Jambox™ by Jawbone : an epiphany

In my former VP Home devices life I have been exposed to lots of hardware products and never had an unpacking experience matching or even reaching the one of Apple products.

Until today when I received a JamBox by Jawbone (thanks to Rafik Jallad). Unpacking and finding stylish dual USB cords (12″ and 60″), a compact lightweight charger, a smart magnetic carrying case, an a flat 3.5mm stereo cord was a pure bliss. Everything was neatly labeled and carefully arranged under the main device. Quality and attention to detail were shining everywhere.

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The JamBox itself is very well crafted, the product feels solid and soft with an incredibly firm/smooth standing on any surface, turning such surface into an extension for the loudspeakers. User experience is obvious, with the JamBox « speaking » its status, battery level, and various settings when needed.

Yet the main surprise came at setup (pairing with an iDevice is a no brainer), when I actually started to listen. This box is packed with decibels, in an extraordinarily wide frequency range for such a small, battery powered thing. I’ll test it further especially as an audio conferencing tool as it also sports a microphone.

I must add that the online registration process + firmware update are equally dumb simple and very well executed from a UI standpoint. Beyond simple registration, the incentive of customizing the device in a very minimalistic yet fun way (you can choose the voice that will « speak » to you about your Jambox whereabouts) creates a (significantly) higher customer engagement and allows Jawbone to operate as a « platform », holding the two ends of a value chain. One may object that in their case the « big » end is the device and that the server side is minimalistic, yet this is a chain and allows direct customer relationship.