iFox iF012 Speaker Review

The iFox iF012 is a small, round speaker with a puck-like design and a gold trim around its control buttons. It sits on a removable suction cup which you can use to stick it facing up on a flat surface or vertically on your shower wall. It also comes with a removable carabiner clip you can use to clip it somewhere in your shower or onto your bag when you're on the go. You can find it in three different color variants, 'Black', 'Black/Gold', and 'White. We tested the 'Black/Gold' variant.

The iFox iF012 Bluetooth shower speaker is incredibly portable. It's small, lightweight, and battery-powered, meaning you can bring it along with you in the shower. It also comes with a removable suction cup to stick it on your shower wall, as well as a carabiner clip to clip it somewhere like onto your shower caddy.

The iFox iF012's build quality is very good. It's mostly made of plastic, and has a gold ring surrounding its rubberized controls. While it doesn't feel very premium, it still feels quite sturdy. It's rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, meaning it's certified to be fully dust-tight and immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes, so you don't have to worry about getting it wet while bringing it into the shower with you.

It comes with a removable suction cup which you can screw on and off the speaker. The suction cup feels pretty sturdy on our unit, especially when placed flat facing upward, you can see a video of it here. However, water and soap may affect its ability to stick firmly to your shower wall. Fortunately, there's a built-in hoop atop the speaker you can use to attach it to its included carabiner clip, if you'd rather clip it somewhere in your shower instead, or when you want to bring it along with you on the go. You can see what the iF012 looks like from underneath without its suction cup here.

The iFox iF012 Bluetooth Shower Speaker has a good selection of physical controls that are easy to use, so you can control your audio from your shower without needing to reach out of the shower for your paired phone. You can long-press its power button to turn the speaker on/off. You can short-press the volume buttons to increase and decrease its volume and long-press them to skip tracks and backtrack. The speaker will beep to inform you of when you've reached its maximum and minimum volume levels. You can play and pause your audio by short-pressing the play/pause button and can long-press it to enable its True Wireless Stereo mode when you want to create a stereo pair with a second iF012 speaker.

Also, there's a phone button you can long-press to enable Bluetooth pairing mode, which will cause the light next to the icon to turn blue. You can short-press this button to accept calls, and long-press it to decline them, which doesn't disconnect the speaker from its paired audio source. Double-pressing the phone button will redial the last phone number in your call log.

• iFox iF012 Bluetooth Shower speaker
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Carabiner clip
• Quick Start Guide & User Manual

The iFox iF012 has poor frequency response accuracy. It has a pretty uneven sound profile with an overemphasis in the high-mid range that makes some vocals and instruments sound honky and harsh, and the dip and peak in the treble range makes higher-pitched voices and sibilants like 'S' and 'T' sound alternately dull and harsh. Also, it struggles to reproduce a lot of low-bass, which may disappoint fans of bass-heavy music like EDM or hip-hop.

Note: Our sound tests were conducted with the speaker placed flat on its suction cup, facing upward. It's also important to note that the acoustics of your bathroom can affect your perception of the speaker's sound.

The iFox iF012 has a decent soundstage performance. It has fantastic directivity, resulting in a wide and natural-sounding soundstage. That said, it requires a second unit to play stereo audio and has to downmix stereo content to mono when using it on its own, which isn't as immersive.

The iFox iF012's dynamics are alright. While it doesn't get very loud, there's little compression present at max volume, so the quality of your audio doesn't degrade as you increase the speaker's volume.

The iFox iF012 has a satisfactory battery performance. While the manual claims the speaker can last up to six hours from a three-hour charge, the speaker could last up to almost eight hours in our tests. However, battery performance can vary depending on your usage, and your experience may differ. There's also a power-saving feature that shuts the speaker off following 15 to 20 minutes of inactivity and when it isn't connected to an audio source.

The iFox iF012 Bluetooth shower speaker only has a micro-USB port to charge the speaker. That said, you don't have to wait until it's fully charged to enjoy your music and can use it while it's charging.

The iFox iF012 Bluetooth shower speaker has fair Bluetooth connectivity. It has a fantastic range, so you don't have to worry about it being too far from your paired device. However, it has high latency with iOS and Android devices, which can cause syncing issues between the audio you hear and the visuals you see when using it to watch videos and movies. That said, some apps compensate for latency differently, and your experience may differ.