• The offer of Bluetooth speakers is now bloated and it is often difficult to choose without making a mistake.

  • Sold for 149 euros, the Yoyo (S) speaker from the English brand Cambridge Audio combines many services at a moderate price.

  • Among them, gestural commands which, if they work well, unfortunately remain incomplete.

It's always the same.

Faced with the plethora of products on the shelves, we do not know which to choose.

In the middle of summer, selecting the Bluetooth speaker that will accompany the holidays can thus turn into an obstacle course.

With the Yoyo (S) speaker from Cambridge Audio, originality and practicality will prevail.

Attractive, the little English girl sold for 149 euros is distinguished in particular by its gestural commands.

What to take to the beach and use it even with your fingers full of sun oil?

This is what

20 Minutes

wanted to verify.

English design, tartan fabric

Yoyo!

Funny name for a Bluetooth speaker.

According to the English at Cambridge Audio, this was the code name of the project for this Bluetooth speaker which, in the end, “remained”.

Compact (24.6 x 12.8 x 6.7 cm for 1.2 kg), Yoyo (S) has a good boil.

We owe it in particular to the fabric that covers it.

In gray, anthracite gray, blue or green, this coating comes from the Scottish Marton Mills workshops.

Splash resistant, it has the main advantage of not causing any sound loss, according to Cambridge Audio.

But alas, the enclosure is not waterproof.

Incomplete orders

Another distinctive feature of the device: its control panel located on the top is fully tactile. Quite elegant with its keys that light up as soon as you approach your hand, it also has the particularity of having a movement sensor to offer gesture controls. These are three in number.

By placing your hand above the speaker and moving it to the left, the title being played is paused.

By moving the hand to the right, we resume reading.

By repeating this movement to the right, we move on to the next song.

Convenient to avoid touching the control panel if you have dirty hands, but incomplete.

Because we cannot modulate the volume, which would however be useful with the speaker placed in a kitchen, even on the beach or at the edge of a swimming pool, places where we do not necessarily have dry hands or clean.

Otherwise, the system works perfectly.

We can also deplore the absence of a voice assistant which would have also authorized voice commands in addition.

Suitable for most registers

We tested the speaker by listening to some new releases: the

soul

album

Gold-Diggers Sound

by Leon Bridges, the electro album by Polo & Pan (

Cyclorama

), or the Frenchy

Palais d'

Argile

by

the group Feu! Chatterton. If it lacks a little bass, the sound reproduction of the Yoyo speaker is good. It has the merit of versatility by adapting perfectly to most musical registers.

Equipped with two 4 cm wideband transducers, a

7 cm

woofer

and a passive radiator at the rear, its smoothness in the mids is to its credit, the vocals being overall very nicely rendered.

And you can push the volume obediently without hurting your ears: the virtual absence of distortion is an asset here.

In short, the device shows a beautiful harmony.

Also noteworthy is its excellence for telephone conversations and its On-hook / On-hook button, perfectly suited as

a

hands-free

kit

.

Powerbank as a bonus

To this sound success is added a respectable autonomy.

Operating on mains, but also wireless, the Yoyo (S) speaker announces up to 14 hours of autonomy on its 2000 mAh battery.

At moderate volume, we have little checked this autonomy at a dozen hours, the speaker having accompanied a full day of work and an early evening before taking its last breath.

Surprise, under its base is a USB socket.

Purpose: to use the speaker as a Powerbank to charge a smartphone or tablet.

This is a function that should establish itself as a standard for this type of equipment.

Now at 149 euros (it had been launched some time ago at 180 euros), the Yoyo (S) speaker is therefore a good match.

For an identical budget, we can also rely on other safe values: Marshall's Stockwell II that we currently find on sale, or Ultimate Ears Boom 3 which, for its part, will have the merit of being perfectly waterproof.

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