I’ll give credit where credit is due, Anker did the right thing. They didn’t piss and moan or make me ship back broken parts. Five days after I called their tech support line (twice) a replacement speaker arrived in the mail (link):
This one did everything that the first one did not. I plugged it in, charged it up, and turned it on. The magic blue light of functionality lit up and it extended its being into the Bluetooth ecosystem. At my laptop, which happened to be booted up in Windows, I told it to sniff the Bluetooth air. The handshake was pretty much automatic:
Laptop: “Ground control to Major Tom?”
Speaker: “Oh my God! I’ve been locked in a cardboard box for so long. I was lonely. Let’s be friends!”
Initial testing suggests the little speaker, which is roughly the size and weight of a can of Red Bull, is all I need. I haven’t figured out a way to see if it has a microphone and if so to disable it but otherwise I’m happy with the speaker.
A.C.
P.S. I didn’t pay too much attention when I unboxed the first speaker (the one that was a dud) but I noticed the second speaker came encased in a plastic bag inside its cardboard box. I don’t remember a plastic bag on the first one (which was a dud). I don’t know if this means the first one had been returned by some irate customer and subsequently shipped off to me? Or perhaps I just don’t remember the plastic bag and it’s just a bad unit from the factory. I don’t have sufficient information to know. But Anker did the right thing and that’s what matters.
P.S. 2. I’ll give the new speaker a few days to make sure it functions and then I’m attacking the old one with hammer and tongs. (The housing is sealed and unrepairable.) I don’t want to fix it but what man wouldn’t want to figure out what makes it tick? If it holds a charge (which might not be true) I might be able to re-purpose the batteries to run a Raspberry Pi?
“what man wouldn’t want to figure out what makes it tick?”
A millenial.
I have autopsied every piece of expired electronics I have had. It is sometime educational.
Repurpose the (W)anker batteries and complete the disassembling process via 5.56 or 7.62?
I’ve got both calibers but that would make the whole “run a Raspberry Pi” somewhat unlikely now wouldn’t it? Good call on the millennial jab too.
That reminds me, I have a stack of hard drives to “scrub”.
HDs aren’t just targets; I’ve heard they’re also a source of ever-useful fridge magnets.
My plan for scrubbing hard drives involves a oil burner and my foundry furnace.
Examine it with care, it may be open-able without major damage to the case and also repairable if you simply find that loose wire or more likely, the wire from the battery to the motherboard. They use spade lug connectors that come loose easily with vibration. Could be a bonus of 2 working units waiting for ya. Also look for cold solder joints where the power socket joins the board, or sunken center pin…. all things I have found over the years with ye chinkey elecronicks.
The hardest part will be figuring out how the case went together so I can open it without making a mess. It’s probably glued but who knows?
STOP!!!
Stop
Stop
Stop!!!!!!!!!
Do not attack said device I beg of you!
Please consider sending it to one AvE* on YouTube. Deconstructing such things on camera for his BOLTR** series is his main shtick. Hell… he might even be able to figure out the flaw, fix it and send it back!
If you haven’t already found this channel, WARNING!! Do not click on the following links until your workday is through!
*https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil/videos
** “Bored of Lame Tool Reviews” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG8KU_ln77k&list=PLvgS71fU12Mbx-w18Chu_Sg9v6loipEFO
I’ll check it out when I get somewhere with better wifi. I can’t wait to see it.
I took a raspberry pi and programmed it on my cheap drone. Now it’s all over the world.
BOOOM
SO do you actually know how to operate a drone with Pi or just joshin’ me? I ask because I’ve got a R Pi I haven’t used much.
I’m just joshing you! (If I wasn’t I wouldn’t say either. That would put me on a list!)
The temptation to draw a W at the start of all of Anker’s logos is nigh overwhelming.
So overwhelming that my wife has a WANKER speaker in her home office…
Tell her to stop snuffling the viagra if you can’t keep up!
Ducks and runs
IME Anker are one of the good guys – not surprised you got a replacement without undue hassle.
I was pleased to get a replacement.
Audio is great but the device isn’t perfect though. Sometime the bluetooth handshake doesn’t happen at boot up. Still working on that. I give it a solid B and I’m sure it’ll get an A- if I figure it out.
I bought one for the wife’s birthday. She is happy. That made me happy. It’s not often that happens with some fairly inexpensive speakers.