Overview iHome iW1: listen to music without wires

Age of wireless technology has come, and today no surprise wireless Internet, exercise, music, or even printing. However, in everyday life, people do not hesitate to continue to be carried out at every opportunity. It is terrible to think, but some still stick Ethernet-cable into the laptop to sit in "VKontakte". We already showHow to use a small box filled with your home wireless technologies and turn your old columns and a well-worn printer in progress miracle. But today we will go a step further and show you how to listen to music even without any intermediaries such as wires or AirPort Base Station. Only you, your player (of course, the company Apple) and your column, which will act as an iHome iW1.

Appearance great column. Front is eerily minimalist - we see only the grid, behind which hides the speaker.

On the top side is a touch-panel with all the necessary: ​​player controls, volume slider, and shutdown mode.

Behind monolithic columns other panel is broken, since the buttons and connectors, and the handle.

Handle Purpose becomes clear when we look at the bottom side of the column, where it hides the connector for charging.

Column portable and has a very respectable battery, - the manufacturer claims 7 hours at medium volume and 3.5 hours to complete. Continuous operation of the column showed that if these numbers are inflated, it slightly.

Now let's see what can this monster. Its main task is to play music through AirPlay. To do this, connect the speakers and the player to the same Wi-Fi network, and - done! in the AirPlay menu appears corresponding to a button.

At first I was upset by how long the speaker thinks before playback of the song - goes a good couple of seconds before the speaker begins to play. But later it became clear that this - the good: The speaker spends the time to synchronize with the application, so the sound of it never lags when watching video or listening to a song.

In case you, like a hospitable host, did not give your password to friends on Wi-Fi, and they want to put their music, you can invite them to connect your iOS-device via USB. There will not be any surprises: column goes to the dock mode, there will be no delay in time, music played at once, and the device is charging. The transition to this mode by clicking on the icon in the top panel an iPod.

In general, this mode is needed if no Wi-Fi. When taking into account the fact that the column is a portable, you can take it with you and hang on turnichkah under the right music, tunes in to street workout-way. Also, you can remember your childhood, and put it on his shoulder like a boom box. However, here the author faced a problem: speakers inevitably touches touch-panel, so it was not possible to show off in front of the girls at the circumference - the song is switched, the volume is changed.

There is a third mode, which I carefully thought, called a "column." Behind there is aux-output when connected to the iHome iW1 which really starts to work in an ordinary speaker mode. Oddly enough, this mode is also useful - when working in GarageBand in a few seconds delay in Wi-Fi mode terribly annoying, and the usual 3.5 mm cord solved the problem.

I would also like to note unimportant detail which, however, struck me. I have long lamented on the fact that it is impossible to know the battery level, until he found behind a discreet button «Battery». The devil is in the details, and this is a button displays the charge level on the volume bar that disappears after a few seconds.

Now let's talk about the most important: the sound. Of course, be expected from such things miracles is not necessary, but I would venture to say, and that the sound is quite tolerable. The unit has Bass Boost button, which is slightly dampens other frequencies, but the inexperienced listener would notice. Volume, in my opinion, enough for even the medium-sized parties, and only for a single listening even more.

Among the few drawbacks is worth noting except that the weight of the column - a walk will not work with it. On the other hand, I do not often have a desire to walk a circle or two around the house with the speakers in his hand. And you?

In conclusion: the thing well and fans AirPlay - take the uniquely. IHome iW1 functionality is necessary and sufficient, more of the wireless speakers is not required, and the fact that she is, she manages to "cheer."