Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers are everywhere lately. Big, small, portable, expensive, cheap, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi… the sheer amount of choice can seem overwhelming. But our top picks are bound to have a minimum of one Speaker that’s right for you. Before anything, though, you would like to decide how you would like to travel wireless.
Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi Speakers
Bluetooth is that the most everyday wireless music streaming standard, but it is not the sole one. Bluetooth may be a point-to-point wireless system, pairing a transmitter (your phone or computer) with a receiver (your speaker) to play music. it’s extremely direct and straightforward to line up and stream pretty high-quality music because of technological advancements that have greatly improved audio fidelity over what it had been a couple of years ago. Bluetooth generally doesn’t have any multi-room tricks in itself, though some speakers can found out stereo pairs with an app’s assistance. In contrast, others can create a wireless mesh among multiple speakers for multi-room audio. It is not quite as high-fidelity or as powerful as Wi-Fi multi-room audio, however.
Wi-Fi audio includes standards like Apple AirPlay and Chromecast, alongside various manufacturers’ Wi-Fi streaming platforms. Wi-Fi can handle more bandwidth than Bluetooth so that it can support higher-fidelity audio. It also can integrate into your home network, so you’ll easily play audio from any device connected to your Wi-Fi without pairing anything.
The trade-off is that Wi-Fi music systems require a Wi-Fi network to attach to so that they cannot be used portably together with your smartphone like Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers (though many offer Bluetooth pairing as a backup). the various Wi-Fi standards also mean various services might or won’t stream over the device. However, this is often less of a drag than it’s been within the past because of Chromecast and Sonos’ lengthy lists of supported third-party services. It’s worth noting that the new Sonos Move supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth streaming, so compatibility isn’t a problem in the least.
Most new speakers available feature some entirely wireless support, whether they’re clip-on bike speakers or big sound bars. With some exceptions, any speaker you choose up at an electronics store will be ready to stream audio either over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Your Speaker might even be ready to handle both wireless methods. Check if your Wi-Fi speaker features a Bluetooth mode for using it on the go.
Multi-Room Audio
If you would like sound throughout your home, you are going to wish quite one Speaker. Rather than juggling Bluetooth pairing with all or physically carrying a speaker from room to room, a multi-room audio system is that the thanks to going. Fortunately, multi-room audio is more common and easier to use than ever. Multi-room audio is strictly what it sounds like: playing audio in multiple rooms. It means a system can manage multiple speakers directly, playing from one or more sound sources to at least one or more speakers at a given time.
Sonos speakers, just like the Sonos One (along with Ikea Symfonisk speakers made together with Sonos), tap into the Sonos app to allow you to access any or all speakers connected to your home network and play music from dozens of various streaming sources, or local storage.
Apple’s AirPlay platform is that the iOS- and OSX-friendly multi-room sound solution. There are no first-party AirPlay speakers besides the Apple HomePod, but many other Wi-Fi speakers, including Sonos products, support AirPlay. They allow you to easily stream from your iPhone or iPad at better quality than Bluetooth, but you will not find much utility in it if you’re an Android user.
Chromecast is Google’s answer to AirPlay and works similarly. Google Home/Nest devices support Chromecast, as do many Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars. Any Chromecast speaker are often incorporated into your Google Home setup, including support for room-based groupings within the same app as your Google Assistant speakers and smart home devices (if you employ Google Home for that).
Amazon Echo speakers and, therefore, the Alexa voice assistant didn’t initially support multi-room audio. Still, the Echo/Alexa platform has been updated, and now most up-to-date Alexa speakers are often grouped and arranged like all other multi-room systems. Like Chromecast, fixing multi-room Echo audio is performed through an equivalent app as your voice assistant and smart home devices, only it’s all Alexa rather than Google.
Finally, a couple of Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers support linking, chaining, and mesh networks that connect multiple speakers to every other. These usually aren’t as complex or robust as Wi-Fi multi-room systems, but they seem to be a simple option that will provide an alternative to using your home network to stream music.
Top Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers for 2021
| Our Pick | Rating | Wi-Fi | Water-Resistant | Voice Assistant | Speakerphone | Portable | Physical Connections | Multi-Room | Bluetooth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Echo (3rd Gen) | Excellent (4.5) | yes | No | Amazon Alexa | yes | No | 3.5mm | yes | yes |
| Amazon Echo Studio | Excellent (4.5) | yes | No | Amazon Alexa | No | No | 3.5mm, Optical | yes | yes |
| Amazon Echo (4th Gen) | Excellent (4.5) | yes | No | Amazon Alexa | No | No | 3.5mm | yes | yes |
| Ikea Sonos Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf Speaker | Excellent (4.0) | yes | No | Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant | No | No | Ethernet | yes | No |
| Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (2nd Generation) | Excellent (4.0) | No | yes | Amazon Alexa | yes | yes | USB-C | yes | |
| JBL Charge 4 | Excellent (4.0) | No | yes | None | No | yes | 3.5mm | No | yes |
| Marshall Woburn II Bluetooth | Excellent (4.0) | No | No | None | No | No | 3.5mm, Stereo RCA | No | yes |
| Google Nest Audio | Excellent (4.0) | yes | No | Google Assistant | yes | No | None | yes | yes |
| Sonos One | Excellent (4.0) | yes | No | Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant | No | No | Ethernet | yes | No |
| Sony SRS-XB43 | Excellent (4.0) | No | yes | None | yes | yes | 3.5mm, USB | No | yes |
What Kind of Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers Do You Want?
Besides the wireless connection, you would like to believe what sort of Speaker you would like. Smaller, battery-powered speakers (usually Bluetooth) are useful because you’ll take them anywhere, but they do not get particularly loud. Larger speakers generally offer fuller sound and richer bass, but they will be costlier and are often not portable.
Besides single speakers, you’ll also find stereo pairs designed for desktop computers and residential theater speaker systems like soundbars, sound plates, and home-theaters-in-a-box. These speakers are not portable in the least, but if you would like a centerpiece audio system for your front room or office, they’re likely your most suitable option.
Portability
For a speaker to be portable, it must both be small and lightweight enough to carry around and be equipped with an A battery so it can run without being plugged in. Of course, “small” and “light” are relative; tiny speakers with carabiners allow you to clip them to your backpack and take them on hikes, while much more prominent and heavier speakers could be intended only to be taken from the room to room in your home.
Bluetooth speakers are usually portable, but they do not need to be. If a Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers is too big to carry around or doesn’t have A battery, it won’t be portable.
Since Wi-Fi speakers believe in a separate network to enable multi-speaker and multi-room audio playback, they’re rarely portable. After all, portability doesn’t matter if you would like to be connected to your home’s hotspot. There are exceptions, though, and Wi-Fi speakers can still be portable if they need batteries and ideally can create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network together with your phone.
Durability
Not all portable speakers are built to be carried around outdoors or employed by the pool. Rugged speakers can handle splashes, dunks, drops, and gunk and keep running. If you are trying that with the non-rugged speakers on this list, you will find yourself with a brick rather than an audio device. Search for speakers with IPX ratings and guarantees of water and shock resistance if you would like to hold them around to the beach, the lake, the slopes, or the sewers. Our Guide to IP ratings explains what those numbers mean, so you’ll know whether your speaker can handle getting dunked within the pool or if it merely will stay intact during a drizzle.
Bluetooth Audio Quality
Unless portability is at the highest of your priority list, sound quality is paramount. Many speakers don’t offer much within the way of features but produce top-notch audio. Big bass isn’t for everybody, but unless your speaker is downright tiny, it should be ready to reproduce low frequencies accurately without distorting at high volumes. Clarity is more critical than sheer power, and a balanced, clean sound should be your goal when buying a speaker. If you would like an audio system that will drive an entire party rather than fill a little room, keep the Speaker’s dimensions in mind; generally, the larger a speaker is, the louder it can get while still sounding good.
As mentioned earlier, within the youth of wireless audio, Bluetooth was far inferior to Wi-Fi standards due to limited bandwidth and audio compression. Those problems are largely solved, and Bluetooth 4.0 (not to say 5.0) and its relevant audio codecs can transmit excellent quality audio. Wi-Fi can still get a foothold purely thanks to the available bandwidth, and if you would like to concentrate to lossless music on services like Tidal, you ought to probably accompany Wi-Fi over Bluetooth. Of course, a wired connection are often better than both because of either faster data speeds for digital signals or just the very fact that the wire is carrying the analog sound with no conversion. But this Guide is for wireless speakers.
Voice Assistants
Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant allow you to tell your speaker what to play rather than rummaging through your smartphone. These voice assistants are useful for entirely just playing music. you’ll ask them for weather forecasts, sports scores, unit conversions, and even language translation. They also generally support third-party skills that permit you are doing anything from order pizza to play trivia games. If you’ve got other smart home devices, you would possibly even be ready to integrate them also, letting you control the lights and thermostat together with your voice.
Voice assistant speakers have one universal requirement: Wi-Fi. They have an online connection, and without one voice recognition and every one of the processing needed to seek out your music, answer your questions, and control your smart home devices won’t work. These speakers can still be portable and even offer Bluetooth connectivity when you’re far away from your network, but those features aren’t sure. the foremost prominent first-party voice assistant speakers just like the Amazon Echo, and therefore the Google Home does not have batteries.
Price
Speakers are available for a good range of costs. Don’t assume, however, that the foremost money always buys the most straightforward overall product. Generally speaking, higher-end models do sound better, but sometimes they lack the features you would possibly expect for the worth. The trick is to urge the clearest sound, alongside the features you would like, at a price you’ll afford. And, of course, if you would like to understand about all of these things, you’ll read our reviews of every Speaker.
The most comfortable thanks to getting the most exact price: go searching online. You’ll often find prices well below the list if you are doing a touch bargain hunting online. Do not be afraid to look for similar speakers to those on this list, either; a variety of the choices included here have solid predecessors that you can now find for much less since they have been replaced. We’ve also rounded up our favorite Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers under $100.
How we chose the best Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers
There are thousands and thousands of Bluetooth speakers within the world, and it’d be impossible for us to review all of them, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to urge our grubby hands on all of them. If a speaker made it onto this list, then you’ll make particular we’ve had the first-hand experience with them and, in many cases, put them through our entire review process.
We can directly review and test as many audio products as possible, but we also consider what others say about a few given products. We want our readers to be proud of their purchases which means we had to narrow down what it means to be “the best Bluetooth and Wireless Speakers.” during this case, we would have liked it to sound good, be relatively affordable, and sturdy. If a speaker’s intended use is for camping or hiking, we made sure that it’s received a politician IP rating. Generally, if Bluetooth speakers perform well, there’s no got to overspend for the sake of overspending.
