The best Bluetooth speakers for kids

The Soundcore Select 4 Go is the best Bluetooth speaker for most kids, because the right answer here is a genuinely cheap speaker with a real IP67 rating and twenty hours of battery — a combination that makes it survivable both physically and financially. If the child is hard on things, or the speaker is going near a pool or a bath, spend more on the UE Wonderboom 4: it is rated for five-foot drops onto concrete and it floats face-up.

There is a whole category of speakers sold as kids' speakers — animal shapes, cartoon licenses, flashing lights — and almost all of them are worse at being speakers than an ordinary cheap portable at the same money. They are built down to a price that assumes the purchase is emotional, and they tend to have no water rating, no published battery figure and no replacement parts. This page recommends ordinary speakers, chosen for the things that actually decide whether a kid's speaker lasts a year.

Those things are, in order: does it survive a drop, does it survive water, and is it cheap enough that breaking it is annoying rather than a disaster. Sound quality is fourth, and that is not a cynical ranking — a child listening at low volume in a small bedroom is in the easiest acoustic situation a speaker ever faces.

What to look for in a kids' speaker

• An IP rating in writing. IP67 or IPX7 means the speaker survives being submerged for half an hour, which covers spills, baths, rain and sinks. A speaker with no published rating should be assumed to have none — what the IP numbers mean covers how to read them.
• A strap, loop or carabiner. Attachment is what keeps a speaker off the floor, and the floor is where speakers die.
• Long battery life, so it is not always on charge. A charging cable trailing off a nightstand is its own hazard, and a speaker that runs twenty hours gets plugged in once a week rather than daily.
• Physical buttons, not touch panels. Small hands and wet hands both work better with buttons, and buttons give feedback.
• A price you can replace. This is the real specification. Anything above the under-$50 tier starts to feel like a loss when it goes through a washing machine.

The volume question

No portable Bluetooth speaker sold today has a meaningful volume limiter, and none of the ones on this page do. That matters less than it does with headphones, because a speaker puts sound into a room rather than into an ear canal, and the distance does most of the protecting. But a small speaker held close to the face at full volume is not harmless, and the small, loud, tinny ones are the worst offenders because their output is concentrated in exactly the frequencies that feel loudest.

The practical answer is to cap volume at the source rather than at the speaker. Both iOS and Android have a volume limit setting in their accessibility or sound menus, and because a Bluetooth speaker follows the phone or tablet's volume curve, a limit set there travels to every speaker the device connects to. That is a better control than anything built into hardware at this price.

The picks

Illustrative

Best Bluetooth speaker for kids

Soundcore Select 4 Go

The honest answer at the very bottom of the market.

What it does well

An IP67 rating and twenty hours of battery at a price where most rivals offer neither, and an integrated strap that loops onto a bag, a bunk bed rail or a shower caddy. At 265 g it is light enough that a drop onto a foot is a non-event, and cheap enough that a drop into a toilet is a shrug.

Where it cuts corners

Five watts is genuinely quiet — this is a one-room, one-or-two-listener speaker that will be embarrassed outdoors. There is effectively no bass, and the build makes no secret of the price.

Who it is for

A bedroom, a bunk, a bath or a school bag, for a child old enough to have their own music and young enough to lose things.

• Battery: 20 hours
• Water rating: IP67 — submersible to 1 m for 30 minutes, dustproof
• Output: 5 W
• Weight: 265 g

Check price on Amazon→

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Toughest

UE Wonderboom 4

The one to buy if the speaker is going anywhere near water.

What it does well

Rated by Ultimate Ears for five-foot drops onto concrete, which is the only drop specification anyone in this category publishes, and it floats face-up so a pool or a bath is genuinely fine. Fourteen hours covers a full day out, and the 360-degree output means it does not matter which way a child puts it down.

Where it cuts corners

Ultimate Ears charges close to JBL money for it, which undercuts the whole replaceability argument. No aux input, no useful speakerphone, and the 360-degree design throws away stereo imaging entirely.

Who it is for

Harder-wearing kids, families with a pool, and anyone who would rather buy once than twice.

• Battery: 14 hours
• Water rating: IP67 — submersible to 1 m for 30 minutes, dustproof, and it floats
• Weight: 14.81 oz (420 g)

Check price on Amazon→Read the full UE Wonderboom 4 review

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Best for a backpack

JBL Clip 5

The carabiner is the whole product, and it is a genuinely good one.

What it does well

The integrated metal carabiner is the whole argument: it clips onto a school bag, a bike, a bunk rail or a swim bag and does not come off by accident. IP67 handles rain and sinks, and for the size the midrange is clean enough that spoken-word content and lyrics stay intelligible.

Where it cuts corners

Priced well above speakers that sound similar, purely for the clip. There is almost no bass at all, and twelve hours is short compared with the cheaper picks here.

Who it is for

Kids who take their music with them rather than keeping it in one room.

• Battery: 12 hours, plus up to 3 more in Playtime Boost mode
• Water rating: IP67 — submersible to 1 m for 30 minutes, dustproof

Check price on Amazon→Read the full JBL Clip 5 review

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Illustrative

Best sound for the money

Tribit StormBox Micro 2

The best-argued cheap speaker on the market, and now a last-generation bargain.

What it does well

A passive radiator gets genuinely surprising low end out of a pocket-sized box, so this is the pick if the child actually cares how the music sounds. The molded rubber strap mounts it to a bike, a bunk or a bag without buying an accessory, and IP67 covers the usual accidents.

Where it cuts corners

Ten watts runs out of headroom outdoors, and the Micro 3 that superseded it means colors are thinning out. Twelve hours is middling for the money.

Who it is for

Older kids and teenagers who will notice the difference between a speaker and a noise-maker.

• Battery: Up to 12 hours
• Water rating: IP67 — submersible to 1 m for 30 minutes, dustproof
• Output: 10 W
• Weight: 315 g

Check price on Amazon→Read the full Tribit StormBox Micro 2 review

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Side by side

What we would skip

Skip character-licensed speakers. You are paying a licensing fee for a product that is otherwise the cheapest available parts, and the license is also the thing the child outgrows first. An ordinary speaker in a bright color lasts longer in both senses.

Skip anything with lights as its headline feature for a bedroom. Reactive lighting is genuinely fun — the speakers with lights page covers the ones worth owning — but lighting is also the fastest route to a flat battery and the slowest route to sleep. If lights are the point, buy them for a playroom, not a nightstand.

And skip the step up to a mid-tier speaker unless the child is old enough to care. A Flip-class speaker is a better speaker in every measurable way and a worse purchase for a nine-year-old, because the thing that decides whether this was a good buy is whether you mind when it breaks. If you are buying for a teenager instead, the honest comparison is our gift guide.