It has an apparent magnitude that ranges between 5.25 and 5.41,[2] which makes it faintly visible to the naked eye.

Gaia DR3 parallax measurements imply a distance of 480 light years[1] and it is slowly receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of 1.3 km/s.

[22] A catalogue of chemically peculiar stars gives a spectral class of B6 He wk.

[29] The accepted stellar classification for V686 CrA is B3V,[15] indicating that it is B-type main sequence star.

Like most chemically peculiar stars it spins rather slowly, having a projected rotational velocity of 45.4 km/s.