Gadgetory

poke audios on the s6 is a new tabletop speaker impulse wireless and multi-room audio lineup with this type of audio solution their aims are seamless and all-encompassing experience not just in one room but throughout an entire house well the kind of course functions a standalone speaker it's really designed to work hand in hand with other Omni series units and provide a very partial internet-of-things type experience how ready is this technology for the real world though is it as convenient as it should be before we delve into the features of functionality let's take a quick look at the design and aesthetics first while somewhat subjective I think it's fair to say the s6 is a great-looking speaker it's understated yet modern looking and as a result I think it should fit into most decors quite comfortably you can pick up the s6 in either black or white and I have both with me here today the unit is wrapped all the way around with a soft mesh fabric that's nice to touch and quite flexible you do need to be careful not to pick up the unit and stretch or damages fabric as that would certainly ruin the look of the hole speaker but pop thought of this and included a carry handle at the back of the unit also found in the back of the unit of the spaceports and the setup button you find only the power port USB port and auxiliary port at the back here there are any other connectivity options found on the device the buttons on the front of the unit of fairly minimal to just volume up and down and a play/pause button in between there's an LED indicator amongst these buttons and lastly you'll find the Polk Audio logo up top the bottom of the unit simply includes two long curved rubber feet to prevent any unwanted vibrations one slight oversight I saw in the design was the power cord position or connector the back of the unit is flat - supposedly allow you to place the unit flush against a wall however the power cord juts out completely adjacent to this and eject out quite far an angle connector certainly would have been a nice touch in my opinion in terms of hardware the s6 packs into its sealed box design - 4 inch drivers and two two and three-quarter inch drivers to deliver its sound for its size it really packs some pretty impressive volume as you'd expect with the speaker configuration mids and highs are where the unit excels if you're a bass lover though you might be left wanting now that's certainly not to say that the bass from this unit is poor it's actually very tight partly and thanks to the steel box design but at low levels especially I thought the low ends are a bit lacking this is common with this small package designs however I'm going to do some serious generalizing now to try and get a point across I can imagine this speaker being extremely satisfactory for people like say my parents who lives mostly to radio pop music can have long detested excessive bass am I share howsoever when we're pumping a Sat Rocky Rufus or tame impala we want to feel the house shake at least a little although our neighbors would probably appreciate it if we didn't so if you're that way inclined as I mentioned you may be left wanting a little the bass performance does improve little however as you increase the volume now let's talk about connectivity there's definitely some cons and pros to the way the omnia Suk's primarily connects to play music through play fire first let me just gloss over how this works the omni connects to your home Wi-Fi network you install the POC on the app on your smartphone or tablet and then the app detects the play fire device simple straightforward perfect in my opinion far from it let me lead by saying I would have personally really like to see the inclusion of Bluetooth connectivity as an option like many households in my place the Wi-Fi coverage is far from perfect it's a biggish house and every wall is double brick our routers in the middle of the house and at the very front and back we fees are a little hard to come by as a result I couldn't take the omni s6 outside on a nice day and pump some backyard tunes and Northcote my housemate users in the bedroom at the front of the house it's a bit of a bummer I feel like this would pretty much be a non-issue Bluetooth connectivity was included as you can simply switch over to connect by bluetooth when you're out of your Wi-Fi range having said all this there is a three-and-a-half millimeter jack but come on that's so mm a control router endlessly if I have to leave my phone plugged in by the speaker this brings me to one of the pros of the play file system we need a beats master on a Bluetooth device it's very easy to accidentally leave the room with your phone in your pocket leave everyone to be subjected to a stuttering mess of music because you leave Bluetooth range as long as it's still within Wi-Fi you're good with the play filesystem so that was nice another limitation I face however was that my music service isn't supported I recently migrated to google play music from Spotify and unfortunately I couldn't that music through the Omni s6 is it's not yet supported a wealth of other music services are supported whether most notably including Spotify and title so as long as you're a premium user Bluetooth connectivity would have solved my Google Play Music issue finally features wires through the three-and-a-half millimeter jack the Omni s6 is able to then restream the input audio to the other Omni speakers in the house which is pretty cool but also a feature I pretty much consider essential considering the kind of omnipresent system this speaker is supposed to be creating throughout your home overall the polk audio omni s6 does what it's supposed to do very well the volume and audio quality is good much better than most smaller package bluetooth speakers but as mentioned it may not suit everybody the connectivity works well but it's quite specific in some ways you'll definitely need to have quality Wi-Fi coverage in your home if you plan on moving the device around especially finally it looks wise I personally think it's pretty great the Omni s6 is not to do everything device that can take over your entire living room but for consumers that want to create a convenient wireless network of audio throughout the house it may be the sleep solution that they need thanks for joining me for another Hardware unbox product review I'm your host mat as always I'd love to hear what you think in the comments and I'll see you guys next time