Moto Sound Flow Speakers

I reported on these great-sounding and clever speakers within my review of the Razr 70 Ultra recently when I declared them as being fabulous, even if there were a few software quirks needing sorting out. That's not been done yet, but regardless, for a person not changing phones every 5 minutes, like me, the issues won't be a problem. As a reminder, the issues were that when changing phones, by far the best way to switch these speakers is to simply reset them and start again. As I say, not a problem for most people with a single phone.

I see that they're still £179 each on Motorola's UK website, but they're currently available on Amazon for £145 and I've seen them on eBay, for example, for as low as £99. At that price, if you have an UWB Moto phone which supports all the clever stuff, it's a no brainer - get a pair! Even if you don't have a Signature, Razr 70 Ultra, Razr 60 Ultra or Edge 50 Ultra, they still sound fabulous once you set them up with the Moto Sound Flow app. The clever stuff you miss out on, I'll come to. At the outset, I'd suggest heading for the online manual and following the steps very carefully!

The speaker features a twill-textured fabric around the outside, giving it a lovely feel with some heft at 581g, accompanied by an IP67 rating. As a single standalone unit connected via standard Bluetooth, it delivers 30W of output (10W tweeter, 20W woofer, dual passive radiators) tuned by Bose. Classical music, orchestral, solo piano and jazz sound quite superb, with plenty of volume on tap.

In the box you get a delightful disk-shaped desktop dock with pogo pins providing 15W of power via USB-C, alongside an extra USB-C port on the speaker itself for direct charging. The 6,000mAh battery is rated for up to 12 hours off-base, though in my tests at 33% volume it lost about 5% per hour, meaning 20 hours is achievable at lower volumes. The top controls feature a illuminated Moto 'M' logo that handles play/pause, pairing, and call management, flanked by volume buttons, a microphone mute switch and a light ring that indicates status and volume levels in various colours. Downloading that Moto Sound Flow App gives you EQ controls, battery monitoring and unlocks Wi-Fi/UWB playback (if you have the right Moto phone, see above).

When you fire up a second speaker and pair them with a compatible UWB-enabled phone, you unlock those unique spatial features. Dynamic Stereo uses UWB to track your phone's physical position in 3D space between the two speakers, micro-adjusting phase, balance and spatial delay so the virtual soundstage centre stays pinned directly in front of you as you walk around the room. Room Shift allows audio to automatically hand off to whichever speaker you are closest to if placed in different rooms, while Proximity Handoff transfers audio directly from your phone or Moto Buds when brought near a speaker.

To test this, place the speakers about 7ft apart facing into the room, open the app, create a 'Stereo Pair' and toggle Dynamic Stereo on. Standing 5 or 6ft back, you hear the singer's voice right in the middle. As you walk toward the left speaker, instead of the sound collapsing into that single channel, the UWB chip detects your movement and adjusts timing so the soundstage remains floating directly in front of your face. It tricks your ears into perceiving that the main channel stays centred wherever you stand - a subtle, acoustic transparency trick rather than a flashy gimmick.

The software is very smart as it throws the sound around bringing new life to words 'stereo' and 'soundstage'. I'm not sure that I've heard anything like it before without headphones in the mix and I'm constantly amazed - so much so that I have one at each end of my desk and use them all-day, every-day! If you don't have a supporting phone, you still get amazing stereo but, yes, miss out on those higher-reaching functions. So there's an excuse to buy a new Moto as well!

To be fair, I should not that this very clever stuff is built into these specific Moto phones so having a phone which has a physical UWB radio isn't enough. Motorola’s Dynamic Stereo and Room Shift rely on proprietary code built into Moto's firmware. Connecting a non-Moto UWB phone still delivers rich Wi-Fi/Bluetooth stereo playback, but omits the dynamic spatial tracking. And it's also worth noting that the setup process inside the app requires patience, as I hinted earlier. It operates as a bit of a black box with long, uninformative pauses between steps where users might assume it has frozen. My advice is to get one speaker set up, turn it off, pair the second individually, turn both back on and then create the Stereo Pair in the app.

Furthermore, there is an Android media routing quirk when playing audio across the room. If you tap the Quick Settings media card to switch audio back to "This Device" and stop playing music for 30 minutes, Android clears the temporary override. The next time you hit play, Android sees the active Bluetooth standby link and routes your audio right back out to the speakers in the other room! To reliably break the hold, you need to quickly toggle Bluetooth off and on, or explicitly disconnect via the main Bluetooth settings menu.

These software quirks aside - which Moto will undoubtedly refine through firmware updates - the Sound Flow speakers sound fantastic, and the Wi-Fi streaming integration means incoming phone calls stay on your phone without interrupting music playing for everyone else in the room.

I highly recommend these speakers. Even if you only want one, it sounds great, has protection from the elements and a good battery life - you'll love the sound, I assure you! But yes, for me, the system comes to life if you grab a second one. Even more so if you have a Moto phone to make the most of all the smart stuff these speakers are capable of. And on top of that, the 'cloth' that surrounds the speakers is gorgeous to the touch - very classy - and each one comes with that charging dock and cable.