The humble Bluetooth speaker has come a long way. A few years ago, Bluetooth speakers only had to be slightly better than the speakers on a mobile phone. But new innovations mean huge improvements in sound quality, maximum volume, connectivity and battery life.
While a Bluetooth speaker was once a small, tinny thing that would rattle and drop its connection, today’s models are proper mobile sound systems. There are also lots of them, from pocket-sized budget models to large units that can be the centrepiece of a party. Gatherings on the beach will appreciate the ingress protection that many Bluetooth speakers now have as standard – you can use them in the shower, too.
Sound quality is the biggest improvement that Bluetooth speakers have seen over the past few years. You still won’t get the rumbling bass of a soundbar, but as audio companies discover how to get more power and definition out of smaller speaker designs, you’ll notice a distinct improvement in the way a new speaker sounds if you’re upgrading from an older model.
But with so much innovation, it can be hard to keep track of which models are best. That’s why I put a range of Bluetooth speakers to the test.
How I tested
The best way to test a Bluetooth speaker is to listen to it, and that’s exactly what I did. All of the music and podcasts I used were streamed from an Android phone, and I tested these speakers with several criteria:
- Music quality: The most important test, I listened to a wide variety of music from different streaming services through these speakers. I wanted good dynamic ranges, bass quality, and clarity.
- Podcast quality: If you like to listen to a podcast while you do the dishes, you need good quality for spoken media. I tested these speakers with a variety of podcasts from different podcasting apps to see how these speakers handled speech.
- Connection: Bad Bluetooth connection can be frustrating, so I ensured none of these speakers dropped connection, and I also tested the range of each speaker.
- Battery life: These speakers should last for hours, so I made sure the battery claims from the manufacturers lined up with real life.
- Toughness: These speakers should be able to stand up to rain, so I tested them indoors and outdoors to ensure they are all waterproof.
The best Bluetooth speakers for 2025 are:
- Best overall – Bang & Olufsen beosound A1 3rd gen: £299, Bang-olfusen.com
- Best budget speaker – Ultimate Ears miniroll: £69.99, Ultimateears.com
- Best mid-range – JBL flip 7: £129.99, Jbl.com
- Best compact – Soundcore motion 300: £79.99, Soundcore.com
- Best floating speaker – Ultimate Ears wonderboom 4: £89.99, Ultimateears.com
- Best portable – JBL charge 6: £169.99, Jbl.com
- Best big speaker – Loewe we. hear pro neon: £249, Loewe.tv
- Best retro look – Marshall emberton III: £149.99, Marshall.com
Bang & Olufsen beosound A1 3rd gen
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Best: Bluetooth speaker overall
Weight: 576g
Dimensions: 13.3cm x 4.6cm x 13.3 cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C
Waterproofing: IP67
Why we love it
- Beautiful design
- Sounds great
- Physical controls
Take note
- Quite expensive
Coming from a high-end audio firm like B&O, you’d expect the beosound A1 3rd gen to be something a bit special, and it is. You pay for it, certainly – this isn’t a large speaker and it’s the most expensive on this list – but it comes with several neat features that will endear it to users such as fast-pairing multi-point Bluetooth connectivity with aptX Adaptive, so it can be paired with more than one device and switch between them easily, plus an IP67 rating for ingress protection, so it won’t mind a trip to the beach or bathroom. There's an attached cord for hanging it up, which has a B&O-branded slider on it, a really nice design touch.
The Beosound A1 3rd gen is flat and wide, like a space-age bagel with its silvery exterior. It’s remarkably well made, with a nicely curved edge to the metal upper part and a grippy plastic lower half that has control microswitches built into it. There's no Alexa functionality in the third-gen beosound A1 as there was in the second-gen model, but you do get a microphone array so you can use it as a speakerphone, and two of the speakers can be linked as a stereo pair.
As for sound, the beosound A1 has plenty of richness and guts, providing clear vocals, dynamic mids and just enough bass – though this is its weakest area – from a dual-driver array that pairs a 15mm tweeter with an 83mm woofer. You can tweak all this in the B&O phone app, but out of the box it already sounds great. Battery life is excellent too, with a claimed 24 hours of use from a charge (which takes about three hours to fill up), and the battery is replaceable at a B&O service centre. This is a speaker that demands to be used.
There’s more detail in our full Bang & Olufsen beosound A1 3rd gen review
Buy now £299.00, bang-olufsen.com
Ultimate Ears miniroll
Best: Budget speaker
Weight: 279g
Dimensions: 1.22cm x 1.05cm x 4.8 cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3
Waterproofing: IP67
Why we love it
- Easy to put in a bag
- Decent volume
Take note
- Works best indoors
A small but powerful portable speaker can be a useful thing. The miniroll is extremely portable, gives out a lot of bass for its size, and comes in a range of bright colours, too.
In terms of its design, it’s like a cheaper version of the beosound A1, with the same cake-like shape but a fabric cover. It’s smaller and lighter too, but comes with the same IP67 ingress protection rating so you don’t need to worry when using it outside. The volume up and down buttons are particularly large and easy to use, and there's a single play/pause button on the side. It’s easy to use, and surprisingly loud, though perhaps better suited to filling a smaller room with sound rather than trying to overpower a larger space, especially with chattering people.
Small speakers like this were once barely better than the internal speakers in a phone, but the miniroll manages to provide a sound that’s quite fully formed, with a good whack of bass. The battery life is decent too, offering around 12 hours of music.
The drawbacks are that you get what you pay for. There’s a carrying strap made of soft rubber, but it’s short and fits quite tightly to the back of the speaker, so I found it hard to wrap around shower shelving, for instance.
There’s no phone app to provide equalisation tweaks or anything else beyond its physical controls. There's a USB-C port for charging, and that’s it – no 3.5mm input for devices that only have a headphone socket.
However, you can combine minirolls together for stereo purposes, and in fact Ultimate Ears claims it can hook up with multiple speakers of the same type to create a kind of distributed giant speaker - instructions for doing this are printed on the speaker itself.
For the price, this is a remarkably good speaker. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistle, but it doesn’t need them. If you want a simple speaker for playing music out loud, this is all you need.
Buy now £69.99, Ultimateears.com
JBL flip 7
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Best: Mid-range Bluetooth speaker
Weight: 826g
Dimensions: 18.3cm x 7cm x 7.2cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4, Auracast, USB-C
Waterproofing: IP68
Why we love it
- Excellent sound
- Reasonably priced
- App with EQ
Take note
- Chunky rubber design
At a price of around £130, it’s tempting to call this a mid-price Bluetooth speaker, or at least the top of the stack for a cheap one. You can certainly pay a lot less for your portable sounds, but spending the extra money gets you a noticeable boost in sound quality rather than extra features.
There’s IP68 ingress protection and a racetrack speaker like those commonly found in soundbars to handle the lower end of the frequency spectrum. Sound has plenty of presence, and can go quite loud without beginning to distort. It also has a phone app that lets you tweak the EQ if you think you can do better than the presets, but it produces a natural and rich sound straight out of the packaging. It also has a USB port, so if Bluetooth quality isn’t cutting it, you can connect a music source directly. There’s also Auracast, which, as with the miniroll above, lets you link multiple units together (either as a proper stereo pair, or a mass of speakers that all play the same thing).
Its cylindrical shape is accented with chunky rubber controls and a detachable carabiner loop (there’s one in the box) so you can hook it onto your backpack, trousers, or just about anything else to take the speaker with you. It’s not exactly a refined look, but it does the job. The battery will go all day, but this will drop as you push the volume up. Overall, the flip 7 shows you don’t need to spend a lot to get better sound out of your Bluetooth speaker, but paying a little extra gets you a decent improvement.
Buy now £129.99, Jbl.com
Soundcore motion 300
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Best: Compact Bluetooth speaker
Weight: 775.6g
Dimensions: 20cm x 5cm x 9.3cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, TWS
Waterproofing: IPX7
Why we love it
- Lots of speaker for the money
- Easily portable
- Decent battery life
Take note
- Sound quality not the best
Sometimes you don’t want to spend hundreds of pounds on a Bluetooth speaker, and that’s where Soundcore’s motion 300 comes in. It does all the basics right. It’s compact and easy to carry, and has physical controls on the speaker itself. There’s a mic for speakerphone duties, and enough battery to keep it going all day. It also has a good IPX7 water resistance rating.
Being able to tweak its output via the Soundcore app is another nice feature we’d expect of pricier models, and you can create custom profiles alongside the four presets. Sound quality gets a good kick of bass, especially if you press the bass up button, but this is a small speaker and higher frequencies are clearer than lows, making it a good choice for bright orchestral music or spoken radio.
While it’s compatible with high-res music via Sony’s LDAC codec, you’re probably not going to get a lot of benefit from it with a speaker this small. You can, however, pair two of them using TWS for a stereo effect, which is a nice addition.
Where the motion 300 shines is in being a simple, portable speaker that doesn’t cost much and can stand up to a bit of punishment (and a spray of water) while pumping out the tunes.
Buy now £79.99, Soundcore.com
Ultimate Ears wonderboom 4
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Best: Floating speaker
Weight: 420g
Dimensions: 10.4cm x 9.53cm x 9.53cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C
Waterproofing: IP67
Why we love it
- Floats
- Not too big
- Respectable sound
Take note
- Outdoor boost affects sound quality
A speaker about the size of a coffee mug, the wonderboom 4 is another nicely priced Bluetooth speaker. This one offers well over a day’s battery life and an IP67 protection rating, so it’s perfect for leaving it playing out in the garden during summer parties.
You’ll certainly hear it while it’s doing its thing, as UE has chosen to use a cylindrical design that seems to allow for better sound than flatter casings. It floats in water, and has an IP67 rating for protection against moisture and dust, so it should stand up to a bit of punishment in British weather.
The wonderboom 4 is a 360 degree speaker that sounds fantastic as long as you don’t turn the volume up too high. This is a common fault of small speakers, and the sound can be thickened out by placing them next to a hard surface such as a wall without having to turn the volume up too much. UE’s Double Up feature allows you to pair two speakers, which may help, at the small inconvenience of doubling the price, but it’s worth avoiding the outdoor boost setting, which shows a noticeable drop in quality. Podcast mode is worth it, however, if you’re listening to a lot of speech, with a focus on mids and trebles. However, there's no app connectivity with the wonderboom 4, so these preset modes are all you get.
Buy now £89.99, Ultimateears.com
JBL charge 6
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Best: Portable Bluetooth speaker
Weight: 1.37kg
Dimensions: 22.9cm x 9.9cm x 9.4cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4, USB-C, Auracast
Waterproofing: IP68
Why we love it
- Looks cute
- Seven-band EQ
- IP68 water resistance
Take note
- Not as cheap as other options
JBL’s cylindrical speakers would be distinctive even if the company didn’t emblazon its logo on the side. With its short carrying handle that makes it look like a designer handbag, the charge 6 is a speaker with a lot to recommend it.
Some of this comes from the seven-band custom EQ and ability to feed it lossless audio over USB, or the all-day battery life. The IP68 water resistance rating is good too, as it means you can accidentally fling it in the pool without worrying too much about it shorting out (though it doesn’t float). Sturdiness seems to be a big concern for JBL, which claims you can drop it onto a concrete floor from 1m up without causing it too much inconvenience.
In the UK, which has famously unreliable summer weather, this level of protection may be a big selling point, as is the speaker’s sound quality, which is enhanced by the addition of a small subwoofer to this new model. AI sound boost helps optimise the frequency balance to keep distortion largely at bay as you move up through the volume settings, and there's plenty of clarity so podcast voices don’t get muffled.
Buy now £169.99, Jbl.com
Loewe we. hear pro neon
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Best: Big bluetooth speaker
Weight: 2.2kg
Dimensions: 28cm x 13.8cm x 13.5cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, 3.5mm
Waterproofing: IPX6
Why we love it
- Unmistakable
- Carrying strap
- Big sound
Take note
- Quite pricey
Hard to say out loud with that random full stop in its name, but the we. hear pro has no problem making itself heard. It’s pricey but powerful. As one of the largest devices on this list, it has space for bigger speaker cones and more battery, and this makes for a smooth but loud sound that strikes a pleasant balance by not being too heavy on the bass, yet incorporating enough of it into music and speech playback that you’re never left wondering where it’s gone.
It comes in a range of colours, including black and a denim blue, but my favourite has to be the neon green, as it’s just impossible to lose and gives what might otherwise be a plain mesh-covered design an extra boost. However, an endorsement from French football superstar Kylian Mbappe means that either end of this speaker is covered in KM logos, which might suit some people but might turn others off.
The IPX6 water resistance is good if not exceptional, and there's a handy carrying strap that attaches to both ends of the speaker and means you can take it out in the rain with you. It’s also quite expensive for a Bluetooth speaker, but may be worth it if you can make the most of it as a very loud but portable noisemaker.
Buy now £249.00, Loewe.tv
Marshall emberton III
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Best: Retro Bluetooth speaker
Weight: 670g
Dimensions: 16cm x 6.8cm x 7.69cm
Connectivity: Bluetooth LE, Auracast
Waterproofing: IP67
Why we love it
- Looks great
- Sounds great
- Great battery life
Take note
- Still a compact speaker
Marshall is a big name in speakers, and while the emerton III speaker probably isn’t loud enough to be a guitar amp, it does come with some tricks, such as True Stereophonic sound (360 degree audio, effectively) and dynamic loudness (which adjusts the equalisation as you push the volume higher) so it can produce a room-filling sound.
The red LED strip that shows how much juice you’ve got left in the battery is a nice touch, as is the fact it can keep going for around 30 hours on a charge, which is enough for a weekend away. You can pair the speaker directly with your phone or tablet for straightforward playback, but if you use the Marshall app, you get access to three EQ presets, but no manual controls beyond these. There's a built-in mic too, so you can use it as a speakerphone.
The emberton III provides plenty of clarity in music and speech, but can’t quite overcome the laws of physics. As it’s one of the smallest speakers I’ve tested, it’s weak at low frequencies, and distortion can creep in at louder settings. Despite this, it’s a very impressive sounding speaker, and the long battery life (and IP67 ingress resistance) tops it off nicely.
Buy now £149.99, Marshall.com
The verdict: Bluetooth speakers
It’s easy to pick up a cheap Bluetooth speaker, but you might not like what you hear. Picking one of the best Bluetooth speakers – and there's one available for every budget – gives you a decent upgrade in terms of sound quality and loudness over the tiny speakers in your phone and can be well worth the investment. Our top pick is the pricey yet refined Bang and Olufsen Beosound A1 3rd gen, but even smaller models and cheaper models like the Ultimate Ears miniroll produce a surprising amount of noise for the money.
Want more recommendations? Check out our dedicated tech section
