Home speaker system
Over the past year the choice is getting larger for the home speaker hunters. Docking stations are on their way out and even Bluetooth speakers are feeling the crunch from the new wireless systems that are hitting the market now.
Although there is nothing wrong with the Bluetooth systems I fear if you purchase one now you may grow to regret this decision later on down the line if you want a more adaptable system in the future. The network speakers are defiantly the way forward.
These will play the music from your phone and computer from anywhere in the house, so no need to keep your phone in the room when you walk around. They will also connect and stream music from Spotify and radio stations. The best of these are also smart speaker. This means they have Alexa, google or Siri built in so you can talk to them to ask them to control what you want them to play.
There are two main competitors in this market Amazon and Google. They both have a wide range of speaker to suit all budgets and both do vertically the same thing.
Amazon have the echo range of speakers and use their Alexa system. These start at £49 for the echo dot and go up to £139 for the echo plus.
Google’s range of speaker start with the Home Mini £49 to the Google Home at £129.
High end smart speakers If you have invested in Sonos speakers in the past fear not for you have the better speaker system and now you can go smart. The Sonos One is their new smart speaker. This has both Alexa and Google built in. It is the same size as the Sonos Play 1 but has the smart technology. This speaker can talk to all your other speakers so you can tell it what to play in any other room. The sonos 1 comes in at £189 and is by far the best smart speaker for sound quality.
A speaker that will be hitting the market very soon is the Apple Home Pod. As all Apple products, this should be a very high end build speaker. It will be around the same size as the Sonos but will have to pull something out of the bag to beat the Sonos on sound quality. It will only use the Siri voice controller and will only stream music from Apple Music so if you have not signed up for this and prefer to use to stay with Spotify then go with the Sonos. The Apple Home Pod will set you back £319, which could be a lot for a speaker that doesn’t offer a great deal.
Before you buy
If you are looking for a system now there are a few things you need to consider first to ensure you get the best speaker for you.
The music you will be playing and where it’s coming from. You may have the music stored on you phone or computer. You may use a music streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music.
Do you also want to listen to the radio on news on the speaker.
The size of room the speaker will be in. And if you need to listen the the same thing in other rooms.
How loud you will need the music to be. Is it just for you to hear or will you be using it in a party setting.
The quality of sound and budget you have.