2025
I love when gadgets have a schtick. Like Lenovo’s Tab Plus with an ungodly amount of JBL speakers, or Nothing’s Android phones with lights on the back. Schticks are great, and schticks that are practical and actually work are even better. For Soundcore’s $130 Boom 3i Bluetooth speaker, the schtick is all about throwing a speaker into water, which is unnatural for anyone familiar with how batteries work, but for the right person, might be kind of awesome.
See Soundcore Boom 3i at Amazon
Let me explain: Soundcore made its Boom 3i Bluetooth speaker very, very waterproof. That’s IP68 for anyone who speaks water and dust resistance fluently. That doesn’t just mean you can throw it into water; it means you should throw it into water. The Boom 3i is designed to float and is actually weighted so that the speaker faces upwards at all times. The idea here, as you may have gathered, is that you can bring it into the pool, or lake, or even the ocean—Soundcore says the Boom 3i is also more resistant to salt water than other waterproof competitors. Naturally, to test all that out, I turned to… my bathtub.
Soundcore Boom 3i An incredible value and not just for outdoor speakers. Pros Very waterproof and floats in water as promised
Very waterproof and floats in water as promised Surprisingly solid sound
Surprisingly solid sound Get super loud
Get super loud Feature-rich Cons Brick-like design
Brick-like design No reverse charging
Sure, it’s not the ideal environment to blast loud Bluetooth audio, but this is in the name of science, and in my small town of Brooklyn, New York, pools that I would ever step foot in, let alone ones that allow loud music, are not exactly forthcoming. And in my contained float test, the Boom 3i passed with flying colors, both literally and figuratively, since this thing literally lights up with built-in RGB lighting. What’s even more impressive isn’t that the Boom 3i floats; it’s that it floats and still manages to play audio that sounds good. Because the Boom 3i is weighted, the side with the speaker grate on it, which actually projects the audio, always stays upright, so your tunes aren’t getting literally drowned out.
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