To be honest, when I first saw the news about the release of the portable speaker “Street”, I didn’t quite believe it. No, not that it was released, but that it was Yandex’s debut wireless speaker – I seem to be following them closely, but hasn’t one been released in seven years? Honestly, honestly? However, yes, “Station Street” is indeed the debut of the Yandex Devices division in this niche. It’s all the more interesting to get to know the new product.
Simultaneously with the “Station Street” a large-scale update of “Alice” was presented, which learned to reason, speak English and a number of other things previously inaccessible to her. But it is not directly connected with the wireless speaker, “Alice” did not learn any special Jedi tricks on it, this global update generally concerns the application with access to the camera, text chat and so on. But I would like to say right away that “Alice” seemed to have become a little less passive-aggressive and more friendly – however, this may be my distortions of perception, and not changes in behavior.
“
⇡#Design and construction
«Yandex consistently surprises with the quality of its devices and the upgrade of its AI assistant, but not with any non-standard design solutions. So yes, “Station Street” looks exactly as you can imagine it, even without looking at the photos. The only thing you need to understand is whether it is a compact speaker (conditionally of the JBL GO form factor), medium (conditionally JBL Pulse/Flip) or large (conditionally JBL Boombox or even larger, JBL PartyBox). Here, Yandex chose the most popular and obvious category – “Station Street” can be called a direct competitor to JBL Flip, but “with brains”.
It is designed in a classic way – it is a tube with two flat edges that can serve as bases when placing the “Station” vertically. And no, they do not contain low-frequency speakers with passive radiators, as sometimes happens – the entire acoustic system is hidden inside the case.
And this body is covered with fabric material – again, this is the base, as is the fact that all other elements on the body are made of soft-touch plastic.
We see two control panels here. One contains the main keys for working with the speaker: launching Alice with a built-in indicator of its status (blinking white – ready for communication, glowing red – microphones are off, purple means the setup process), volume control, forced activation of Bluetooth pairing, track start/pause or switching to the next track. Of course, these keys are not as relevant for the Yandex speaker as for almost any other wireless speaker.
But the keys on the second panel have to be touched more often: here is the device power button and the microphone mute button. Also here is the charge level indicator panel and the USB Type-C port for power.
We don’t see anything else interesting on the body, except for a fabric eyelet for attaching a carabiner from a wrist strap, the Yandex logo, and four legs necessary for the speaker to stand horizontally on the surface.
In the end, Yandex Station Street looks relevant and quite attractive, but I wouldn’t say it’s fresh. The colors also lack this freshness: it’s available in green and black. Although my opinion is largely based on the impression of the black speaker, which we had for testing. The green one looks more interesting in the photos, but I haven’t had any dealings with it in real life.
«”Station Street” turned out to be quite large. The dimensions themselves are not surprising – you would expect a tube of approximately this size, it fits into any backpack, and will fit into other women’s bags. But the weight of 700 grams seems somewhat excessive, especially considering that the battery here is less capacious than in the slightly more than half-kilogram JBL Flip, for example.
The case is protected from dust and moisture according to the IP67 standard – that is, it should not only survive the rain, but should even work after being immersed to a depth of one meter for half an hour. And yes, the speaker recognizes when moisture has entered the USB port and suggests drying itself first, and only then charging. The speaker should be resistant to falls, at least visually, I dropped it a couple of times on the parquet and once on the asphalt – nothing terrible happened to it (but I do not urge you to repeat my experience in any case, you should handle the equipment carefully).
⇡#File not found.
If the appearance of Yandex Station Street is not surprising, then in terms of functionality it has something to attract.
The most important thing is that Alice is in no way inferior in its capabilities to AI assistants settled in stationary stations. Alice is fully functional, you can chat with her, ask her something, check the weather, set a timer, play cities, and so on – well, you know, I don’t see much point in listing her capabilities once again.
In a home network, it works like a regular “Station” in other ways too: it can be used to control smart home devices, listen to music or audiobooks without touching the connected smartphone or tablet (but for the initial setup, you need to use a mobile device with “Home with Alice” installed). You can combine a pair of speakers into a stereo pair, which is not quite typical for “Stations”, but for wireless speakers it is a classic. You can place “Street Stations” in different rooms and set up “Multiroom” mode so that they play different music (or read podcasts/books).
There are some small nuances. On the positive side, the speaker works with 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, and can remember the networks it was connected to and automatically switch between them. It’s hard for me to imagine you, for example, remembering the network in a fitness club and playing your music on the speaker during your workout, but various scenarios like this can be implemented. On the negative side, the speaker does not support smart home systems without Wi-Fi (Zigbee and Matter over Wi-Fi) – all stationary “Stations” are compatible with these protocols. The portable one is not compatible.
«
The speaker has an equalizer that works not only through the Home with Alice app, but also by voice – when connected via Wi-Fi. The equalizer is not available when working via Bluetooth.
⇡#Sound and autonomy
«Yandex Stations, as a rule, sound good, the developers do not skimp on acoustics. “Station Street” is no exception. It has two speakers – one low-frequency (dimensions – 44 × 80 mm) with a power of 20 W and a high-frequency (diameter – 24 mm) with a power of 10 W. As you can easily calculate, the total power of the speaker is 30 W.
This is enough to fill almost any room in an apartment or house with sound. At home, I could easily listen to it at 40 or 50% volume, which is enough for a room of 10-15 square meters. Yes, the “Station Street” is not suitable for a full-scale party on the street or in a large hall, but for this, in any case, you need other equipment, not a compact wireless speaker. For a device of its level, the “Station Street” has a very powerful sound.
And quite high-quality – the stage is good, the bass is quite powerful, while the vocals or conditional violins are quite clear. Although, to my taste, there is a bias towards low frequencies in any case, regardless of the equalizer preset and operating mode. There are two basic modes – “Street” and “Home”. In the street mode, the bass is enhanced, in the home mode – the sound is more balanced. In general, I do not want to find fault with the sound of “Station Street” – everything is good in this regard for a device of its class.
There are three microphones here, but it is not the number itself that is important, but the sensitivity – everything is fine with this, during the week of testing there was not a single case when I had to raise my voice or repeat something, including in a whisper. Alice herself also speaks clearly.
The built-in 3300 mAh battery should be enough for 12 hours of operation via Wi-Fi or 20 hours via Bluetooth. I haven’t tested it in such detail, but it seems that the truth is at least close to the stated figures. And yes, despite the physically less capacious battery than the same JBL Flip (comparison with the most popular speaker in this segment is nothing), the autonomy is quite comparable. That is, with the main characteristics of wireless speakers, the “Station Street” is all good, at a general level, at least.
⇡#Conclusion
«Yandex Station Street” despite the fact that we are accustomed to the permanent update of the Yandex device lineup – the speaker is long-awaited. And it fully meets expectations – it seems that nothing is missing in it. The case is protected, the design is boring, but this is also expected, it is quite heavy, but within the norm, the sound is good, without unpleasant surprises. The main thing is that when connected via Wi-Fi, “Alice” comes to life without any restrictions that could be added to the “compact” device. And when connected via Bluetooth to the usual functionality of the playback device, “Station Street” adds the option of voice control (within limited limits, but still). So in some ways, the wireless speaker of “Yandex” even surprises, and not just meets expectations. Yes, it costs more than most competitors – 14,990 rubles at the start. But Alice essentially has no competitors on the Russian market, so at least partly the price seems justified.