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Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.

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Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family. There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for? We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.

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Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.

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Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.

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STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.

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Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.

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We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware. Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions. Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.

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We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.

MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making

We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun. The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something. We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.

Bluetooth Speaker for Amazon Echo Dot: A BenQ treVolo S Review


Last year we bought our middle son an Amazon Echo Dot to use as a music player in his bedroom. He loves listening to music and at the time I didn't want to get him an audio player with headsets. The Echo Dot allows him to play music but we can still 'listen in'. Even though the Echo Dot can play audio without an external speaker, if you really like listening to music, you will not be too impressed with the quality of the sound.

This is where a Bluetooth speaker can add real value. The Echo Dot is made to easily integrate with Bluetooth-enabled speakers. In this post, we also explore using the BenQ treVolo S with our Echo Dot.

Disclaimer: BenQ Corporation sent us a BenQ treVolo S Portable Electrostatic Bluetooth Speaker for this review. Our views and opinions are always our own.


Unboxing


The BenQ treVolo S speaker is the latest in the BenQ treVolo speaker range. It comes with a USB charging cable, line-in cable and travel pouch.

You will need to charge the speaker before you use it. Once fully charged the speaker will play music constantly for a whole day. In our case the speaker is in our son's room, so we keep it plugged in, so it's always on a full charge when we want to move it to another room wirelessly.

The speaker is quite heavy (1kg) so not necessarily one you'll put in the bag for a day out but its compact design is great for camping trips and holidays.

Unlike the other treVolo models, the S doesn't come with a microphone. This hasn't had an impact on our use of the speaker with Echo Dot or a mobile phone.

The speaker has two panels that fold out making it a really nice looking speaker. The buttons on the speaker allow you to pair with a Bluetooth enabled device, control the volume, play/pause the music and switch between sound modes. The LED indicators show when you need to charge the speaker again.





Electrostatic Speaker

The BenQ treVolo is a portable electrostatic speaker that connects to another device via Bluetooth and NFC. The design of the speaker is directly linked to the technology used to make it. Electrostatic speakers tend to be tall and thin to allow sufficient surface area for the force to be applied on the diaphragm  (membrane) to generate the sound.

Electrostatic speakers are also known to reduce the distortion of sound by a magnitude of 10 due to the great difference in weight of the components. In fact, this makes the BenQ treVolo a great speaker for playing soft sound, like a music or an audiobook at bedtime. You don't hear a crackling sound with the speaker volume is really low.

One of the disadvantages of electrostatic speakers is the notable lack of loud bass sound. The treVolo S solves this with two mini 12W subwoofers.

Interestingly electrostatic speakers (read about electrostatic speakers here) were patented in 1953 by Arthur Jenzen when he invented the first practical electrostatic Hi-Fi speaker. He was a physicist and created a company JansZen to continue his work after the war. You can read about his fascinating work on the JansZen company website. (We like a bit of history and DIY tech at Tech Age Kids.)

If you're interested in music and sound, then check out some of these posts:



Echo Dot and BenQ treVolo S


It's really easy to add the treVolo S as a paired device in the Alexa app. Use the Bluetooth button on the speaker. It took a couple minutes to get it all set up.

Using a Bluetooth speaker with the Echo Dot definitely improves the audio output from Dot and also takes advantage of moving the source of sound to where you want it in the room. The audio plays through the paired speaker and not through the Dot.

You can switch off the speaker when it's not in use. It connects automatically when you switch it on again and the Bluetooth is active on the speaker.

The loudest sound is good enough for a bedroom. You can control the volume on the speaker or by voice command through Alexa. Softer sounds are much better through the treVolo speaker than the Echo Dot speakers.


Verdict

The BenQ treVolo S is a good speaker for its size. It also supports an AUX cord in case your device is not Bluetooth enabled.

If you had two BenQ treVolo speakers you could pair the speakers and make one the left speaker and the other the right speaker.

The BenQ looks nice and is compact and we think a great Bluetooth speaker to use with Echo dot. My son prefers listening to his music and audio books through the speaker.




24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: Bluetooth Speaker for Amazon Echo Dot: A BenQ treVolo S Review
Bluetooth Speaker for Amazon Echo Dot: A BenQ treVolo S Review
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