Levitating speaker

There's no good reason for a company to build a levitating Bluetooth speaker, but in fairness, there aren't many reasons not to make one. Quite a few already exist. This here is the Mars speaker, from a company called Crazybaby. It arrived in this world, as most absurd products do nowadays, with the help of crowdfunding. After a successful Indiegogo campaign in 2014, the Mars can now be purchased from Amazon and Brookstone because of courseBrookstone would carry this thing for $329. That's ridiculously expensive, and I honestly can't recommend that anyone burn that kind of cash on this speaker. People who backed the product received it for nearly half that price, which is a bit more reasonable. Regardless, the Mars is still a weird, fun, goofy gadget. So you can live vicariously through my experience with it.

It's made up of two pieces: a bottom subwoofer portion, and the top, UFO-like "Mars Craft." Each of these units has its own battery the Craft can actually be taken on the go and used as a regular old Bluetooth speaker. In that regard, it looks a lot like the UE Boom. It's waterproof, and will stick to metal surfaces, so there are plenty of possibilities for where and how you can use the thing. Battery life is rated at around 6 hours. When you turn on the Craft, a circular LED glows (think Google OnHub) and it goes through a sequence of dramatic, silly sound effects. It pairs over Bluetooth, though Crazybaby also offers its own standalone app with extra options, but I never really bothered with that. One unique thing about the Mars is that there's an option to automatically increase the volume as you (your phone, really) move away from it.

That's all well and good, but then you put it on top of the base, and the magic happens. Magnets! How do they work? After a couple seconds, the Craft slowly and steadily lifts off and hovers in place. You can spin it, push it around a bit, and it'll keep levitating without a problem. You can also bring other metal objects into the magnetic field to get it moving around. It'll get knocked down if you push it a little too hard, but getting it back up in the air just requires centering it on the base once again. It's definitely a neat visual effect that caught the attention of many at The Verge's midtown office. It'll probably wow your friends or make them think they're seeing things for a few minutes, anyway. After that, the Mars is an average-sounding, unexceptional Bluetooth speaker that falls short of others in the $200 range, let alone $330. Remember how I said it's not actually something you should buy? Neat trick, though. Make it fly. Stick it to the fridge. Whatever. I'm into it, even if it only sounds okay.