TVs are so slim these days that there is really no place to put a quality sounding speaker in them! Fortunately though, you don't need to run wires to a half-dozen home theater speakers to get good sound and make dialogue coming from the TV a whole lot easier to hear. Bluetooth speakers are a convenient and inexpensive alternative to beef up TV speakers and just about any other audio source.
If your listening room is on the smaller side, the EarFun UBOOM is a superb option because of its small-size-to-big-sound ratio. The hard plastic body of the UBOOM speaker has a "cooling tower" design covered with thick fabric mesh all-around the sides.
The top rim of the speaker has a 7cm diameter and features a hard rubber finish, while the 9cm base of the speaker has a circular rubber feet made of silicone-like rubber so, it has a soft touch to it.
The circular rubber base not only gives the base of the speaker upright stability, it also prevents the speaker from literary "ice-skating" on a smooth surface. The backend of the UBOOM speaker features a rubber pop-up cover, concealing the USB-C charging port and the 3.5 mm auxiliary input (aux in). The pop-up cover is easy to remove by simply inserting the tip of a finger.
The top rim of the UBOOM speaker contains six user control buttons, one of which is the power button that integrates an active led to provide status feedback, including bluetooth pairing and charging. While playing music, the power button blue led does stay on constantly but the led isn't overly bright nor it affects battery performance since the UBOOM can play non-stop music for up to 16 hours on 50% volume.
When battery is low during audio playback, the power button led will also illuminate solid red or flash to indicate battery level remaining (solid red= less than 15% and flashing red= less than 2%). You can also conveniently view the UBOOM's battery level from both an iOS, using the "batteries widget" and Android device by using a third party app (i.e. BatON app), which you can download from the Google Play Store.
To achieve the rated battery performance, the UBOOM does need to be connected to a bluetooth audio source running bluetooth version 5.0, which not only provides longer battery life but, it also makes the bluetooth signal stronger and more stable within a 30 meter range.
The UBOOM is recharged via USB-C connectivity and a short USB-C charging cable is included to recharge the built-in 7.4V 4400mAh battery. Full charge takes 4 hours via a maximum input rate of 5V/2A and there is no quick charge/ fast charge support. You can also play music while the UBOOM is recharging, which is neat since not all bluetooth speakers can do this. There is also a power-saving mode built-in that automatically turns off the UBOOM after 30 minutes if the speaker is not connected to a bluetooth source.
The other user control buttons include a volume up button and volume down button, manual bluetooth pairing button, TWS mode button and Sound mode button, which also integrates an led for illumination only. The Sound mode is supposed to make the volume louder but only does it ever so slightly. There is no support for multi-pairing; hence you cannot connect the UBOOM to multiple devices at the same time.
Inside the EarFun UBOOM, there are two 45mm full-range 12W speaker drivers and two passive radiators constructed with a mirror-design. This means, one speaker driver (12W) and passive radiator are located on the front, while the second speaker driver (12W) and passive radiator are located on the back. This speaker setup, effectively, creates a 360-degree sound effect. The total output power is a cool 24W.
Like with all full range speakers, the UBOOM is able to reproduce most of the audio frequency band, including the bass and treble. The problem though, with small setups, containing full range speakers is that they cannot deliver enough bass because of the space constriction. Luckily, the UBOOM does integrate passive radiators, which allows the speaker to deliver a good amount of bass to make the speaker worthwhile. The treble and vocal midrange is superb, as you can hear in the video below:


The Earfun UBOOM is perfect for indoor use as a desktop speaker or in the living room to entertain guests since you can move the speaker around very easily. The UBOOM only weighs 590 grams and measures 17cm tall and 9cm wide.
You can use it outdoors too since the Earfun UBOOM has an IPX7 rating that makes it virtually immune to dust and water, making it suitable to take to the beach or to a hiking trip. That said, if you to use it for an outdoor event such as a summer barbecue or wedding, you should get two UBOOM speakers. The benefit of this is two fold. You get to double the volume output (48W), as well as improve the stereo imaging.
Like all bluetooth stereo speakers, including the UBOOM speaker, they do have a left and right speaker channel but because of the close proximity of the speakers, the stereo separation is, naturally, not going to be as good as with two separate speakers. It's worth noting that not all bluetooth speakers come with a TWS mode feature. Also, TWS mode only works with two same brand speakers; hence you cannot pair the UBOOM with a different speaker brand.