![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/hztsiwhzdp2wazmcicg6.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/bnviiu4yfy7epqlavpdl.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/qycyez9nzw4bro1djuli.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/ohviasm5hhmh5ql1cgrb.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/g6b3so7itbn61a47evyc.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/d9pxnaxcuykupdusagxw.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/s9oksjr1tjgw1yedvmcu.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/hdyhshjtlqzb74oo0tku.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/zpncnthp5muljs8sxam3.webp)
![](https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/image/upload/c_pad,f_auto,dpr_2.0,h_300,q_auto,w_300/k925xojhdwsxpadjwr0d.webp)
2-for-Tuesday: iFrogz Active Bluetooth Speakers
- You get a pair of tiny Bluetooth speakers
- Much louder and clearer than your phone speaker, at least
- Fun fact: your built-in phone speaker will deplete your battery 2.5 times faster than an external Bluetooth speaker
- We congratulate iFrogz on winning the 2006 Cheesiest Tech Brand Name contest
- Model: IFTDLA-BL0 (if you’re only going to have one numeral in a model number otherwise made up of letters, it probably shouldn’t be zero)
You want minimal? We'll give you minimal.
An apocryphal story about Michelangelo has the artist explaining how he sculpted his David: by chipping away everything that didn’t look like David. If the essence of art lies in what’s left after everything that doesn’t belong has been removed, then here we have the most artistic-ass Bluetooth speaker ever sculpted.
Just as there isn’t an extraneous brushstroke in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, or a redundant note in Bach’s Concerto No. 3 in D Major, this iFrogz Bluetooth Speaker would be recognizable to Plato as fulfilling the essential ideal of a Bluetooth speaker, if the ancient Greeks weren’t too busy getting zonked on hemlock to invent Bluetooth.
For one thing, it’s tiny: maybe 3" long, 1.5" wide, about 0.4" thick. For another, it doesn’t do anything but be a play music and take calls via Bluetooth. It doesn’t float in your pool, or charge your phone, or light up your tent. It doesn’t even have an aux-in jack.
If you’re into a minimal aesthetic, enjoy some plastic rounded rectangles with holes in them. If you’re into minimal prices, you get 2 of them for 9 bucks. You couldn’t possibly remove anything and still have a Bluetooth speaker. There’s no fat left to trim, no frills to cut, nothing left that doesn’t look like a Bluetooth speaker.
As the father of architectural modernism, Louis Sullivan, almost put it, “Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, [or a little plastic Bluetooth speaker,] form ever follows function, and this is the law.” It’s a Bluetooth speaker, a whole Bluetooth speaker, and nothing but a Bluetooth speaker. We could say more. But that kind of seems contrary to the whole spirit of this thing.