and can be placed into water, but they do not recommend submerging it. I'm taking that as meaning that if you have the ECOXBT on the side of a hot tub and it falls in, it will probably survive the mishap. The ECOXBT can be used with just about any Bluetooth device including your favorite iOS toy or Mac. When using it with an iPhone, you can use the built-in mic (which features advanced noise cancellation) to turn the ECOXBT into a speaker phone. Functionality All of the controls for the ECOXBT are on the top of the unit. Upon powering up the device, pressing the pairing button quickly displays the ECOXGEAR device name in the list of Bluetooth devices. I have to admit that the pairing process was faster than I've seen on most Bluetooth speaker systems. Speaker volume is surprisingly loud for such a small speaker device. The sound quality is acceptably good for outdoor use, which is pretty much where you'd expect to use a rugged and waterproof speaker. While the ECOXBT sound tends to be a bit too "hard" and "cold" for my personal tastes, I have to admit that some music ("Gangnam Style", for example) sounded perfect on the device. As good as the ECOXBT is as a speaker, it's not that great as a speakerphone. Yes, it does answer with a single tap on a phone button when your iPhone is paired with the speaker, but it just sounds muffled. This has been the