Indoors the battery life was around 8-9 hours. Obviously, range on the bike isn’t an issue. I found the Bluetooth range to vary with conditions but outdoors it was typically 60-70 feet, which is nice when using the speaker off of the bike. While adjusting the volume on the Roll is easy enough, play/pause/track advance requires you to access your music player of choice as the Roll is lacking these functions. Out on the trail, those large volume buttons really came in handy with gloved hands and they give you a nice big target so you’re not taking your eyes off the trail for too long while you search to adjust the volume. The bungee cord kept the unit very secure over various terrain and the Roll never dislodged during a ride (even one involving a high speed abrupt stop and a tree). I found that the bungee wrapped around the bar/stem interface worked best for me. Round mounting surfaces like bars and traditional toptubes tended to allow a bit of movement. I will add that a squarish stem or top tube really helped keep it secure when things got bumpy. I ran it in several different configurations (on bike and on person) with varying levels of success. The bungee cord really opens up the mounting options. If you really want to blast some tunes, two UE Rolls can be paired simultaneously (although not in stereo). I was able to hear the Roll over any trail conditions I encountered, even on louder surfaces such as gravel or crunchy snow. Upon first inspection, I wasn’t expecting the Roll to get super loud but I was pleasantly surprised by max volume. I also found that bass response was better when the Roll was laying on a solid surface (i.e., a table) than mounted on the bike (again, not surprising given its small size and the problems that outdoor acoustics can cause ). However, under most listening conditions, the Roll has pretty nice sound for a small portable speaker. Due to the Roll’s small size, some distortion of sound was encountered at higher volumes and it had problems with some more complex styles of music. It’s obviously not going to give you the audio quality or bass response of bigger units but those units aren’t going to be nearly as portable as the Roll. The audio is surprisingly clear for a small unit and it was more than adequate in the bass department, again, especially given is small size.

Overall, the Roll delivers pretty good sound. Bottom View – power, pairing, access port, and integrated bungee cord

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