My other life as a recreational cyclist often influences the occasional product reviews that I write, whether the product is actually a bike accessory or not. Outdoor Technology‘s Turtle Shell is somewhere in between: the LA-based company offers an optional bike mount for the wireless speaker, which is designed expressly for outdoor and urban settings. Complementary usage scenarios notwithstanding, I found it more impressive as a portable speaker as opposed to a bike accessory, handsome and entirely practical in a variety of settings except when mounted to my handlebars.
The thoughtfully designed packaging of the Turtle Shell promises premium product within: the acrylic box looks fit for an Apple store and is easily repurposed for all variety of knick-knack and tchotchke. As per the description on the Kickstarter page, it comes with a USB charging cable and a wall adapter, as well as a 3.5mm audio cable for non-Bluetooth audio sources, plus a carrying pouch that’s perfect for the speaker but doesn’t quite fit all of the accessories.
It’s not quite usable out-of-the-box: the quickstart guide advises a full charge prior to use. Charge time comes in at a completely reasonable 2.5–3 hours for up to eight hours of music playback; it’s obviously too soon to tell how the battery life holds up over time, but I found that I was able to use the Turtle Shell on and off for a couple days at a time without recharging it. In fact, it never completely ran out of juice on my watch, and I assume that the indicator light, which blinks red when charging, does the same when the battery is low.
The controls—three buttons and a backlit on/off switch—are located on the outer edge of the device, as are the USB and line-in ports (neatly concealed with a protective flap). I happen to like the old-fashioned jog dial myself, but it turns out that the buttons are multifunctional (especially in ‘Talk’ mode, below), allowing for both volume control and previous/next track function. The interface isn’t quite intuitive—the red/blue indicator and loud-ish beep can be a bit arcane—but all that you really need to know is that holding down the center button activates ‘pairing mode’ for new devices.
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