV-1 also lists the ability to charge your cell phone from the built-in battery, although with only a 1400mAh battery built in, you’re probably not looking at much charging ability if you plan to use both the phone and the speaker. I didn’t see this demoed, so I can’t comment on it other than that 1400mAh is not a lot of juice for a cell phone.
Overall the design aesthetic reminds me of military hardware packaging, or higher end camera case design – not exactly speaker-esque, but then again, I don’t think these were the design cues they were aiming for.
The Braven BRV-1 has an MSRP of $169.99 and should be available February 2013.
Make sure to stop by our CES 2013 forum for hands-on impressions, giveaways, and much more!