A wireless speaker is an excellent accessory to add to your arsenal, especially if you like to host parties or have fun outdoors. If you’re looking to upgrade your entertainment setup with new Wi-Fi speakers, our experts have done the research and testing to help you find the right option for your space.
Wi-Fi speakers trump Bluetooth speakers in a few categories, including sound quality and range. Additionally, while today’s best Bluetooth speakers are robust, Wi-Fi wireless speakers add extra functionality by letting you play music from all music streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and more. These are the best wireless speakers to pump up the party and fill your space with high-quality sound, including portable speakers you can take anywhere. Plus, they also make for perfect holiday gifts for those who love to host.
After testing several top models, we’ve put together this list of the best wireless speakers. We’ve tested all of them in the CNET labs to gather firsthand insights and identify the speakers truly worth your money.
Read more: Best Bluetooth Speakers of 2024
At $249, the Sonos Era 100 is the smart speaker to please any music fan. The compact device makes a number of improvements on the award-winning One, including stereo playback and even better sound quality. With Bluetooth, Amazon Alexa and Apple AirPlay 2 compatibility the Era 100 is a more flexible streaming speaker than ever before.
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For $120 there’s a number of excellent smart speakers to choose from, including the Amazon Echo, Nest Audio and HomePod Mini, but the Symfonisk is bigger than all of them. Bigger cabinets usually mean bigger sound. While this speaker is best as part of a Sonos surround sound system, it also makes a great kids’ room or garage speaker.
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The Echo Studio comes from the house of Amazon – the creator of Alexa. It is easy to set up and is loud enough to fill a room with sound. With thumping bass, clear sound and good highs, this is easily the best Amazon Echo. You can use Alexa to stream songs from Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Tidal and more.
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The HomePod Mini may be outgunned by the new HomePod in terms of output power, but it is also a third of the price. For its size, the HomePod Mini has a laundry list of useful features — Siri voice assistant, temperature and humidity controls — and it sounds really good, too. If you’re deep in the Apple ecosystem, especially if you use Siri a lot, the Apple HomePod Mini should make a seamless addition to your home.
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The Sonos Roam is a portable Bluetooth speaker on steroids — it can be used out-and-about or it can be used as part of a Sonos multiroom system. It’s affordable (for Sonos, that is) and it sounds better than other products of its type. It also comes with a choice of voice assistant to make choosing a song even simpler.
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Not a speaker as such, but a great option for people who don’t want to buy a whole new one. Say you’ve got a stereo system — or even an old Bluetooth speaker like the Fluance F170 — and you wanted to be able to add Wi-Fi streaming to it. The WiiM Pro offers the best sound and streaming support of any other dongle I can think of — and it’s only $149. The app makes it easy to set up and use, and it will integrate with many multi-room systems too.
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Google may offer a lot of speakers, including the Nest Audio, but the one that was truly great with music — the Home Max — has been discontinued. It’s surprising then that the list of affordable-yet-good-sounding Chromecast built-in speakers can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And of those, the JBL Playlist is the best I’ve tested, with a generously sized speaker and enough volume to fill a typical room. It also has Bluetooth and an auxiliary input to expand its flexibility. It may not be “smart”, but if you want a system that can be controlled via an existing Google Assistant speaker, this is the one to get.
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The new HomePod now features an edge-to-edge Siri display on top.
- Apple HomePod (2023) ($300): The new HomePod is a refined take on Apple’s first smart speaker with better sound and more features. Despite new-found support for Dolby Atmos it’s the temperature and humidity sensors that are the most palpable changes. Yet, at $300 most people are better off buying the HomePod mini which has an almost identical set of features.
- Bowers and Wilkins Formation Flex ($425): A smaller brother to the flashy Formation Wedge, the Flex is still quite stylish and boasts an open-hearted sonic signature. There’s plenty of competition at this level though, including the Sonos Five, which is capable of a much bigger, party-ready performance.
The Sonos Move
- Sonos Move($399): If you want a wireless speaker model that’s (kinda) portable and water resistant, the Sonos Move offers great sound in a very large box. If you need to power a tailgate or large party this would be great, but for most people the Sonos Roam is both cheaper and more pocketable.
- Sony SRS-RA5000 ($798): Where are people supposed to put large speakers like the Sony SRS-RA5000 and the McIntosh RS150? A dressing table — like, a really big one? The Sony is over a foot tall but adding to its potential awkwardness is its 360-degree playback, making the “best” place to put it at the center of a room. The sound is fine, but if you want to hear 3D spatial audio, the Amazon Echo Studio is a quarter of the price.
- McIntosh RS150 ($1,200): The massive McIntosh RS150 has some great things going for it — namely Chromecast built-in, Roon Ready and Spotify Connect. Nonetheless, the sound wasn’t as clear as I’d expected and the unit offers no EQ controls to compensate. In addition, while the previous RS100 had the fabled McIntosh blue meter this update misses a trick by replacing it with LEDs. The competitive Naim Mu-so Qb is more compact and offers excellent performance for the same price.
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CNET follows a rigorous, unbiased evaluation process for all of our audio testing. We test Wi-Fi speakers ranging from simple bedside and pc speakers all the way up to high-end systems. Our audio lab includes a Roon server running on a Synology NAS, Google Nest and Amazon Echo speakers, plus both iOS and Android devices. Similar speakers are compared side by side in a living room environment with different styles of music and utilizing multiple streaming platforms when required. We grade the sound quality of each by evaluating clarity, dynamics, bass response and stereo imaging (if applicable). If the speaker comes with a proprietary app we will compare that to other competitive controllers.
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