Audio - Page 16 of 104

Sonos Move review: Should you buy it over Roam?

(Pocket-lint) – Sonos offers multiple speakers within its portfolio, but as great as they are, none had been portable, none had been water-resistant, and none had offered Bluetooth audio support. The Sonos Move, however, changed all of that.

While Sonos previously focused on offering speakers designed for the home that require mains power and use a mesh Wi-Fi network to talk to each other, the Sonos Move was the first portable Bluetooth smart speaker marking the beginning of Sonos outside of the home.

Move was first, but since its release, there is also now the smaller, and more portable Sonos Roam to consider if you’re in the market for a Bluetooth Sonos speaker. You can read our full Sonos Roam review separately, but here we are focusing on the larger, more powerful, Sonos Move.

Sonos Move vs Sonos Roam: What’s the difference?

Design

IP56 water- and dust-resistant design
Capacitive touch controls
Integrated handle
Measures: 240 x 160 x 126mm
Weighs: 3kg

Sonos plays close attention to design and all its latest speakers – from the 2015 Play:5 to the Sonos Arc – share similar design features, like capacitive touch controls, black and white colour options and plastic detailing.

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The Sonos Move has the same design ethos as these newer Sonos speakers, with rounded edges, capacitive controls and an almost identical top to the Sonos One – albeit oval shaped and with repositioned controls – but it raises the stakes when it comes to durability.

While the design of the Sonos Move clearly resembles the Sonos portfolio, it offers an IP56 water and dust resistance and it is one tough little cookie – although it’s not actually that little. Sonos says the Move can withstand pretty much every obstacle life might throw at it, whether that be sand, water or a drop on concrete, and while we didn’t fancy testing the last of those, it’s clear this speaker is able to hold its own.

To achieve this, the bottom of the device is silicone with a clear coat of paint over the top to deter dust. Everything inside has been considered, too, from a custom-made polycarbonate basket case reinforced with glass for the mid-woofer, to the colour of the Move itself – it is Shadow Black and not just plain, absorbant black to take UV exposure into account. We had it outside in 25C with the sun shining directly on it for several hours but it didn’t feel too hot as a result. There’s a Lunar White model too, which are the same colour offerings as the Sonos Roam.

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As we say, though, this portable speaker is not small. It’s wider and taller than the Sonos One and it weighs a hefty 3kg – so you’ll need a pretty decent-sized backpack to lug it around. The point is that you can bring it wherever you want, whether that’s your garden, the beach or a camping trip. At this scale we suspect it’ll be nearer to the home, for a garden party, while the smaller Sonos Roam is more suited to the park or beach.

On the rear of the Move is a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth toggle switch, a power button and a pairing button – the last of which all Sonos speakers except the Roam offer. The buttons are all positioned on an inward slant that allows for the convenient integrated handle – which is built into the design, rather than a separate strap or handle – to exist within this design format.

When the Sonos Move is on its Loop Dock charging cradle it looks like any other Sonos speaker and blends into the home. You’d never know it was portable from the front, giving it an element of surprise about it. If you’re thinking about buying a permanent in-home Sonos speaker but might want to occasionally take it out and about then we can see why this design makes perfect sense, though the same can definitely be said for the Roam too.

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A USB Type-C port sits below the integrated handle and the buttons, as well as two charging pins below that for the Loop Dock – which the Sonos Move snaps into place on.

Hardware & Specs

Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy
AirPlay 2 support
45W power

The Sonos Move delivers 45W of power, coupled with Bluetooth for audio streaming capabilities rather than needing a mesh-connected device. The Sonos One, by comparison, doesn’t offer Bluetooth for audio streaming (only for quick setup), making the Move the first Sonos speaker to offer the technology, followed by the Roam.

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The Sonos Move also supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 – as per the Roam, Arc, Beam, One, Play:5, and the Sonos One SL (the voiceless version of the Sonos One) – which allows for easy streaming from an Apple device without the need to open the Sonos app. It’s quick, convenient and it offers Apple users integration with Siri for voice control too.

The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth toggle switch on the rear of the Sonos Move allows users to switch the speaker between modes – something the Roam does automatically. When the Move is ready to pair, the LED light on the top flashes blue then goes solid blue when pairing is successful. We paired our Apple iPhone 11 at the time of review with it in a matter of seconds and switching between the two modes is virtually instant, making it pain-free, even if the Roam does make this element more seamless.

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The power button, meanwhile, allows users to switch the Sonos Move off entirely, otherwise it will stay in a low power mode when not being used – useful for quick wake-up if it’s grouped with another Sonos speaker or an alarm is set, for example.

Features

Automatic Trueplay
Alexa and Google voice control

The Sonos Move functions as a typical Bluetooth speaker when in Bluetooth mode, allowing users to send music to it via a paired device, as you would the Ultimate Ears UE Megaboom 3, for example. In Bluetooth mode, the Move isn’t controlled via the Sonos app, with the control shifted to your device and the streaming service you are using instead.

When not in Bluetooth mode, the Move functions as a traditional Sonos speaker, but it appears with a battery indicator in the Sonos app. Functioning as a traditional Sonos speaker means you can group it with other Sonos speakers, control it through the Sonos app and access all the features that come with that app, including compatibility with over 100 music streaming services, stereo pairing and customisation of equalisation levels (EQ).

Sadly, you can’t use two Sonos Move speakers in a surround setup, as you can with all other Sonos speakers except the Sonos Roam, which also doesn’t offer the feature. Read our Sonos tips and tricks to learn more about the features offered by the Sonos system as a whole.

The Sonos Move also offers a feature called Automatic Trueplay. Trueplay is a software feature Sonos introduced with the Play:5 in 2015 and it allows users to tune their Sonos speakers according to its surroundings using an Apple iOS device. You can read all about it in our seperate feature.

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Automatic Trueplay uses the four built-in microphones on the Sonos Move to listen to the sound produced by the speaker and tune it automatically according to its surroundings, making for a much simpler process than the original (where you had to walk around the room waving your iOS device up and down slowly, yep, really).

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The Automatic Trueplay feature was introduced on the Move to combat the issues of moving a speaker from outside to inside and still ensuring it sounds good. An accelerometer helps the Sonos Move detect when it has been moved, allowing it to adjust itself within around 30 seconds to what it deems as the best for its new surroundings. You can turn it off in the Sonos app if you don’t want it though.

Additionally, the Sonos Move supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa voice control. As with the One, Beam, Arc and Roam, which offer the same control, you can’t have both assistants setup at the same time – but you will be able to switch between them as you please, as well as turn the microphone off (an LED light on the top of the Move indicates when the microphones are on). You can also choose to have Alexa on one compatible Sonos speaker and Google Assistant on another if you want.

When the voice assistants are setup, you get almost all the same features you would an Amazon Echo or Google Home or Nest speaker device, bar a couple, meaning you’ll be able to ask Alexa or Google anything you like, such as set a timer or alarm, control compatible smart home devices, or find out about your day or commute.

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Voice control is only available when in Wi-Fi mode (AKA standard Sonos mode), but don’t mistake this for only when docked on the Loop Dock. For us, we get Wi-Fi in our garden at home and therefore we could use Google Assistant on the Move in the garden during a BBQ with friends, which was great.

Sound and performance

Two Class-D digital amplifiers, tweeter and mid-woofer
10 hours battery life
Replaceable battery

The Sonos Move has a downward-firing tweeter at the top of the speaker, coupled with a mid-range woofer inside. For those wondering why the company has used a downward-facing tweeter, Sonos told us it was to achieve evenly dispersed sound; there’s what the company calls a Wave Guide inside to enable this to happen.

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Based on our experience at review and continued experience, the Sonos Move offers a great sound quality for its size and the sound is evenly dispersed. It’s on the bassy side, which is typical of Sonos speakers, but we see that as a good thing compared to other portables that can’t deliver in this regard.

There’s plenty of volume too – which you definitely need when outdoors – and the Move copes well with mid-range, treble and vocals. You don’t get as wide a soundscape as per the Play:5, but the Move sounds better than the Sonos One to our ears. That gives you an idea of its positioning in the range. It’s also more powerful than the Roam, which you would expect.

Sonos claims the battery will deliver 10 hours of music playback. We had the Sonos Move outside on Wi-Fi, on mid-volume for four hours and we only managed to drain the battery to 80 per cent, so we suspect this figure is based on use at louder volumes, thus you might get more out of it.

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The battery can be replaced too – it will last around 900 charging cycles, which is around three years on average – after which it is recommended to replace it to continue to get longevity out of the device. Sonos offers a battery replacement kit that allows you to do this yourself.

Verdict

We waited a long time to see Sonos launch a portable speaker with Bluetooth streaming before Move was finally revealed. In fact, we asked co-founder Tom Cullen about a portable speaker back in 2015, so it’s something we’ve been pining after for a while and now we have two choices.

The Move is bigger and heavier than we expected, and certainly not cheap, but with its price and size comes durability, toughness and performance – and that’s no bad thing, especially if you actually plan to make use of the Move’s portability. We also suspect many will use it as a sometime portable, not as a constant cart-around speaker.

There are other great portable Bluetooth speakers out there – including Sonos’ own Roam that is far smaller and better designed for constant portability – but there are none quite like the Sonos Move in terms of sound output and features, especially not for those already invested in the Sonos system. It’s the Bluetooth speaker Sonos fans were waiting for.

^{This article was first published on 5 September 2019 and has been republished to represent its full review status.}

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Sonos Roam

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The Sonos Roam is the second portable, Bluetooth speaker from Sonos. It’s much smaller than the Move and while it isn’t as powerful, it offers some great features like automatic switching between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as a feature called Sound Swap.

Sonos Roam review

Pocket-lint

Sonos One

squirrel_widget_148504

The Sonos One isn’t portable like the Move, nor does it offer Bluetooth audio capabilities, but it is cheaper, it has built-in Google Assistant and Alexa capabilities, and it offers a good sound for its size. Two Sonos One speakers can also be used in a surround setup with a Sonos Arc, Sonos Beam and Sonos Sub.

Sonos One review

Pocket-lint

Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3

squirrel_widget_145462

The Megaboom 3 is quite a bit smaller and cheaper than the Sonos Move and it doesn’t offer the soundscape as a result of this, but it is completely waterproof, it offers decent bass for its size, and it is more portable than the Move. It’s that last point that’s a big sell here.

Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 review

Pocket-lint

JBL Link Portable

Smaller and more compact than the Move, the Link Portable doesn’t deliver the same sound experience as a result, but there are plenty of features, including Google Assistant, AirPlay 2, Chromecast support and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

JBL Link Portable review

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

Cambridge Audio’s Evo system: “I can accept ‘lifestyle’, but this is a proper hi-fi product”

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

As much as we love it, hi-fi isn’t traditionally synonymous with convenience – those stacks of components and tangles of cables, the rigamarole around turntable assembly, the nuisance caused by being repeatedly bitten by the hi-fi upgrade bug.

Aiming to bring the two closer is a new era of just-add-speakers streaming systems. In recent years, electronics brands have combined music streamers and amplifiers into do-all boxes to make the prospect of ‘hi-fi sound’ less daunting and more domestically attractive, to both the hi-fi and wider community. With such versatile streaming boxes, you could say the microsystem has come of age.

Having established itself in both areas of audio expertise, Cambridge Audio has now entered the market – with its Evo 75 and more aspirational Evo 150. We sat down with the firm’s managing director, Stuart George, to talk about its approach to creating something that straddles hi-fi and lifestyle design; something that by its very nature should be relevant to a bigger audience than its dedicated separates.

Read our Cambridge Audio Evo 75 review

It all started with Edge, Cambridge’s flagship hi-fi series introduced in 2018. “When we launched Edge, one of the biggest requests was ‘why didn’t you put a streaming module in the Edge A amplifier?’ And that was part of the inspiration for the Evo. Before then, our thoughts were that an all-in-one product had to include a CD player. Evo was never intended to be a ‘mini Edge’, but our concept was to try to get all the qualities of Edge into a small form factor.”

George doesn’t claim that Edge’s sonic qualities are matched by Evo. After all, Cambridge’s Edge NQ streaming preamp and Edge W power amp are a £6000-odd combination, while the Evo costs around a third of that – and even less comparable footprint-wise.

Cambridge’s midrange CX series streamer and amplifier, a similarly-priced combination to the Evo, is a fairer comparison – and the benchmark for the Evo. “I’m not going to tell you it sounds as good as a CXN and CX81 together,” says George. “But it sounds pretty comparable; we aren’t talking about night and day differences, we’re talking shades. I can accept the word ‘lifestyle’, but this is a proper hi-fi product.”

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

These one-box concepts shouldn’t be expected to perform better than, or even as well as, separate components of similar combined value. After all, there’s only so many electronics you can fit inside a box of this size. They tend to be smaller than traditional full-width chassis so they can be easily housed.

“How these things fit in with people’s lives is very important. And it doesn’t present a problem having that in your living room compared to having multiple Edge boxes,” says George. He admits that the original size Cambridge was aiming for had to expand to fit everything inside. “Getting all that stuff in the 150 was a challenge – the back panel is covered.”

These products have to be more efficient because of this modest real estate and so, like all hi-fi in one aspect or another, they are a compromise.

That’s why Cambridge ventured outside of its own Class XA and Class AB amplification designs, which lie at the core of its dedicated amplifiers. It arrived at Class D amplification and, having realised it was an area it was not experienced in, eventually arrived at Hypex’s NCore solution.

“The objective with Evo was to use a much smaller footprint, so we knew we had to go somewhere with Class D,” George explains. “The technology has been around for a while, of varying quality, but over the last few years, it has reached a level where our engineers were saying we had to use it. And Evo was the perfect way for us to do that, with its small form factor and energy efficiency.

“Hypex is a smart solution, it’s a versatile solution. It’s good at delivering performance and output in a way that it can handle the varying resistance and impedance in different speaker types.”

Our pick of the best hi-fi systems 2021

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

Cambridge’s senior electronics engineer, Francesco Bettucci, says that Hypex’s proprietary development of the feedback loop, in particular, is what distinguishes it from other solutions: “This means that they achieved low output impedance, no resonance at high frequencies, like many other Class D amps – this means there are no artefacts in the high-frequency range. It also achieves extremely low distortion, comparable with the best Class AB amps.”

So how does Cambridge take a third-party amplification design and make it a Cambridge-sounding product? “Our element of tuning comes in at the preamp,” says George. “That’s where our engineers have spent an enormous amount of time designing the componentry that goes around the power aspect of the product. How we go about that is a fastidious exercise of sitting down and tweaking different components and listening – endless hours of listening. When designing it on paper, it’s a relatively quick exercise. What takes time is tweaking it. The listening performance is more interesting to us than the measured performance.”

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

Of course, arguably as important as the amplification electronics in a multi-faceted product like this is its streaming abilities. Cambridge’s own StreamMagic platform debuted a decade ago in its NP30 streamer and has been at the foundation of more than 10 Cambridge products since.

The StreamMagic module in the Evo is a brand-new fourth-generation variant [internally called ‘Salefish’; Cambridge engineers name each new version after a faster fish than the last], which brings improvements over the previous (Black Marlin) by having a quad-core (compared to a single) processor for better handling higher audio quality and the large display, plus built-in wi-fi (as opposed to relying on a wi-fi dongle).

To its credit, the platform ticks a lot of boxes as far as music service and file compatibility goes. But the streaming world is far from static – new service tiers, codecs and protocols are always just around the corner – so products like this must be ready. Realising the need for future-proofing, manufacturers are increasingly adopting modular designs so that connectivity and streaming hardware can be upgraded down the line if the market demands it.

For Cambridge, the traction of MQA (the technology behind hi-res Tidal Masters) proved problematic in that it required hardware its existing music streamers, such as the CXN, did not have. The new Evo has the internals to support MQA, and though Cambridge has pledged to offer new features to existing users via updates when it can, the Evo isn’t physically modular. If another MQA-like barrier comes along down the line, that could be potentially troublesome.

“Back when we launched the Zandor (iteration of StreamMagic), which predated Black Marlin, what we specified was beyond the requirements at that time,” says George. “As far as we could see, there would be nothing to hold us back from doing what we were doing. What came along and changed things at that time was Chromecast. Google’s requirements were so enormous and not audio-focused, and it made it difficult to meet them in the space we’d allocated to that aspect of the processing, so we outgrew that platform version and had to keep going. We’re beholden to these guys. It’s a tough gig. But at the moment, we don’t foresee any changes that mean this Evo won’t stand the test of time.”

We ask the industry: is there such thing as ‘British hi-fi sound’?

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

So, is there scope for a higher-end flagship Edge streaming system, or is such a product relevant at this more modest level? If people are willing to spend huge money on a system, wouldn’t they be more inclined to go down the hi-fi separates route in search of maximum performance?

“I do think there’s room to go further with these designs and one-box solutions,” George says. “But if we’re going to make a more expensive, bigger design – which it would have to be – I can’t see us using Class D. With Edge, it was about taking Class XA on a journey to the extremities at that point in time. It proved what Cambridge Audio is capable of. This one has been about getting as much of the functionality and technology that we command at this moment in time into the smallest form possible while retaining the qualities around performance and sound quality.”

Wherever the streaming system goes for Cambridge Audio and other players, Evo and its finest rivals, such as the Naim Uniti Atom, Arcam SA30 and Linn Majik DSM, are successfully bringing broader relevance to the hi-fi market. Just connect it to a network, add a pair of speakers and you’re ready to go. How convenient is that?

MORE:

Read our Cambridge Audio Evo 75 review

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If you’re more into hi-fi than music, that’s a problem

Intel ‘Atlas Canyon’ NUC 11 Essential to feature Jasper Lake processors

Home / Tech News / Intel ‘Atlas Canyon’ NUC 11 Essential to feature Jasper Lake processors

João Silva
15 hours ago
Tech News

A new leak shows that Intel is working on a new affordable NUC powered by Jasper Lake processors. Codenamed ‘Atlas Canyon’, the NUC 11 Essential leak details its specifications and a possible release date, which might be as late as Q1 2022 due to the ongoing chip shortage.

The leak, which was shared by FanlessTech, shows Intel has apparently removed the 2.5-inch drive from its predecessor and replaced it with an M.2 slot. The small and compact casing includes an active cooling system, but a fanless system seems doable given the low TDP.

The slide below shows that there will be three CPU options: the 4C/4T Pentium Silver J6005 (up to 3.3GHz), the 4C/4T Celeron J5105 (up to 2.9 GHz), and the 2C/2T Celeron J4505 (up to 2.7 GHz). The NUC 11 Essential support up to 16GB of DDR4-2933 memory in dual-channel configuration and up to 2x 4K displays. Some models include 64GB of eMMC storage.

Image credit: FanlessTech

Featuring a vast set of connectivity ports and features, the NUC 11 Essential supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and 1Gbps Ethernet connectivity. As for the ports, there’s an HDMI 2.0b port, a DisplayPort 1.4, 2x front USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 2.0 ports, an audio-in 3.5mm jack, and an audio-out 3.5mm jack.

The NUC 11 Essential will be reportedly available as a mini PC, a barebone kit, and as a board only. All should feature a 3-year warranty.

KitGuru says: Despite its entry-level specs, the NUC 11 Essential is very useful as a media PC for the living room or as a work computer that can be mounted on the back of a mid-size monitor to save some desk space.

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Philips latest gaming monitor boasts a 240Hz IPS panel and HDR

Home / Peripheral / Monitors / Philips latest gaming monitor boasts a 240Hz IPS panel and HDR

João Silva
2 days ago
Monitors

Philips has recently announced a new monitor, expanding its ever-growing portfolio of gaming displays. The latest addition is the 272M1RPE, an IPS gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate that delivers smooth gameplay without sacrificing image quality.

The 27-inch IPS panel has a 1ms response time (G2G), FullHD resolution, and AMD Freesync Premium support for stutter-free gaming. The panel’s typical brightness hovers around 400nits and the contrast ratio at 1000:1, allowing the monitor to cover 119% of the sRGB colour space, 95% of the NTSC spectrum, and 93.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut. Moreover, the monitor comes factory-calibrated with a ΔE < 2 (sRGB).

The 272M1RPE features Philips’ Ambiglow technology, providing a colourful glow around the edges of the monitor, and flicker-free and low-blue light technologies to prevent eye strain. This monitor is VESA DisplayHDR certified and features SmartImage HDR presets, including ‘HDR Gaming’ and ‘HDR Movies’.

The included SmartErgo Base offers a full set of ergonomic features, allowing the user to adjust the tilt, swivel, pivot, and height, but users may also use the monitor with a VESA 100x100mm bracket. For I/O, this monitor comes equipped with 2x HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort 1.1, a USB-B upstream port, 4x USB 3.2 ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru says: A 27-inch FHD/240Hz monitor might not suit everyone due to the low pixel density, but some users prefer the high refresh rate instead of the higher resolution of the QHD/144Hz or 165Hz monitors out there. Which do you prefer for your gaming setup?

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This monitor almost has it all… what’s the catch?

Anker PowerConf C300 Review: A Little Bit of Everything

Our Verdict

The Anker PowerConf C300 is a consistent strong performer across lighting conditions, with a bevy of genuinely useful features that help make up for some stumbles in presentation.

For

+ Consistent image quality
+ Bonus features work well
+ Lots of value

Against

– Detachable camera shutter feels cheap
– Laggy Software

Anker’s new $130 PowerConf C300 webcam is part of a new initiative from the charger company to break into productivity gear. Labeled under the Anker Work brand, this camera is clearly aimed at professionals looking to buy the best webcams for video conferences. That means it packs a detailed 1080p sensor with multiple field of view options including 78 degrees, 90 degrees and 115 degrees, plus plenty of advanced features like AI framing, HDR and 60 FPS recording.

That’s a level of customizability that’s usually reserved for more expensive, enthusiast shooters like the Razer Kiyo Pro. But while the Anker’s visual fidelity didn’t quite live up to those $200 Kiyo Pro’s, probably because it doesn’t have the Kiyo’s powerful sensor, its strong suite of features still make a strong argument for spending slightly more on it than you would on a more casual but proven camera like the Logitech C920.

Regarding those features, the Anker PowerConf C300 comes with 4 shooting modes, including Personal, Meeting, Streaming and Custom. Personal and Meeting modes both use a “flexible angle” that adjusts the field of view and image framing based on your head movement and placement, although the former tends to be more zoomed-in while the latter is more zoomed out. Streaming mode, meanwhile, locks the camera at a 90-degree field of view and turns on 60 fps recording, while custom mode lets you set your own field of view and frame rate combinations in addition to getting the option to toggle on the HDR and Anti-Flicker settings.

In practical use, I found that most Streaming mode and Meeting mode photos tended to look identical, so for the below tests, I stuck to taking photos in Personal and Meeting modes. I did not include Custom mode in my tests, as I do not have an HDR monitor to test with.

Well-Lit Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

In terms of image fidelity, the Anker PowerConf C300 was roughly on par in a well-lit room with the Logitech C920, which is our leading mid-range 1080p webcam. However, perhaps reflecting its slightly higher price and more extended feature set, the Anker PowerConf C300 was much more accurate when it came to colors.

While the Logitech tends to give me a cooler color temperature than in real life, color in photos taken with the Anker came across as far more neutral and natural. This also extended to background elements, which tend to get washed out when using the Logitech.

Low-Light Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

When I drew my curtain and turned off all light sources in my office except for my computer monitor, I found that the difference between the Anker and Logitech webcams was, well, night and day. While the Anker now portrayed me with a cooler but still accurate color tone, its fidelity remained largely unchanged.

Meanwhile, the Logitech C920 introduced significant grain to its photos, especially on background elements. The Logitech’s color temperature also got even cooler than before, which made me look sickly.

Overexposed Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

I also took shots with the Anker PowerConf C300 and Logitech C920 pointing towards my window, to test how they work in an overexposed environment. While this is an over exaggeration of most user setups, it can help shed light on how a webcam might work under heavy light saturation.

The Logitech was, unfortunately, mostly unusable. While it did catch a glimpse of the buildings outside my window, which is impressive given that many webcams instead render windows as pure sheets of white, my face is bathed in too much shadow for me to want to call anyone under these conditions.

The Anker, however, again retained most of its fidelity in these conditions. The edges of my head were tinged by light in shots I took with it, but none of my face was hidden by excessive shadow. And while photos did suffer from a “white sheet” effect, putting the emphasis on the face is the right choice here. Even background elements appeared without issue, arguably looking better than in more neutrally lit shots.

Build Quality of the Anker PowerConf C300

Build quality is where it feels like the Anker PowerConf C300 stumbles most, although its emphasis on versatility extends to its build as well. That means you can tilt it forward 180 degrees, plus swivel it a full 360 degrees. For placement, the monitor mount fits snugly and has the typical hole for connecting a tripod on the bottom. It also connects using a detachable USB-C cable and has an optional privacy cover, but it’s here that the camera starts to show its weaknesses.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The first, and less egregious, problem is that the webcam only includes a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box. If you want to connect over USB Type-A, you have to use a small adapter that you’re likely to lose. It’s a small price to pay for USB-C functionality and can be easily resolved with your own USB-C to USB-A cable, but small and easily lost parts are still worth bringing up. Which takes us to the removable privacy slider.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The privacy slider is a detachable and purely physical switch, which means there’s no hardware level shut-off here, and you get two in the box. While that sounds like a nice gesture, it’s a testament to how easy it is to make one of these unusable. That’s because the slider attaches using glue. This introduced a few problems, the most dramatic one being that you probably won’t want to take the slider on and off a lot. Doing so can weaken the adhesive, and it’s not like it’s easy to find a place to store the slider in the meantime without leaving the glue open to the air. While this doesn’t present a major issue if you plan to use it all the time, I personally think the slider’s kind of ugly, and wouldn’t want it on at all times. Additionally, if we’re not meant to remove it frequently, why make it detachable instead of building it into the device?

There’s also the question of whether the glue will leave residue on your device, although I haven’t found this to be the case with my unit. It can be tricky to pry the slider off, though, which I suppose makes me happy that I have long fingernails.

As for the slider itself, it does its job well when attached securely, although its thin plastic has me worried about the slide rail’s durability over time. I’m also worried that the glue could break down over time, although this didn’t happen to me in the few days I used this camera while writing this review.

There’s also no guiding marks for where the slider should go on the webcam, so it’s easy to make a mistake when installing it, and adjusting it could weaken the glue.

Top: Logitech C920, Bottom: Anker PowerConf C3900 (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Anker PowerConf C300’s cord measured a little over 59 inches when pulled fully taut, which was long enough to easily reach all of my desktop’s USB ports.Logitech says the C920 has having a nearly-identical 60-inch cord, but as you can see in the picture above, its cord is noticeably longer than the PowerConf C300’s. When I pulled it taut and measured it with some measuring tape, it hit 70 inches, making it nearly a foot longer.

The PowerConf C300 also has built-in dual microphones that produce loud audio but also tended to give my voice a somewhat warbly effect that hurt clarity.

Special Features on the Anker PowerConf C300

The Anker PowerConf C300’s guide gives you instructions for downloading the free AnkerWork app, which is how you’ll access the camera’s different preset recording modes, adjust settings like brightness and saturation and set up a custom recording mode with HDR, anti-flicker, and/or 60FPS support.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The user interface is simple and light, although it’s a bit annoying to me that I need to scroll down a long list to see all the different ways a recording preset will affect my shot. I would have preferred a layout that puts as much information on my screen at once as possible. But the biggest problem here is lag, which makes the image setting section (where you can adjust photo settings like brightness or sharpness) near unusable.

Every time you press a button or move a slider in the AnkerWork app, you’re going to need to wait at least a second while it applies your changes to the camera. This is obnoxious but not insurmountable when turning HDR or Anti-Flicker on or off. But for image settings, it makes it difficult for you to select a specific number, move by small increments, or test out different settings. That’s because the lag starts as soon as you click on the slider and move your mouse, and can last as long as 5 seconds. You won’t get to see where your slider ended up until after the lag ends. There’s buttons to move the slider by increments of 1 for fine tuning, which helps with this somewhat, but using them takes agonizingly long thanks to each button press triggering even more lag.

Compare this to the user interface and snappy response times for the software for the Razer Kiyo Pro, which also supports HDR and 60fps shots, and it’s easy to see there’s a lot of room for improvement here. A large firmware update and software pitch did hit as I was finishing this review, which helped reduce lag times in most instances, but they are still present and still make the image menu almost intolerable to use.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

As for the HDR and Anti-Flicker support, turning them on is as simple as flipping a toggle (and waiting for the lag), although the former is only available when recording at 30 fps. I wasn’t able to test HDR as I don’t have an HDR monitor, but turning it on even on my non-HDR setup still made images appear slightly brighter and richer.

As for 60 fps recording, it works smoothly once you click the toggle on. A 20 second video recorded at 60 fps also only took up 45.5 MB on my hard drive, which was only 0.5 MB larger than a 30 fps video of the same length. You can also stream at 60 fps, which I had no issue doing on a private YouTube stream.

Anker’s auto frame and solo frame options can be a little trickier to see the benefits of. While they automatically zoom in to put the focus on your face as soon as you turn them on, you really have to move a lot to see the frame actually adjust to follow you.

Bottom Line

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Anker PowerConf C300 has consistent fidelity and enough premium features to more than justify its $130 price tag, even if the implementation for those features needs some work. Regardless of lighting conditions, it always had color accurate shots with no visible artifacting in my testing. And on top of that, its multiple fields of view and auto framing options made taking those shots in the best conditions possible easy.

60 FPS and HDR recording are also boons at this price point, as they’d usually require you to upgrade to something like the $199 Razer Kiyo Pro. They work well here, although the PowerConf C300’s picture quality doesn’t match those premium webcams and the software for accessing those features can frequently be unbearably laggy.

Still, if you want a webcam that can do more than your typical casual shooter but don’t need to go full premium, the Anker PowerConf C300 is an easy choice.

I have some old telephones lying around – few of them fully functional anymore. I was going to throw out one of them when I realized I could replace the inner wiring with a Raspberry Pi, and have the Google Assistant running on it.

While it’s certainly easier to call “hey google” across the room, there’s something fun about picking up the phone, asking it a question, and having it immediately respond. This is how to install the Google Assistant on an old rotary telephone with a Raspberry Pi Zero.

What You’ll Need to make an old phone into a Google Assistant

A Raspberry Pi Zero with soldered GPIO pins, a memory card (with Raspberry Pi OS on it), and power adapter
An old telephone with a functional receiver (speaker and microphone), and a functioning hook switch that you don’t mind destroying
A few female jumper cables, wire strippers, and electrical tape or solder
A few types of screwdrivers depending on your phone
1 USB audio adapter compatible with linux
1 male-male 3.5mm audio cable
1 Raspberry Pi Zero micro USB to USB A female adapter

How to Install the Google Assistant on an Old Phone

This Raspberry Pi project is quite extensive and can take a bit of time, so I’ve split it up into four distinct parts:

Registering with Google
Authenticating with Google
Wiring your telephone
Setting up the assistant

Registering With Google

Before we use a Raspberry Pi as a Google Assistant, we must register the device with Google. This process can be a bit confusing if you’ve never used Google Cloud Platform before, but the steps should be easy enough to follow.

1. Clone this repository to your raspberry pi.

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/rydercalmdown/google_assistant_telephone

2. Navigate to https://console.actions.google.com in your browser. This site allows us to manage Google Assistant Actions, as well as register custom Google Assistant devices.

3. Click “New Project” and fill in the required information. The name doesn’t matter – just pick something you can remember.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

4. In a new tab, visit this link to Google Cloud Platform, and confirm that the name of the project you just created appears in the top bar – if not, select it. Then, click the “Enable” button to turn on the API.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

5. In your original tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Are you looking for device registration? Click here”

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

6. On the next page, click “Register Model”.

7. Fill in the required information and copy down the Model ID to file – you will need it later.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

8. Click Download OAuth 2.0 credentials to download the credentials file your Raspberry Pi will use to make requests.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

9. Rename the downloaded file to oauth_config_credentials.json and transfer it to your pi. Place it into the repository folder you cloned in step 1.

# Rename your downloaded file
cd ~/Downloads
mv your_unique_secret_file_name.json oauth_config_credentials.json
# Move the file into your repository
scp oauth_config_credentials.json pi@your_pis_ip_address:/home/pi/google_assistant_telephone

10. Back in the browser, after downloading and renaming the credentials, click the “Next” button.

11. On the “Specify traits” tab, click “Save Traits” without adjusting any settings to complete the setup.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Authenticating With Google

We’ve now registered a device with Google. Next, it’s time to authenticate this device so it has access to our Google account and personalized assistant.

1. Navigate to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials/consent ensuring that the project matches the name you decided in Step 3 of “Registering With Google”.

2. Select “External” and click the “Create” button.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

3. Fill in an App name. Once again, this doesn’t really matter – but to keep it simple I went with the same name as before.

4. Select your email from the dropdown in User support email. This is in case any users of your app need to contact you, but since we won’t be making the app public, there’s no need to worry.

5. Add that same email under “Developer contact information” and click “Save and Continue”.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

6. On the next page, click Add or Remove Scopes to bring up the scopes sidebar.

7. Search for “Google Assistant API” in the search bar, and check the /auth/assistant-sdk-prototype scope. Then click update, followed by “Save and Continue” at the bottom of the page.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

8. On the next page, click “Save and Continue” to skip Optional Info.

9. With the setup complete, click “OAuth Consent Screen” in the sidebar to refresh the page – then “Add User” under Test Users.

10. Add your Google account’s email, and click save.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

11. Next, on your pi navigate to the downloaded repository and run the following command:

cd ~/google_assistant_telephone
make authenticate

12. Follow the link it gives you and complete the Authentication process in your browser. Once the process is complete, copy the code and paste it back in your terminal.

13. If successful, you’ll see a message indicating “credentials saved:” followed by a path to the credentials. Use this path to move the credentials into the current directory. Transfer these credentials to your repository’s root directory

# credentials saved: /Users/test/Library/Application Support/google-oauthlib-tool/credentials.json
mv /Users/test/Library/Application Support/google-oauthlib-tool/credentials.json /home/pi/google/assistant/telephone/credentials.json

Wiring Your Rotary Telephone With Raspberry Pi

Depending on your rotary phone, this process will vary widely. These are the steps that I used, but likely this will require a fair bit of trial and error on your part. Make sure you use a phone you don’t care about, as it won’t be able to work normally after this.

1. Take the cover off the telephone. You may need to loosen a screw on the bottom.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

2. Find and strip the wires connected to the hook switch. We’ll connect these wires to the pi’s GPIO pins to determine if the receiver has been picked up or set down.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

3. Connect the hook switch wires to GPIO Board pin 18 and ground. You may need to solder the wires from the hook switch to jumper wires to connect them easier, or just attach them together with a bit of electrical tape.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

4. Connect your USB audio adapter to the raspberry pi zero. You will need a USB-micro to female USB-A adapter to do this.

5. Solder the microphone and speaker in the handset to two separate 3.5mm cables. These will carry the signal from the pi to the speaker, and from the microphone to the pi. You should be able to connect these within the phone case and use the original handset cord. This will take a bit of trial and error to determine which wires belong to the speaker, and which to the microphone.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

6. Connect the 3.5mm cables to the USB audio adapter being mindful to connect them in the proper order.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

7. Tuck the pi into the phone, and close up the cover – or keep it open while you debug setting up the assistant. Run the power adapter connected to the pi out the back of the case where the original telephone wire would go.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Setting Up The Assistant

1. Run the installation script. It’ll take care of base and python requirements. If you have a Raspberry Pi Zero, the compilation process can take hours and will appear stuck on a step installing grpc (it just moves very slowly). I’d recommend leaving it running over night.

cd google_assistant_telephone
make install

2. Configure your USB audio by running the following command. It will take care of editing your alsamixer config, setting your USB card as your default audio output, and setting volumes for the speaker and microphone.

make configure-audio

3. Test and adjust your volumes by running the following command, speaking, and listening through your phone’s handset. If your volume is not high enough on your microphone or speaker, set it with the alsamixer command.

# Run, speak something into the microphone, and listen
make test

# Set volumes
alsamixer

4. Export your project ID to an environment variable. You can retrieve your project ID by visiting this URL, selecting your project, clicking the three dots next to your profile photo in the top right, and clicking “Project Settings”

export PROJECT_ID=your-project-id

5. Export your model ID from the Registering With Google steps to an environment variable.

export DEVICE_MODEL_ID=your-model-id-from-the-earlier-steps

6. Run the make run command. It will take care of registering this device, and saving the configuration to disk so you won’t need the environment variables in the future.

make run

7. Test your assistant by picking up the phone, and asking it a simple question, like “What is the capital of Canada?” If all goes well, you’ll see some logs in the terminal, and the assistant will respond. To ask another question, hang up the receiver and pick it up again.

8. Finally, run the following command to configure the assistant to run on boot.

make configure-on-boot

Design

Hardware & Specs

Features

Sound and performance

Also consider

Sonos Roam

Sonos One

Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3

JBL Link Portable

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Our Verdict

For

Against

Well-Lit Room

Low-Light Room

Overexposed Room

Build Quality of the Anker PowerConf C300

Special Features on the Anker PowerConf C300

Bottom Line

What is HDMI QFT?

How does HDMI QFT work?

Which devices are HDMI QFT-certified?

Design & Setup

Sound Quality

Also consider

Samsung HW-Q800T

Sonos Arc

JBL BAR 9.1

Our Verdict

For

Against

Build and comfort

Sound

Verdict

What You’ll Need to make an old phone into a Google Assistant

How to Install the Google Assistant on an Old Phone

Registering With Google

Authenticating With Google

Wiring Your Rotary Telephone With Raspberry Pi

Setting Up The Assistant