Whether it’s setting the mood, or covering the lawn with great-sounding music, portable Bluetooth speakers are a convenient way to host just about any occasion. If you are shopping for a dependable, rugged Bluetooth speaker that can withstand the elements and present great sound, you came to the right place.

Product Overview

At Audio Advice, we spend a lot of time outdoors. If you are familiar with our videos, you will see us talking about our favorite outdoor speakers to serenade or light up a party in the backyard. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes —  some are portable and can go just about anywhere — and others are permanent weather-resistant installations you wire up around your house. 

In this article, we will go over the best options available for portable outdoor speakers. Should you wish to learn more about permanently installed outdoor speakers, check out the Best Outdoor Landscape Speakers Guide for your backyard & patio. 

For applications where it’s too difficult to wire, there are portable speakers that can stand a little water should it start to rain. When searching for the best portable Bluetooth speakers, we rate on a variety of features: 

• Battery Life —  so you can keep your party going even if the sun goes down.
• Bluetooth Range — so you can pair with devices while still keeping your distance.
• High IP-rating — this protects the Bluetooth speaker from the elements so you can use it outdoors and not have to worry about water or dust damaging the speaker.

These are the best ones in their price category for outdoor use. Click on any of the Bluetooth speakers below to be taken directly to more information on that model.

Table Of Contents

• • Sonos Roam Portable Bluetooth Smart Speaker — Regular Price Regular Price $179.00 Final Price $179.00
  • Sonos Move Battery-Powered Smart Speaker —
  • Soundcast VG5 Bluetooth Loudspeaker — Regular Price $499.99 $149.00
  • JBL Boombox 2 Portable Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker — Regular Price $499.95 $499.95
  • JBL PartyBox 310 Portable Bluetooth Speaker — Regular Price $549.95 $549.95

In this overview, we’ll tell you a little bit about our experiences with each one and why we think the features and performance they offer are such a great value for the money. 

Sonos Roam Portable Bluetooth Speaker

Rugged, Portable Outdoor Sound

First up, we have a new portable Bluetooth speaker from Sonos — the Sonos Roam. The Roam is highly portable and its handy shape begs for it to be picked up and taken everywhere. It has a tubelike or a “pill-shaped” form-factor and it weighs just shy of a pound. Even though this is a small portable speaker, the Roam packs a big sound.

Roam is designed to stand up vertically or you can lay it down horizontally. If you stand it up, the Roam will deliver room-filling sound and this also means it takes up very little room. If you position it horizontally on an uneven surface like grass, its triangular design will direct sound up to your ear for a better listening experience. The Roam also supports Sonos’s automatic Trueplay tuning technology. So, with this, Roam is always optimizing the sound for the speaker's location and the content that’s playing.

The Sonos Roam has a very high IP67 rating, which means its rugged build-quality is drop-resistant and waterproof. Roam will withstand being submerged in up to 3-feet of water for up to 30-minutes and resist being damaged. It is also impervious to dust, so this one is definitely up for just about any outdoor excursion you throw at it.

The Roam also gets a long-lasting battery, which lets you enjoy up to 10 hours of continuous playback from a single charge. The speaker also falls asleep to save power when not in use and with the press of a button it wakes up in less than a second. Charging the Sonos Roam is a breeze. It has a USB Type-C port on the back for charging, and this conveniently connects with USB Type-C to USB type-A cables with most power adapters, including the Sonos Power Adapter that comes in the box.

Bonus Points — there's even wireless Qi charging! You can place the Sonos Roam on any Qi-certified Charging pad and Roam will charge wirelessly. Roam will also charge with the Wireless Charger Sonos custom-made for the Roam.

The Roam supports Bluetooth and WIFI, so you can use your WIFI connection at home to stream music, or have hands-free audio calls, or more — and then Bluetooth is always there when you take this waterproof, lightweight, and durable speaker with you on-the-go. When you get back home, the Roam automatically reconnects back to your WiFi network and when you leave, it pairs up with your phone again for a seamless experience.

Just like most Sonos products, Bluetooth is all taken care of using the Sonos app which also works with all the other Sonos products in your home. This allows you to create a multiroom sound system with other Sonos speakers so you can enjoy things like music, or TV all-around your home. When you are on WiFi, you can use the Sonos app to create a stereo pair with two matching speakers and this lets you enjoy detailed stereo separation with a wider soundstage for listening to music and other sources of audio.

With the WIFI connection, the Roam also works with voice assistants, so you can use it with Amazon Alexa, or Google Assistant to turn up the volume, check the news, and control your smart home devices.

Sonos Move Battery-Powered Smart Speaker

Smart Indoor & Outdoor Sound

Next up, we have a pretty recent newcomer to the portable outdoor speaker market. The Move is a great smart speaker from Sonos. It’s an all-in-one speaker with outstanding sound that runs on a rechargeable battery. If you didn’t already know, Sonos offers a complete ecosystem of high-performance smart speakers that can cover your whole house with music. The Sonos Move lets you expand on this smart home concept by bringing the music already playing inside your home outside to the patio or screened-in-porch.

One or two of these will cover a typical screened porch & backyard very well. Sonos added a level of weather resistance, so it would be ok to leave this out on a covered porch for a while. The Move's internal components are protected by a shock-resistant case, so it’s fairly durable if it slips or takes a fall.

Another great feature Sonos products have is the ability to group zones of speakers. You can run a single Move or use two of these for a stereo pair. They stream over the home WI FI network and connect with the rest of your Sonos speaker system. When hosting a party, this allows them to play the same song — and with this feature, you would actually group several Move’s together to cover a pretty large outdoor area. 

We recently celebrated a birthday party outside, and one of these was enough to cover the patio with clear-sounding background music at low volume. When we brought out the second Move, our friends were really impressed with the soundstage two of these are capable of presenting. Two of these really spread the sound out for larger gatherings and outdoor spaces. When the party was over, we just brought them back inside and kept playing the same song in multiple rooms of the house. 

We like how the Move gives us the ability to switch to Bluetooth, so we can stream music from a phone too. This feature frequently comes in handy especially when on the move. 

The Move has full voice control from either Alexa or Google and Apple AirPlay 2, so it’s really easy to set up and convenient to use. Plus, the variety of ergonomic scenarios it fits for the home makes this one of the best portable speakers to use outdoors and indoors too. While there are more rugged options available, the Sonos Move offers incredible value for just about any party at home for this price point.  

Soundcast VG5 Bluetooth Loudspeaker

Portable Powerhouse & Rugged Design

Soundcast is another great option for portable outdoor sound as each model is specially designed for outdoor use. All Soundcast products are weather-resistant to varying degrees, but unlike a lot of speaker companies, they actually define a spec for how resistant they are.

First up, we have the Soundcast VG5 Bluetooth Loudspeaker. For about the same price point as the Sonos Move, the VG5 is a larger, rugged portable powerhouse. At a little over 17-inches tall and about 8-inches wide and deep, the VG5 is moving into the “serious speaker” category. 

There’s an impressive 6-inch powered subwoofer built-in plus two 3-inch aluminum-cone drivers fire out big stereo sound — and yet this one is still small and light enough to carry around. You’ll be able to feel the bass with the VG5 and fill up a much bigger area than the Sonos Move. Two of these paired together are a great idea for your next social gathering outdoors or even a pool party.

It has a high IP rating of IP64, so it’s pretty immune to everything but a long dip in the pool. In terms of solids, IP64 means it’s totally resistant to dust, pollen, or any solid — so don’t worry if it gets hit with a sandstorm. It doesn’t mind getting splashed on either, so this is the one to own if you are looking for a rugged portable Bluetooth speaker to bring around water under $500.

Playtime is 10 hours, so we see this one as more of an outdoor speaker you take to the boat dock, a tailgating event, or out by the pool. It weighs 12 ½ pounds, but we like the rear-carrying handle which balances out the extra weight. You’ll probably want to find a better way to tote this around if you are going more than a couple of hundred yards with it —  but obviously, the heavier weight here translates into a much much bigger sound.

Watch our comparison to learn about all of Soundcast's Premium Bluetooth speakers.

JBL Boombox 2 Waterproof Speaker

Waterproof Portable Speaker & 24-hour Battery-life

JBL also has some pretty neat options for outdoor sound. They have some small portable Bluetooth speakers that are easy to move around —  and JBL’s PartyBox series are quite serious outdoor speakers. These are capable of club levels in your backyard. There are famous DJs who rely on JBL to thrill club venues, so this is one of the reasons to love their portable Bluetooth speakers. 

At Audio Advice, we really enjoy using JBL’s PartyBoost feature to link other PartyBoost-compatible speakers together. It’s a similar smart speaker concept as Sonos, but JBL’s technology is optimized for outdoor use since you can wirelessly link up with other JBL products for epic neighborhood bashes or cookouts in the cul-de-sac.

We’re focusing mainly on the JBL Boombox 2 next for obvious reasons. This one packs the loudest JBL Signature Pro sound into a highly portable format you can carry around like a boombox. While not quite the same level of audio quality as Soundcast products, this portable Bluetooth speaker throws out seriously impressive volume for its size with deep bass that gets everyone’s feet moving. 

It weighs 13-pounds, which is only a half-pound heavier than the Soundcast VG5. For a similar price-point as the Soundcast VG5 and Sonos Move, you get better protection from liquid accidents when you step up to this. This one has a very high-performance waterproof rating of IPX7, so you can submerge this up to 1-meter, and the speaker will be fine for 30-minutes underwater! While there are even better-sounding options on this list, JBL's Boombox 2 made it onto our list as the best portable JBL Bluetooth speaker to bring around water for the money.

Take this to the beach or the pool and you don’t have to worry about spills or accidental submersion. Whether you are throwing a party in the backyard or doing some heavy yard work in the garden, this speaker will be well-protected against liquid accidents wherever or however they occur.

Plus this one offers an extra-long battery life with 24-hours of wireless playtime! With this kind of battery performance, the fun and music will last all night before it needs another charge.

JBL PartyBox 310 Portable Bluetooth Speaker

Portable Music-Performance Machine

Up next, we have the JBL PartyBox 310 Portable Bluetooth Speaker. This is for the person who wants an outdoor speaker to Bluetooth music with, but also wants the option to plug in a guitar and a microphone and be the entertainer. This one includes mic & guitar inputs that let you or your friends serenade your guests with professional-grade JBL sound and it lights up the outdoor experience too. 

For this price category, we see this one as the best Bluetooth speaker for larger outdoor events, requiring some “off-the-grid” features to help the music and your devices stay powered plus karaoke features that rock the party. It weighs in at almost 40-pounds, so it’s much heavier compared to the Boombox 2, but the sound coverage this provides is significantly louder and closer to what you will find in a professional PA system. This beast is capable of outputting a massive 240 Watts!

When the sun sets, cool light shows light up your outdoor area with a variety of mood-setting modes. With subtle pulsing and powerful strobing effects, there's a setting for every mood. We see this being especially useful for parties that need a touch of professionalism. You can even set these up on speaker stands for more visibility and even better sound. The colorful light shows really level-up the energy of the party. 

We love the TWS & AUX inputs JBL included too. With these connections, you could connect two compatible speakers wirelessly via TWS (True Wireless Stereo) using a Bluetooth connection or wired via one AUX output to another speaker. In fact, connecting two of these together is a fantastic idea. When we connected two of these together, the sound and the light-shows covered the outdoor area with a wide stereo image that sounded great to our audience and it was really impressive to watch too. 

Watch our comparison to learn more about this one & our favorite JBL Bluetooth speakers.