Best Wi-Fi Wireless Speaker of 2025

Yahoo

15-02-2025

Wi-Fi wireless speakers can enhance the thumping beats of well-loved tracks or the familiar voice from a favorite podcast when earbuds or listening on your phone aren't quite enough. These devices easily provide the ideal soundscape for pool time relaxation, lively parties and movie nights, without complicated setups or messy cords. And they are more reliable Bluetooth speakers, offering better listening at a greater range. Many even have handy extras like compatibility with popular streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora.
Like most tech gadgets, many Wi-Fi wireless speakers exist -- and wading through them might seem exhausting. Thankfully, our experts have tested and researched the best brands, so you don't have to. No matter the budget or priority features, there's an option worth your investment.
Read more: Best Bluetooth Speakers of 2025
The Sonos Era 100 is the smart speaker to please any music fan. The compact device makes several 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.
See at Walmart
For $120 there are many 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.
See at Ikea
The Echo Studio comes from 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.
See at Amazon
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.
See at B&H Photo-Video
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.
See at Amazon
The WiiM Pro is not so much a speaker, but its a great device 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. The app makes it easy to set up and use, and it will integrate with many multiroom systems too.
See at Amazon
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.
See at Amazon
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 (Update: Out of stock): 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.
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.
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.
Both can be termed as wireless speaker systems. Wi-Fi delivers the same basic convenience as Bluetooth: using your phone's Wi-Fi connection to play music over an external speaker or sound system. Just like speakers that use Bluetooth connectivity, it can work with a subscription music service app such as Spotify (via Spotify Connect) or Apple Music, a radio service like Pandora or TuneIn, or your own music collection. Here are the best reasons to get a streaming Wi-Fi speaker:
A Wi-Fi speaker sounds better than a Bluetooth speaker due to its higher bandwidth.
Wi-Fi has better range.
Wi-Fi doesn't take over your phone's audio channel -- so you can take a call without interrupting the song, for example.
It also works great for multiroom audio, allowing playback from multiple speakers all over the house via your Wi-Fi network, all controlled by a single phone app.
Multiroom enables users to play from one or multiple speakers anywhere in the house at once, with most systems able to support up to a dozen or more different zones. If you want to play a song in "house party mode," for example, where it blasts from multiple speakers throughout the house simultaneously, all of those speakers have to share the same ecosystem. For Sonos and other proprietary systems, all of those speakers will have to be Sonos (or connected to a Sonos device). For Chromecast, all of the speakers regardless of brand, will need to be Chromecast-compatible. And so on.
Most speakers have a dedicated companion app for iOS and Android, which is used for both setting up and controlling your system. It goes without saying that you'll need an internet connection to use a Wi-Fi speaker, and most speakers support at least 2.4GHz connections or even 5Ghz. Check your documentation for the name of the app you need and make sure you also have your Wi-Fi password handy. Most apps use a simple step-by-step process, so you should be listening to music in a matter of minutes.