BRAVEN recently launched the Stryde 360 Bluetooth Speaker. This speaker is a bit different from the company’s other speakers, which were mostly rugged options. This is a 360-degree speaker, that is also waterproof, which makes it great for taking into the shower, but also great for taking to the beach or to the pool and listening to your favorite tunes. The Stryde 360 has been in our possession for a few weeks already, so it’s time to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly about this speaker.
The build quality of the Stryde 360 is pretty impressive. Now if you’ve used or owned any of BRAVEN’s other speakers, this should not surprise you. BRAVEN has always built sturdy and well-built speakers. The Stryde 360 is a rather unique looking speaker, to be honest. It’s metal with light green end-caps which gives it a really unique look. It’s not something that looks stealthy, but it’s also not a speaker that looks bad. It actually looks really nice. It has a built in stand, of sorts, so you can put the speaker down and have it playing music without it rolling around. On the top is where you’ll find all of the usual assortment of buttons, which is also nice to have available to you. Now, since this is a waterproof speaker, it does have a flap covering the micro USB, USB-A and 3.5mm ports. Which is still fairly easy to get too.
When it comes to the audio quality of the Stryde 360, it’s fantastic. BRAVEN doesn’t offer Hi-Fi audio here, so the audiophiles may not like it. But everyone else will be pleased. The Stryde 360 does offer up some fantastic sounding audio here which sounds good but also gets very loud. And since this is waterproof, BRAVEN expects you to be taking this outside and using it often, which means it needs to be plenty loud. The lows are nice and bassy, although they could be a bit more bassy in my opinion. The mids and highs are crystal clear, which is actually something you don’t always see from a Bluetooth speaker in this price range.
BRAVEN has also included voice control on this speaker, so depending on what phone you have connected, you can either use Google Assistant or Siri to control the BRAVEN Stryde 360. Now earlier we talked about how this could make a great shower speaker, and that is exactly why it would make a great shower speaker. You can tell the Stryde 360 to go ahead and switch songs without even needing to touch it. Of course you can also tell it to adjust the volume and much more.
With battery life, BRAVEN quotes around 10-12 hours on the 2500mAh battery that is inside. And during our review period, we found that to be pretty accurate. The Stryde 360 was able to get through a full day of streaming music without any issues. That’s pretty par the course when it comes to Bluetooth speakers in this price range, so there’s really nothing surprising here about the Stryde 360’s battery life. Of course, it is important to note that your mileage may vary, especially if you listen to music at higher volumes or listen to more bass-heavy music. There are a ton of factors that go into how well the battery performs.
We’ve hinted at price quite a few times in this review, but the BRAVEN Stryde 360 is just $99, which actually puts it at half of the price of the Ultimate Ears BOOM speaker, which is currently the king for 360-degree speakers. This is an excellent price for the Stryde 360. It offers great sound, great battery life, waterproofing and a great looking speaker for under $100, that’s pretty tough to beat. However, if you are an audiophile, one of Ultimate Ears’ options might be a better choice. But it’s hard to find anything bad about the BRAVEN Stryde 360.
Buy the BRAVEN Stryde 360
