Pure has come up with a rather clever multi-room music solution with the Jongo S340B speaker. The speaker is designed to be portable and affordable, so you can put music in each room of your house while controlling it using the Pure app.
It is the first in what will be an entirely new system from Pure called Jongo, all of which works in tandem with the Pure Connect app or Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled Pure music players such as the One Flow.
The speaker features four tweeters which point out in every direction and a subwoofer on top. You can opt for music to playback in either 360-degree stereo or mono as well as using only two of the tweeters, should you put the speaker in the corner of a bookshelf, for example. Unfortunately the event at which we were shown the new Pure speaker was fairly noisy, so we couldn't make much of a judgement on sound quality.
It definitely seemed loud enough, which is impressive given its size. We also liked how little it weighed, making it an easy piece of kit to transfer around the house, rather than buying a speaker for each room.
Inside the portable Jongo is a rechargeable battery, which promises ten hours of music playback when it is away from a wall charger. There is also both a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, so you can either connect it to your home network or directly to an iPad.
On the back of the S340B is an auxiliary in, so you can connect it directly to a Hi-Fi system. Then there is a Wi-Fi on or off key, a button for controlling which speakers are used and a USB input. On the top are volume controls and at the bottom, with a green ring around it, is a power on/off button.
The speaker itself feels sturdy enough and boasts that usual Pure build quality that punches slightly above its price range. At £150 the S340B is also cheap enough that you could pick up one or two to create a decent stereo arrangement, or music in your living room and bedroom.
The colour choices are designed to suit all types of decor. You can go for all white, black, yellow, orange or lime green. We think the black looks best, although some will undoubtedly enjoy the more colourful choices.
Running alongside the Jongo is a yet-to-be-released update to the Pure Connect app which will allow you to control the volume levels of each speaker individually. This means you could theoretically wander through the house, iPad in hand, changing volume of each while you go. Reminds us a lot of Sonos, the current king of the wireless multiroom set-up.
Read: Sonos Sub review
The app also adds some new compatibility to other currently available Pure kit. Things like the Contour 200i Air and Sensia 200D Connect will also become controllable as part of the network of Jongo speakers. A nice touch.