HomeGames & TechPolk Boom Swimmer review

Polk Boom Swimmer review

For years we dreamed of the possibility of wireless speakers and now not only are they a reality they are also incredibly affordable. There are so many different options on the market these days that it’s hard to decide which to choose.

The Boom Swimmer from Polk Audio makes choosing a lot easier as it immediately stands out from the crowd. This is thanks to a unique design with a lovely pastel coloured rubber casing and detachable tail. At first we thought the tail looked rather weird and were unsure of it’s purpose. However after playing with the Swimmer it soon becomes clear that the tail is a genius idea.

The tail can be bent, twisted and looped into many different shapes. This allows you to hang or attach it to a variety of places such as a cupboard door handle, a belt loop on your jeans, the handle bars of your bike or even in the shower. That’s right we said the shower because the Swimmer, as the name suggests, is water-resistant.

With an IPX7 rating you don’t need to be concerned about the Swimmer getting the occasional splash. In fact you could leave in sat in a bath-tub of water for half an hour and it would still be perfectly fine. So if you’re off hiking for the day or spending a weekend sat in the rain at a festival there is no need to worry.

Swimmer_Water3

Sometimes the tail isn’t the best option for positioning the speaker and this is the reason that it is detachable. Once removed you can replace it with the included suction cup to stick it to various flat surfaces. The suction cup works great but if it does let you down or you drop the Swimmer then you can rely on the durable rubber casing and shock-resistant design.

Pairing the speaker to a Bluetooth enabled device such as a phone or tablet is very simple and takes just a couple of seconds. Once paired sounds from your device will be wirelessly transmitted to the speaker. There’s no need for wires and this allows you to leave your expensive device in a safer place. This is especially welcome when there is water around so for example you can leave your device in the next room then just take the speaker into the shower.

Controlling the speaker is easy thanks to the included buttons on the side. These allow you to power it on and off, pair with Bluetooth, change the volume and play/pause. Once slight issue we had after a lot of use is that the rubber jacket can slip slightly so the buttons inside don’t line up properly. However the jacket is removable and this is easily fixed by returning it to its original position.

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When the speaker is detached from the tail and suction cup you have access to ports for a 3.5mm aux input and also USB. The USB port is used for charging the Swimmer and a full charge can take a couple of hours. Once fully charged you can expect to get around 8 hours of use at full volume but turning the speaker down can push this over 16 hours.

Considering the price of the speaker we were very impressed by both the quality of the sound and also how loud it can be. There can be a little distortion at the highest volume but we didn’t find this a problem. Most of the time we’d use it around half volume and found the sound quality to be brilliant.

There’s not much more to say about the Polk Boom Swimmer. It does everything that you would expect from a Bluetooth speaker while sounding and looking great. It’s very affordable and the fact that it is both shock and water resistant makes it a very attractive purchase. If you’re considering picking up a Bluetooth speaker then we would urge you to strongly consider the Polk Boom Swimmer.

Greg Ellwood
Greg Ellwoodhttps://8ce250469d.nxcli.io
Greg is the Deputy Editor of Entertainment Focus. He writes about Games, Tech and TV. You can find him on Xbox/PSN/Steam as Tahllian.

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