The Sprout Immerse 2 delivers a pleasing soundscape, though its portability is slightly hampered by its weight.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Decent audio presentation with minimal distortion | Touch controls are sometimes unresponsive |
| Incorporates wired USB and Qi2 charging | Wired USB output limited to 10W |
| Nice design | Heavy for a “portable” speaker |
Score: 3/5
In this review
Sprout Immerse 2 Specifications
Sprout Immerse 2 Design
Sprout Immerse 2 Performance
Sprout Immerse 2 Verdict
Ethical disclaimer: The Sprout Immerse 2 used in this review was sent to me by Sprout for the purposes of review, and Sprout is not asking for it to be returned, but this makes no difference to my end review in any case.
Reviews at Alex Reviews Tech will always remain free of any kind of editorial interference and oversight in every case, which is as it should be – and product disclosures should be upfront too. For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
The Sprout Immerse 2 speaker certainly doesn’t hide its speaker style, though its framing does give it something of a unique look. It comprises a primary speaker array in a slightly raised external platform with lit up touch buttons at the top front, measuring in at 300x130x76mm. The raised profile of the primary speaker body does allow sprout to tuck away the bottom firing bass speakers while allowing for some air separation from the actual floor of the unit, so it’s not just a simple visual framing system.
The size of the Sprout Immerse 2 does suggest that it’s slightly more likely to land as a desktop or shelf speaker, but the idea here is that it’s meant to be a fully portable unit, though I’m more drawn to the word “luggable”, given its 2.6kg weight. If you want a portable Bluetooth speaker, you absolutely can have one that won’t weigh you down quite as much as the Sprout Immerse 2 does.
The top of the Sprout Immerse 2 looks like it might be a volume wheel, but it is instead a wireless charging plate. That’s not an absolutely new or unique feature for a consumer speaker, though the big claim to fame here is that it’s Qi2 compliant, meaning that phones such as the iPhone 16, the HMD Skyline or the Pixel 10 Pro XL can be dropped on it to magnetically charge at up to 15W.
At the rear of the Sprout Immerse 2 speaker you’ll find its power input – just a standard 8/IEC C7 cable socket, with a cable supplied – plus a 3.5mm auxiliary input and USB-C power socket for power output.
The “O” in this logo annoys me from a layout point of view. Is it just me?
All very simple, and Sprout keeps it equally basic with just the one colour choice, in black with a dark wood effect wrap around the sides. If I’ve got one design annoyance – and it’s a super minor one – it’s that I don’t like the elongated “O” in SPROUT on the front. Given it’s the company logo, I think I’m stuck with that one.
You can take the Sprout Immerse 2 outside… but it would be a bad idea to leave it out there.
While the Sprout Immerse 2 is a luggable speaker, there’s no specific mention of durability in terms of moisture or dust protection in its specifications. As such, while you could take it on your next camping holiday (weigh notwithstanding) it would be a bad idea to leave it outside overnight, or anywhere it might get rained on. Poolside speakers are a category, but the Sprout Immerse 2 doesn’t sit within that grouping.
Performance
Sprout is an Australian company, and while there’s no evidence that the Sprout Immerse 2 speaker is assembled in Australia, it’s clearly built for the local audience, and you can tell that the moment that you power it up, because all of its spoken phrases around power and pairing have a distinct strine twang to them.
Connection is quite simple, with a touch control to enable Bluetooth pairing or a 3.5mm jack for wired inputs if that’s more your style. The Sprout Immerse 2 speaker also supports multiple speakers using Sprout’s UNISYNC system, but as I’ve only got the one Sprout speaker to test, I can’t really evaluate how well that functions.
The Sprout Immerse 2 uses lit touch buttons at the front of the speaker to cover powering on, pairing, volume and playback. I’ve commented in many true wireless bud-style headphone reviews that I’m not a big fan of touch controls on those devices because they can be fiddly to hit when they’re in your ears. No problem with that (unless you have enormous ears to accommodate the Sprout Immerse 2), but I did hit some intermittent problems with the Sprout Immerse 2’s touch controls failing to respond to touch controls, especially for its power button. This wasn’t to a level that made it unusable – but it was noticeable.
While many speakers these days have app controls for equalisation or sound mode selection, the Sprout Immerse 2 is just a Bluetooth or wired speaker, with a default presentation that doesn’t particularly emphasise bass or treble in any particular way.
Presentation is bright and well balanced for most music types; testing with Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” revealed a decent level of depth in the vocals while retaining the string notes, while switching to Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day” showed off a fair degree of bass – though this isn’t a speaker that gets thumpingly loud to speak of.
This isn’t a knock-your-socks-off speaker, but that also means it avoids the trap of going so loud that it distorts audio; even at maximum volume it did a decent job of keeping Prince’s “Purple Rain” (a song I’ve listened to way, way too many times, if such a thing were in fact possible… and it isn’t, but I digress…) clear without warping the sound noticeably.
On the battery life front, Sprout’s claim is that it’s capable of up to 8 hours of playback at 50% volume. It largely tracks for that, though my testing has been a mix of disconnected tested and desktop testing – and I strongly suspect for anyone who buys a Sprout Immerse 2 it’ll do at least some time as a shelf/desk speaker of some sort, at which point it makes the most sense to leave it plugged in.
Given it’s not a massively loud single speaker, it’s entirely possible to run it down before that 8 hour figure is up if you’re using it to fill a larger room with continuous loud sound, or any outdoor space.
The Sprout Immerse 2 is pitched as a multi-purpose device, because you can also use it to charge up devices on a wired or wireless basis. It supports Qi2 for the small number of existing Qi2 phones on the market – mostly iPhones, but also the new Google Pixel 10 series and HMD’s Skyline phone – and is backwards compatible with Qi devices, because that’s baked into the standard. With a Qi device you don’t get the nice magnetic alignment or faster charging rates, however.
What’s slightly odd here is that while the Sprout Immerse 2 does also support wired charging from its rear USB-C socket, it’s at a lower rate than wireless charging, limited to just 10W. That’s faster than regular Qi at 7.5W max, but slower than the specification for Qi2 at 15W, which isn’t usually what you see when wired and wireless charging is compared.
If you’re not plugged in, you’re just drawing from a 3350mAh battery within the Sprout Immerse 2’s frame, which essentially marks it out as acceptable for somewhere between 50-70% of most phone batteries – allowing for the lossy nature of wireless charging and variable phone battery sizes. It’s a neat feature, best utilised as a desk speaker where it’s basically just passthrough power though, because if you want a portable battery, you totally can get larger capacities at a lower price and weight.
Sprout Immerse 2: Alex’s Verdict
The three-in-one idea of the Sprout Immerse 2 is a neat one, but it does feel to me that it’s one that’s better suited as a desktop or shelf-based unit rather than something that’s entirely portable. The lack of specified IP rated water/dust protection gives me concerns about its suitability as a long-term outdoor speaker, and the weight of the unit means that it’s not the simplest to carry around, while the power drain of the Qi2 charging plate and USB-C output, while conceptually fine, does work best if you’ve got it more or less permanently plugged in.
It’s not the punchiest speaker, but it wisely avoids issues of distortion doing so, and if you’re keen on something basic and app-free with the added bonus of an Aussie voice twang every time you power it up, it’s fair, but not exceptional value.
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Sprout Immerse 2 : Pricing and availability
The Sprout Immerse 2 retails in Australia for $349
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