EasyAcc Olive Bluetooth speaker

EasyAcc olive speaker is a sort of portable mini-stereo with a lot of functions, and an accessible price: 43,99 dollars on amazon, but it can be bought at 22.00 for a sale. It works as:

• bluetooth speaker for computers, phones and tablets
• wired speaker, thanks to the aux port and the 3,5 stereo cable included in the box
• it reads MP3 files from USB flash drives and micro SD cards
• FM radio, from 87.0 to 108.0 frequency
• answers and rejects calls when connected to a phone
• controls media players when associated to Bluetooth devices, it can even control Spotify-like services by play, pause, previous and next track

physical description

In the box, we have the speaker, of course; the rechargeable battery, the paper user manual, the 3,5 mm stereo cable and a micro USB cable used to charge the battery. As the name says, the speaker is shaped as an olive. Or, better, an ellipsis. A rugby ball. The front panel has the 2 speakers, left and right, it arrives to 2W of volume. Down side we find a battery cover, it's just needed to open it, insert the li-ion battery included, and we are ready to go; the speaker must sit horizontally on a table. The upper panel has 4 round buttons: mode, play/pause, prev track / down volume, next track / up volume. Mode: works to switch from speaker, flash drive/micro sd, and FM radio mode. There is a small problem here: when changing mode, it seems that volume goes always to maximum and it must be decreased manually, by pressing the Previous track button long, till volume responds to our needs. Play-pause starts and stops music in all modes. If pressed long while phone rings, it can answer a call or close the current conversation. And if pressed long in FM radio mode, it starts the radio tuner, searching for best frequencies for our geographic zone. Previous and next buttons: in all modes, pressing them shortly, switch among songs or book chapters or radio stations. Pressed long, in all modes, they work as volume down and volume up. Radio FM mode does not have so much to explain, unfortunately it does not have a preset function, this means that we must use it as we used very old devices with a wheel to search for stations. But, it's very blind friendly as it has no display! Behind the speaker we have a flat surface with following controls, starting from left to right:

• on/off switch: push it to the right to turn speaker on.
• micro USB port, to charge the battery
• USB port: to insert flash drives
• micro SD slot: it's round but it has a small long hole in the middle which is made to insert a micro SD.
• aux port: to use EasyAcc speaker as a wired speaker
• Audio out: to insert a headphone so that we can use the speaker as it was a normal MP3 reader without disturbing anyone.

Bluetooth mode

When turning the speaker on just after unboxing, we hear an acoustic signal indicating that it's ready to be used. Now it's time to take a mobile device and open its bluetooth settings; after scan finishes, the speaker's name is EasyAcc q8, or something similar. Confirm the selection of the device and enter 0000 as pairing code if prompted. We have no extra pairing buttons to press, so that we can associate our devices with no problems; the only thing is that, if i want to associate my iPad and now my iPhone is currently working with my EasyAcc speaker, before putting my iPad to scan for bluetooth devices, I must turn bluetooth off on my iPhone otherwise the device will not be detected by iPad. In this mode, the play-pause, previous track and next track buttons, work properly to control multimedia functions of mobile devices. It even worked with a N95 8GB nokia phone and its native multimedia app! Every iOS app which interacts with default multimedia controls, works with this speaker, including Spotify's next track, play, pause.

aux mode

Just insert the cable in the proper aux port and connect it to a computer or any source. It will perform an acoustic signal too, and it's ready to go. That's simple.

Flash drive or micro SD mode

With the speaker turned off, insert a USB flash drive with music or audio books in it, in the USB port, or the micro SD card in its proper slot. Then, switch speaker on, and playback will automatically start. This accessory supports MP3 files only, and its storage feature is very, very delicate: in fact, if you insert a too big USB storage hardware, the risk is to burn the USB port. Do not insert a 2TB hard disk in it for example! Best usage is a 16GB data traveller flash drive. Be careful not to extract flash drive or micro SD card from the speaker without turning it off, this can damage them, and may damage the speaker too!

how to manage audio books

I was very impressed because the speaker supports audio books in a wonderful way. The condition is that every book must be stored in a single folder and every chapter must be recorded in a single file: 01.mp3 for chapter 1, 02.mp3 for chapter 2, and so on. Of course it starts reading from 01 when you insert the flash drive or sd card for the first time; but, then, when you stop the reading with play-pause button, you turn the speaker off and extract your storage drive from its port, when you decide to continue reading the book you just insert the pen drive again and it starts from where you interrupted it! Like a bookmark! Unfortunately it does not support daisy format at the moment, it has no possibility to scan for zip files, and it doesn't support M4a files either. Best way is to have books in mp3 only, they also may be extracted from a daisy audio book downloaded from the computer; everyone is free to use this accessory however he wants! It's very very cheap on amazon, and it really deserves to be used a lot, also as the support team of EasyAcc is very very efficient. If your speaker is broken, you just write to support, at, easyacc, dot, com, and explain the problem. They may ask the order number you got from amazon and may send one back if verify that the speaker is broken