One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s robot hermit crabs or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!
Continuing Friday’s theme of cool products to use to cram more podcast listening into your life is the Anker SoundCore Sport XL Outdoor Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker. I actually got this ages ago to go on vacation where we were going to be spending a long weekend at a place with a beach and pool. The original idea was I didn’t want to bring my Big Jambox (Anyone remember when THOSE were the hottest Bluetooth speaker to have?) somewhere wet and sandy, which led to a search for something more appropriate. I’ve always had great luck with Anker stuff in general, so when I’m looking for something new inside of the ecosystem of stuff that they might sell, I usually check their listings first. Well, the Anker SoundCore Sport XL worked like a charm as it’s both IP67 waterproof rated (so it can be submerged up to 1m deep) and the same protections keep it dust-tight. It also has a totally rubberized exterior that has taken a number of careless drops over the years and it’s still working great.
This speaker got a ton of use on vacation, but when I got back I had a serious eureka moment: I can actually put this thing in the shower and sneak some additional podcast listening while getting ready in the morning. My Anker SoundCore Sport XL has lived on the wire rack we have hanging from the shower pipe, getting drenched daily, for well over a year now, and it still works like a charm. Anker claims the speaker gets 15 hours of play time, which seems about right based on my usage where I end up charging it around once a month. Cooler yet, under a rubber flap on the back of the speaker it not only has a micro USB port for charging itself and a 3.5mm line-in port, there’s also a full sized USB port which allows you to charge whatever you want off of it. With enough battery onboard for 15 hours of speaker use, you can charge a heck of a lot of phones and still have enough power left over to keep the speaker playing all day.
While my Anker SoundCore Sport XL‘s primary home is the shower caddy, we’ve also taken it up to a friend’s lake house where we made a little platform out of half an old pool noodle and just had it floating in the water with us most of the day. It’s really, really neat just not needing to worry about something like this getting damaged in the water- A lot like how when Apple started adding waterproofing to their iPhones, using your phone in the rain became a lot less daring.
Are there cheaper Bluetooth speakers on Amazon that claim to be waterproof? Yes, there’s tons of them. I’ve always been of the mind that when it comes to Anker accessories you really get what you pay for, and really just haven’t been satisfied when it comes to using any of the super cheap no-name Bluetooth speakers out there. It seems like everyone I know just buys cheap pieces of junk, then wonder why they either don’t sound good, or stop working. Anyway, if you have a need in your life for a Bluetooth speaker that seems like it could survive the apocalypse, the Anker SoundCore Sport XL Outdoor Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker is the one I have and I love it.
Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at [email protected] and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day" in the subject.
