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Best Overall
UE Boom 3
Best for Home
Sonos Era 100
Pocket Bass
Sony SRS-XB100
Best Smart Bluetooth Speaker
Sonos Roam
The best Bluetooth speakers still have a place near and dear to our hearts, even as we’ve seen better (and more portable) smart speakers creeping into the universe.
It’s fun and easy to ask an Amazon Echo or Google Nest speaker to play your favorite track or tell you the weather, but smart speakers have a few crutches—first, stable Wi-Fi. By (mostly) forgoing voice assistants and Wi-Fi radios, Bluetooth speakers gain portability, with the ability to venture outside of your house and withstand rugged conditions like the sandy beach or the steamy Airbnb jacuzzi. They’ll also work with any smartphone, and they sound as good as their smart-speaker equivalents.
We’ve tested hundreds of models in the past few years, and we can happily say they are still some of the best small devices you can listen to. Here are our favorites right now.
Be sure to check out all our buying guides, including the Best Soundbars, Best Wirefree Earbuds, and Best Smart Speakers.
Updated June 2023: We’ve added the Q Acoustics M20, Sonos Era 100, Sony SRS-XB100, and Positive Grid Spark Go.
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Photograph: Ultimate Ears
Best Overall
UE Boom 3
There are bigger and badder Bluetooth speakers, but none match the fun and convenience of the Ultimate Ears Boom 3 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). It puts out some of the most pleasant, balanced sound for its size. The waterproof cylinder comes in multiple colors, lasts 15 hours between charges, and gives you 100 feet of Bluetooth range. On top of all that, it has a two-year warranty.
★ Bigger and boomier: If you really need to get a party kicking, the Megaboom 3 ($200) is a beefier model that amps up the bass.
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Photograph: Sonos
Best for Home
Sonos Era 100
We used to recommend the Sonos Move (8/10, WIRED Recommends) for multiroom audio fans who still like the convenience of Bluetooth. But if you want a Bluetooth speaker with Sonos smarts, the Era 100 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the best one to build a home network around. Sonos invented wireless multiroom speakers. Its speakers connect to nearly every streaming service, many have Bluetooth, and they work with Alexa. They also sound amazing by every measure.
The Era 100 mostly streams music over your Wi-Fi network, but it can also function as a Bluetooth speaker. The real reason to pick this over the Move (which has an included battery so you can take it outside, which we rarely found ourselves doing) is that this speaker is stereo. With dual beam-forming tweeters aimed off-center, you get real, room-filling sound. Our advice for those wanting a home speaker that can occasionally connect to friends’ phones or other devices? Snag an Era 100. It’s the best smart speaker right now.
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Photograph: Sony
Pocket Bass
Sony SRS-XB100
These sub-$100 speakers from Sony have become a go-to when riding to gatherings, thanks to a clever built-in strap, and the fact that they sit flat in a bike basket. They get up to 16 hours of battery life, are IP67-rated for dust- and water resistance, and you can even link multiples together for stereo sound. They also come in a variety of awesome colors—favorites include bright blue and bright orange—so you’ll never be lost in the crowd. At just under four inches tall, these are also some of the smallest and easiest speakers to take everywhere.
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Photograph: Sonos
Best Smart Bluetooth Speaker
Sonos Roam
The larger Sonos models are great if you want a speaker that usually lives inside, but they aren’t the kind of thing you’d want to throw in a backpack. That’s where the Roam (9/10, WIRED Recommends) comes in. This tiny Sonos speaker has all the same smarts as its bigger siblings, but with an IP67 dust- and water-resistance rating and 10 hours of listening time. It’s about the size of a 16-ounce beer can and easily fits in cup holders and knapsacks alike.
