Viio Vezzo Smart Mirror

The Viio Vezzo Smart Mirror has Bluetooth to take calls from your phone and play music. It's nice to look at, but its middling sound quality doesn't justify its hefty price tag.

MSRP
$395.00

  • Pros

    Sleek design. Anti-fog capabilities. Can play music and take phone calls. No wiring needed.

  • Cons

    Expensive. Dim, uneven lighting. Touch controls prone to fingerprints. Speakers sound tinny.

  • Bottom Line

    The Viio Vezzo Smart Mirror is nice to look at, but its middling sound quality doesn't justify its hefty price tag.

By Victoria Song

The Viio Vezzo is one of the more interesting smart home devices we've seen recently. It's a sleek Bluetooth-connected mirror that can play your music and take your calls, but at $395, you're paying a premium to upgrade your daily beauty regimen. It has some nice features, like solid wood backing, vanity LED lighting, and an anti-fog surface. But at the end of the day, the Viio Vezzo is a lot of style over substance. For most people, a plain old mirror and a Bluetooth speaker should suffice.

Mirror Mirror

Mirrors come in all shapes and sizes, and Viio's are no exception. The Vezzo is a rectangular 24 by 32 by 2 inches (HWD), which is much larger than your standard medicine cabinet mirror, but nowhere near full length. Viio also offers the Vero ($445), a circular 30-inch option, and the 24-by-64-inch Vetta ($695). The back of the Viio is made of bamboo, and houses a charging port, mounting rails, and two speakers. The bottom features an auxiliary audio port, another charging port, a master on/off switch, and a microphone for phone calls.

Viio Vezzo Mirror

There's an inset border of LED lighting, giving the mirror a picture frame-like appearance. While stylish, it isn't quite as practical as if it were along the outer rim like typical vanity mirrors. For starters, it splits the total reflective surface, leaving you with a relatively useless outside border. But really, the problem is that the lighting itself is dim, and there's no way to make it brighter. With LED mirrors, I've come to expect lighting that illuminates every single pore, for better or worse. The Vezzo doesn't do that at all. At most, it brightens up the shadows on your face, but only by a few degrees. It looks flattering, but it's not the sort of lighting you want to apply flawless makeup.

On the plus side, you can hang it on the wall vertically or horizontally without wiring. Viio says the Vezzo has six hours of battery life. That should give you at least a few days of lighting and Bluetooth playback. You can also plug it in, which is likely what you'll do since the mirror isn't exactly portable.

Vertically, there are three circular touch buttons in the lower right corner of the LED border that toggle anti-fogging, Bluetooth, and lighting. A light tap is enough to turn them on, which is indicated by a ring of colored light. Because their orientation is fixed, you'll have to get used to looking at the controls sideways if you prefer to hang the mirror vertically. While the buttons are responsive, they tend to collect fingerprints, which is annoying since you'll probably be touching them quite a bit.

Pairing and Sound Quality

Once the Vezzo is mounted, plugged in, and ready to go, the pairing process is simple. All you have to do is enable Bluetooth on your phone, press the Bluetooth button on the mirror, and select the Viio from the list of available devices that show up on your mobile device. After that, the Vezzo basically functions like a regular Bluetooth speaker. There aren't any volume controls on the mirror itself, so you have to manage that and field calls using your phone.

The Vezzo's audio capabilities certainly aren't on par with a comparably priced speaker, like the B&O Play Beolit 17. To test audio quality, I played "Redbone" by Childish Gambino. While there isn't any distortion at maximum volume, the sound is rather tinny and hollow.

Since it doesn't measure up to higher-end speakers, I also tested the Vezzo against against the less expensive UE Wonderboom. The track "Bubbles" by Yosi Horikawa features a lot of ambient sounds like marbles dropping. While you can hear the different layers clearly with the Wonderboom, it's a lot more muddled through the Vezzo.

Vocals also tend to get lost in the mirror. I played "Aaja" by the Swet Shop Boys, and while you can hear the words, they aren't nearly as clear as on the Wonderboom. It also isn't able to get quite as loud, though it's still enough to fill a medium sized room.

As a speakerphone, the Vezzo is a mixed bag. While you can hear the person you're talking to fairly well, the microphone placement—the bottom of the mirror if placed horizontally—means you have to speak quite loudly to be heard on the other end.

Viio Vezzo Mirror

Stick With a Speaker

The Viio Vezzo looks like it belongs in a posh hotel room or an Architectural Digest spread. It's also priced like it. That makes sense when you consider that large LED-lit mirrors can be pricey, even without Bluetooth—nearly identical mirrors like this one, for instance, cost about $300. But given that sound quality isn't the Vezzo's strong point, design alone isn't a compelling enough reason to fork over an additional $100 when you can find plenty of more economical, equally stylish alternatives.

If you're keen to splash some cash, the Vezzo is eye-catching and adds pizzazz to whatever room you put it in. If you're looking for something smarter and are OK with a countertop option, the iHome Vanity Speaker (which we're in the process of reviewing) is brighter, plays music, can charge your phone, and costs a mere $99. Otherwise you're better off buying a separate Bluetooth speaker and sticking it on the counter near your regular old mirror.

85 By Victoria Song Analyst, Hardware

Victoria Song is an analyst on the Hardware team at PCMag. Since graduating from Temple University’s Japan Campus in 2010, she's been found reporting and editing in every corner of the newsroom at The ACCJ Journal, The Japan News, and New York bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun. In her spare time, she bankrupts herself going to theater, buying expansions to board games, and cleaning out the stacks at The Strand. Someday, she hopes Liverpool FC will win the league, but she isn’t holding her breath…. More »

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