Review of the Bose SoundLink Micro Bluetooth Speaker

Music is a huge part of my life. While I am very much the opposite of what you would call a musician or a person with any musical abilities whatsoever, listening to music is what gets me moving in the morning, motivated throughout the day, and relaxed at night, regardless of what I’m doing. So, as someone who leads a busy and active life and likes to have a soundtrack to accompany it, I can tell you that I was beyond excited to review the Bose SoundLink Micro Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth speaker.

Overview of the Bose SoundLink Micro

The Bose SoundLink Micro is a portable Bluetooth speaker intended for people who lead active lifestyles. Measuring in at just under 4 x 4 x 1.5 inches, and weighing only a little more than 10 ounces, it is Bose’s smallest Bluetooth speaker yet, and thanks to its tear-resistant silicone strap, can be carted along with you no matter where your adventures take you.

Best of all, it is fully waterproof and IPX7 certified, so is built to withstand the outdoors, including accidental dunks in the water, making it ideal for poolside parties. It also features a built-in microphone so you can take speakerphone calls, or access your smartphone’s Siri or Google Assistant right from the speaker.

Unboxing and Setup

In the box you get the Bose SoundLink Micro speaker itself, plus a micro USB cable for charging, a multilingual quick-start guide, and booklet of important safety instructions. The quick start guide leaves a lot to be desired in so far as typical guides are concerned. While it clearly tells you to download the Bose app and to connect the SoundLink Micro to power to wake the speaker up, it does little to explain the various functions of the speaker itself.

Thankfully, I’ve had an opportunity to review and test a number of speakers, headphones, and other similar products so was able to figure things out pretty quickly without the help of a detailed manual. I simply followed the instruction to connect the speaker to my laptop via the micro USB cable (no wall-charger is provided), and pressed its power button. I then waited about an hour to make sure the speaker was fully charged before I paired it with my smartphone.

Pairing your audio source to the Bose SoundLink Micro is as simple as putting your finger on the image of the speaker within the Bose app, and dragging it down. The speaker confirmed a successful pairing by telling me that it was “connected to Stacey’s iPhone.” I don’t know why I get such a kick out of my electronics talking to me, but I really do. Knowing I was now connected, I proceeded to select a play list in my phone to see what this micro speaker could do.

Bose SoundLink Micro Functionality

Before I get into how the Bose SoundLink Micro performed, I wanted to quickly make note its various buttons and ports and what they do, since the quick-start guide doesn’t exactly do a good job in doing so.

For example, in addition to acting as volume controls, the + and – buttons also control the speaker’s voice prompts. Hold them both at the same time to turn the prompts off, and again to turn them back on.

The middle button is actually called the “multi-function” button and allows you to not only pause, play, and skip music both forward and backward, but make, receive, reject, end, and answer a second incoming call while putting the first call on hold. You can also use it to switch between calls and put a call on mute.

Then of course there are the standard Power and Bluetooth buttons, the micro USB port, and indicator lights that show you the connection status of a mobile device as well as the battery charge level.

Testing Sound Quality

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to my actual test of the Bose SoundLink Micro speaker. As I mentioned, the SoundLink Micro is on the small side, however, one of the first things I noticed when taking it out of the box was that despite its size, it really does have some heft to it.

Considering the fact that the Bose brand has long been known for depth and quality of sound, this “heft” quality is not all that surprising. In my very-pseudo-technical estimation, that means it’s got some decent parts beneath it’s diminutive exterior; and as it turns out, I was right.

The very second the song I selected started playing from the SoundLink Micro, I was blown away. The sound was both crisp and clear, and the level of volume I could get out of it exceeded my expectations.

Given the fact that the SoundLink Micro is waterproof, and that surprisingly, it wasn’t raining in Vancouver when I had the product, I decided to test it out in the shower. Yup, that’s right. I strapped it to my soap dispenser, turned on an upbeat playlist, and had myself a little dance party while I prepped for the day. I was able to adjust the volume and change songs with the click of a couple of buttons while washing my hair, and at no point did the water spraying on it affect the sound quality.

The Verdict

I was thoroughly impressed with the Bose SoundLink Micro Bluetooth speaker. While it is said to be ideal for people on the go, for the outdoors, and to withstand potentially wet conditions, I absolutely loved using it in my apartment for the short period of time I was in its possession. Whether I was cooking, bathing, entertaining, working out, or playing mind-numbing games on my phone, it delivered a consistently crisp and clear sound. Add to that the fact that you can strap it to virtually anything, and I think the SoundLink micro is a great option for anyone looking for a quality portable Bluetooth speaker.

One thing to note is that if you aren’t streaming music to the speaker, be sure to disconnect it from your audio source, especially if that source is your phone. Otherwise every call, ping, or other sound from your phone will be broadcast through the speaker, and it can get a little annoying–especially when you are playing the aforementioned mind-numbing games on your phone and you haven’t turned the sound off on them.

The Bose SoundLink Micro comes in black, blue and orange, and if you want an even more immersive sound, you can connect two of them together for “Party Mode.”