At first, I didn’t really see the appeal of the Sugr Cube. Or portable wifi speakers in general, for that matter. Now, after spending some time with the device, I’ve come to appreciate the value of taking your music around with you. But is this tasty little music box worth its hefty US$199 price tag? That depends.
First impressions and setup
In terms of packaging, Sugr Cube really leaves nothing to be desired. It comes in the classy-looking and sturdy black box pictured above, and inside that box is a tasteful presentation of everything you’ll ever need relating to Sugr Cube: the speaker itself, one USB cable, two charger plugs, and an outlet adapter for every kind of power outlet I’ve ever seen on my travels throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. The Sugr Cube is portable in the global sense – it comes with the tools you’d need to plug this thing in anywhere.
It also comes, of course, with setup instructions for the speaker, and the process is remarkably simple. Download the Sugr Cube app to your phone (there are Android and iOS versions), enter your local wifi password, follow a few simple steps, and you’ll be all synced up and ready to rock. The entire process took me two minutes, if that.
As far as the hardware quality goes, Sugr says the device is handcrafted, and I believe them. The speaker casing is made with real wood that looks great, and the whole thing feels very solid. The startup behind the gadget is based in China, the US, and Norway, and you get the feeling that cross-border cooperation has helped ensure that the Sugr Cube includes sleek design inflences from all over the world.
It has also been designed with simplicity in mind – aside from a volume dial and a microUSB port on the back, there’s not a button anywhere on the device.
What the Sugr Cube can do
The Sugr Cube’s claim to fame – and the reason why it can get away with having so few buttons – that it’s touch sensitive. You can tap the top of the speaker to toggle Pause/Play, and tilting it 45 degrees left or right will skip to the previous and next tracks, respectively. If you want to see this in action, you can check out a quick video I made below, but this video comes with an important note: you’ll hear the music skip once but that was not common during my time with the Sugr Cube. It was probably just a glitch in my home wifi (which has been causing some problems for me recently).
These features are cool, but they do take some getting used to. Especially if you’ve got the speaker playing while moving it around, you’re probably going to confuse yourself by accidentally tapping or tipping it and pausing or skipping without actually meaning to at first. And to be honest, I do wonder whether the touch features are really worth the expense they probably added to the device. Tapping the top of the Cube to pause and tilting to skip is a neat party trick, but once you get over the novelty of it, it’s not any easier or faster than pushing a traditional play or pause button.
Of course, more important than how the speaker operates is what it can play. And with Sugr Cube, the answer is basically everything. In the mobile app itself, you’ve got the option to stream from Pandora and Spotify, or tune in to streaming radio from China’s Douya or any of the dozens of stations available in the app (including numerous BBC stations, Talksport, Jazz FM, KISS, and many more).
How it sounds
The portability factor
Is it worth it?
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