Choosing A Bluetooth Speaker

The concept of the Bluetooth speaker was first mooted in the late 90s, but it really became more readily available in the twenty-first century, and now you can find thousands of models on the market.
The bewildering choice can faze the novice buyer, and it's important to set some parameters so you do not end up with decision paralysis. Here are some points to consider when choosing a Bluetooth (BT) Speaker:



Budget
First thing, how much much do you want to spend? This is a very important point, since that determines the sound quality, battery life and influences almost all the other variables. A basic unit can start from under US$15, and can run up into the thousands, depending on what other capabilities are built in.

Purpose
What are you going to use it for? Will it be homebound, or meant to be portable? Will be be exposed to the elements such as water, sand etc? 

For example, it can be a desktop setup, with a more audiophile leaning, with wireless connections to a lossless source, and this can give very good quality, but will be rather expensive.

It can also be a small unit on the move, meant for the beach, providing some beats in the background at a pool party. Others may use it for both music on the move, as well as to take phone calls and even charge the cellphone occasionally. 

Battery Life
The original units could barely last more than a couple of hours, but now some can give you a whole day worth of music. Do note the specifications, as the specs can be deceiving, requiting you to play at very soft volumes in order to stretch the battery life. 
If you need to charge a phone, make sure the connectors built in are the right ones.
These days, you have a variety of USB connectors and not everyone wants to carry convertors around.

Waterproofing
Now if you intend to bring it to the beach, you should make sure the IP rating (Ingress Protection) matches your needs. Here is a link to some basic ratings:
(IP ratings) 

Bluetooth version
This keeping improving, so I reckon 4.0 is the minimum standard. If you want to link to more than one source or have a longer range, how about pairing of more than one speaker? Do check the specs.

aptX HD 
This is an audio codec that supports high quality music playback. Most music streamed via Bluetooth is compressed and there is a limit to how good it can sound. But this new codec gives you much better music quality whilst using BT tech.

This is a good site to check out: 
(Bluetooth versions)

Sound

Well this should be pretty important, but I've kept this to near the end, because most people value the above qualities first, and then the sound comes in at the end, because price and often battery life are the top priorities. 
Do you need 360 spread of the sound? Certain models have one main driver and others have twin drives that spread the sound, but are not as focussed. Is bass the main thing or high fidelity? Some may perceive an exaggerated bass note as being representative of high quality. 

Feature set

In addition to playing music from your phone or computer, other features that you may want are:
- Internet Radio 
- Phone speaker capability
- Ability to control your music source
- Multi-room speaker capability
- Physical buttons 
- Controls via a phone app and how easy to use is the app
- Ambient light

Airplay

Now apart from Bluetooth, some speakers also allow Airplay, which is a propriety wireless music playback system from Apple. That allows lossless sound but you have to make sure both source and speaker are equipped with Airplay.

(I'll post some reviews of Bluetooth speakers that I have tested recently in the following posts) 
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 I have no financial interest or other interests in any of the items / events I write about.