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Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system hands-on (video)
Remember that Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system we just told you about a few minutes ago? Well, we just got a little bit of hands-on time with the thing. The speaker set was plugged in, of course -- there's not a heck of a lot of natural lighting in the Venetian hotel, here in Vegas. Also, for the record, in spite of the model's rather boastful name, the speaker couldn't really get all that loud, sadly -- though that's sort of the curse of the Bluetooth speaker system, we suppose. It also often comes with the territory for portable systems, and the Ruckus, again, in contrast to its name, is reasonably compact and portable. We fiddled with the volume and bass buttons, but the speaker didn't get all that much louder than the roaring crowd around us. The decision to include an e-ink display was a pretty novel one -- its uses aren't quite as broad as an LCD, but it's hard to deny that it was extremely readable, as it no doubt would be in direct sunlight, as the company claims. And let's face it, if you use the solar panel as intended, you're gonna have this thing outside in the sun a lot, right? The Ruckus will run you $150 when it drops in Q2, just in time for you to actually want to go outside again. Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system thinks you should rock more in direct sunlight
What's got Bluetooth, big solar panels and an e-ink display? Not a heck of a lot of gadgets prior to today's introduction of the Rukus portable sound system from Eton. The solar-power speaker system can stream music wirelessly from your Bluetooth devices, bumping it in style through two full-range speaker drivers. The system is powered by a solar panel (though you can also power it the old fashioned wired way, when the sun's nowhere in sight), but don't worry about reading the screen in the sunshine -- the Rukus has an e-ink display, which also helps the thing conserve a fair amount of power. Eton also says that the player is "virtually indestructible," a claim we're sure some folks will want to put to the test when it drops in Q2 for $150. Update: Check out our hands-on here!
