When it comes to doing something different with speakers, we can always count on iHome to lead the way with interesting new ideas, and needless to say we were intrigued enough by one of the company’s latest offering, the Reflect Vanity Speaker, to give it a slightly closer look. It’s a Bluetooth speaker coupled with an illuminated vanity mirror allowing you to listen to your favorite music or even take speakerphone calls while getting ready for a night out on the town.
What you see is pretty much what you get with Reflect. A seven-by-nine-inch mirror is mounted atop a round conical base that houses the speaker, five control buttons, along with ports on the rear for power, aux-in, and a USB port for charging your iPhone or other USB-powered device. The mirror is anchored to a tilting hinge so you can position it at just about any angle, and features a pair of LED lights — one on each side — that can be set to three different levels of brightness. The package includes an AC power adapter, user manual and cleaning cloth.
The buttons on the base provide controls for Bluetooth pairing, volume, and mirror illumination, as well as a central multi-function button that works as play/pause and answer/end and can be held down to activate Siri on your paired iPhone. The mirror lighting also functions independently from the Bluetooth speaker, so you can illuminate the mirror without turning the speaker on, and vice-versa. The LED lights on the mirror provide 200 lux of illumination and iHome also boasts of a high color range index (CRI) that provides “full spectrum color lighting” for more natural illumination than the slightly yellow/orange leaning lights we often see on vanity mirrors.
Reflect’s speaker quality, however, is almost a footnote to its other features. While it’s a competent speaker for the price, it’s nothing special, but then again we also don’t think anybody is buying Reflect and expecting a high-quality speaker for this price. It’s pretty niche, but Reflect does provide a good vanity mirror and a decent speaker, and includes a USB charging port, all combined into a single device for a fairly reasonable price. We think it will be particularly appealing to those with limited dresser space who like to listen to music while getting ready to go out.
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Company and Price
Company: iHome
Model: iCVBT2 Reflect
Price: $80