The Best Outdoor Speakers 2020

Though not a monstrous speaker with oomph to fill a forest with noise, House of Marley’s portable, waterproof speaker is up to soundtracking most situations. The loop and carabiner let you attach it to a backpack, an awning, or a tent, and it’ll float like a cork, because part of it is actually made from recycled cork, along with other reused, environmentally sound materials. Hook it, hang it, pack it up, and head out.

This speaker is especially geared towards the adventurous among us. Powered by solar energy (or a USB cord, if you’re in a rush) and controlled through an app, Luci does quintuple duty as a wake-up light, alarm clock, lantern, mobile charger for other devices, and yes, little speaker. That’ll cut down on space in the backpack.

When you’d like to set ’em and forget ’em, Yamaha makes a pair of weatherproof outdoor speakers that you can mount to your house. Like almost all mounted outdoor speakers, they must be wired to a receiver of some kind (the wires are included, the receiver is not). Unlike almost all mounted outdoor speakers (the ones that aren’t absolute crap, that is), they cost less than a hundred bucks. The sound quality won’t be as rich and full as you’d get for something more expensive, but it’s surprisingly solid for the price.

If your two requirements for an outdoor speaker are solely that it needs to play music and that the music needs to sound damn good, your surest bet is the Boom 3. It’s waterproof. It’s Bluetooth enabled. It’ll float. It has all-around impressive sound that gets loud when you need the range. It looks nice, whether you use it inside or out. We could go on.

Similar in set-up to the Yamaha duo, Polk’s pair of outdoor speakers are a bit more expensive because they have better innards for better audio range—from bass to mid-range to treble tones. It doesn’t take an engineering degree to set them up, though you’ll need to buy the necessary accessories. Once you do, you can keep them outside all year round, as they’re “all-weather certified.”

With audio that sounds as if it were conducted by Hans Zimmer and design worthy of a modern art museum, the Sonos Move is a favorite portable Bluetooth speaker of ours. Take it in the bathroom for your morning shower. Cart it into the office to blast the soundtrack that gets you in your most productive headspace. Set it up in the kitchen to make dinner, then grab it and head out to the back porch for a nightcap. It has a handle, it’s waterproof, it charges on a base, and it’ll withstand extreme temperatures. 

For those seriously committed to having a good time under the sun or stars, JBL’s Boombox has massive sound. Bass for days. Its design hearkens back to the old-school, boombox-on-shoulder era. When the good times have drained your phone battery, it has charging ports to give you a boost. And, should it get dropped in the pool or doused in beer towards the end of the night, that’s A-okay, since it’s waterproof.

Say your landscaping is impeccable. It’d be a shame to plop a big white speaker in the middle of the rhododendron, or one of those speakers shaped like an artificial rock. Bose, which makes reliably excellent audio equipment, has a wired speaker in a natural-looking green that you can plant, almost literally, in the ground. It’ll cost you $450 for just one, but with its 360-degree sound, one might be all you need.