Some guys play golf. Some guys fish. Some go hunting. Me? I play with gadgets. Everybody has a hobby and mine happens to be tech. If I'm not charging up the latest phone, speaker or electronic whatever, my sense of FOMO becomes unbearable.
As a result, sometimes my house seems full of pointless dodads. Things that light up. Things that vibrate. Things that make all sorts of noises.
For the most part, the Domestic Manager suffers all this in silence. For the most part. Occasionally I forget to turn off an alarm. When you work in breakfast radio, alarms go off very early. So if you've already gone to work and that back-up alarm you forgot goes off... that can cause some justifiable marital tension.
I play with my toys and the Domestic Manager humours me.
So it came as quite a shock when she hijacked my latest gadget for herself...
The Harman/Kardon Allure is a great theory brought to life... one of the best bluetooth speakers money can buy, combined with one of the original smart speaker technologies.
The good news is; now the theory is reality it's a flawless combination.
I've reviewed Harman/Kardon products before and they have always stood above the rest because a) they just sound so damn fine and b) the design is always unique, elegant and classy.
The Allure is no exception.
If other Harman/Kardon speakers kept flashy buttons and lights to a minimum, the incorporation of Amazon Alexa into the equation has enabled the Allure to be even more spartan with unsightly physical controls.
Yet again I've been amazed how H/K has managed to squeeze a full-ranged, 360-degree, room-filling sound out of a speaker small enough to fit on most shelves. While perhaps not quite producing the massive bass-punch offered by the Onyx Studio 4, the Allure still impresses with plenty of oomph across the whole frequency range.
Now for its greatest trick; Alexa. She's listening through a built-in 4-microphone array and she's listening very carefully. Even in large rooms with music playing pretty loud, as long as I started my commands with a simple, clear, "Alexa?" she responded to my instructions about 90 percent of the time.
The Allure was my first experience with the Amazon-powered voice assistant and I have to say, I'm starting to get what all the fuss is about.
Once you connect your Amazon account with the Allure using H/K's setup app (a simple, no frills process) you can add other services you subscribe to like Spotify and iHeart Radio. This means you can simply ask Alexa to play the song of your choice, one of your playlists, or listen to a quality radio station like Newstalk ZB. I think Alexa only misunderstood me once the whole time I've been using the speaker and that may have been after a few drinks so there's a chance nobody was understanding me.
Note; Spotify will only play what you want if you have a premium account, but you can also connect to the Allure like an ordinary bluetooth speaker. This means Alexa can still play, pause, skip or adjust the volume for you. The cool thing about letting her do the streaming directly is you don't have to keep your phone in bluetooth range, because the Allure is connected directly to your WiFi.
The best thing about it all is, it works. And it works well. It works so well, the Domestic Manager, who has zero patience learning how to operate new technology, took to it straight away. There really is nothing to learn, because Alexa is so intuitive. Domestic Manager wasn't even put off by the Allure's light display, probably because, like everything Harman/Kardon, it's simple, subtle and monochrome.
Oh, and you can turn it off if you don't like it anyway.
The only thing I missed when comparing the Allure to other Harman/Kardon speakers was not being able to connect to other Harman/Kardon (or JBL) speakers for multi room or large area coverage. The Allure can link to other speakers - but only other Amazon smart speakers via WiFi. To be fair, this is probably the way of the future anyway and it won't be long before all our speakers are this smart.
The Domestic Manager seems to enjoy using the Allure so much, I've started to wonder if it's just because she likes ordering it around. Alexa never answers back, never gives her a dirty look and never storms off to her room in a huff. She remains calm and compliant in all situations... well, at least until the robot apocalypse anyway.
It'd be nice to have the option of a New Zealand accent. At the moment, the closest you can get is Australian. Don't worry - it's the nice Australian accent, not the one that sounds like a cat fight out the back. Maybe that's an option Amazon will offer in time, if it considers our market large enough to warrant the resources.
Meanwhile, Aussie Alexa does an impeccable job and all I can say is Harman/Kardon does it again. Luxury design, perfect sound quality and now all the smarts to match.
Priced in the mid $400 range, it's hard not to suggest it's worth every penny.
Click here for more information on the Harman/Kardon Allure voice activated speaker
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