While most of us are familiar with waterproof speakers, floating pool speakers are different because they aren’t just made to withstand water but are designed and manufactured specifically to float. This differs from Bluetooth speakers that happen to also float in the sense that they can continue to provide clear audio quality – something that is often not the case with Bluetooth speakers that can float but isn’t designed with that intent and purpose.
We need to mention that while floating pool speakers have a lot of benefits, one also needs to set realistic expectations. Smaller brands typically manufacture floating speakers and don’t carry the same hefty R&D budgets that their bigger brand counterparts do.
Because of this, you will typically find that the audio quality probably doesn’t match that of your regular JBL Bluetooth speakers, for instance. This isn’t to say that the audio quality is always bad either, though they will more than suffice for most uses. We’ve also ensured that our list evaded products that didn’t meet the basic standards for audio quality or have a history of manufacturing issues.
Top Pick
Please Note
Floating pool speakers are placed on top of the water of your pool or hot tub. Their drivers typically face upward and do not provide audio underwater. If you want speakers capable of producing audio underwater, read our Underwater Speakers guide.
Floating Pool Speaker or Traditional Waterproof Bluetooth Speakers?
The most common and logical question you may have is whether you need a floating pool speaker or a waterproof Bluetooth speaker. While both could fall under the umbrella of a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, the floating pool speakers, as touched on earlier, are unique because they are made to float for hours at a time.
Floating pool speakers are a great choice for parents looking for a Christmas or Birthday gift for their child. It will keep them occupied and arguably more valuable because it will provide a soundtrack to their youth that can live on fondly in their memories.
They also benefit from traditional Bluetooth speakers for those who spend much time on large bodies of water. What could be more fun than some time on the lake with friends? Well, having a speaker you can toss in makes it much sweeter.
Most floating pool speakers also come with some LED light, many of which can bring life to your pool area at night and are also loved by kids.
Regular waterproof Bluetooth speakers offer superior audio quality on average, but they are far more limited around water. Waterproof Bluetooth speakers will save you from damaging your speaker if they accidentally fall into the water, but you won’t be able to use most of these in the water.
When a waterproof Bluetooth speaker is placed in water, the audio quality will traditionally drop as well, as the drivers will often end up submerged, at least partially. The result is that the sound quality can sound muffled or have abrupt changes in sound clarity as water levels rise or drop around the speaker.
Benefits of Floating Pool Speakers
Benefits of Regular Bluetooth Speakers
In short, if you’re looking for some audio in or around your swimming pool or hot tub, we’d recommend opting for a waterproof Bluetooth speaker. However, if you’re looking to buy a speaker for children who spend a lot of time in the water, want a pool speaker that offers some LED lighting at night, or if you spend a lot of time on large bodies of water, a floating pool speaker will be the best choice.
Best Overall
The DuoTen Bluetooth Speaker is a vibrant and versatile device, perfect for use in and out of the pool. Its IPX7 water resistance ensures durability in rain, snow, or shallow submersion. Lightweight and portable, it can clip onto a carabiner or bike, while the suction cup base adds mounting flexibility. Connectivity features include Bluetooth with a 66-foot range and FM radio with an attachable antenna. Its sound quality exceeds expectations for its size, with true wireless stereo pairing for enhanced audio. Additional highlights include an LED screen, light show modes, and a digital clock. While occasional stability and battery saver glitches occur, its feature-rich design at an affordable price impresses.
Best Battery Life
The Poolmaster is a versatile, UFO-shaped floating speaker perfect for poolside and outdoor use. Rated IPX7 water-resistant, it handles rain, splashes, and shallow submersion. Bluetooth connectivity supports pairing two speakers for stereo sound, and hands-free calling adds convenience. The vibrant LED lights offer seven colors for added ambiance, while its sound quality impresses for casual listening. The 10-hour battery life (at moderate volume) suits short pool sessions, though full-volume use with lights may reduce playtime. Despite its durability and portability, Bluetooth range issues on some units can affect connectivity. Overall, the Poolmaster is an affordable and feature-rich choice for casual poolside entertainment.
Best Lighting Effects
The Kingsom Bluetooth floating speaker is a stylish, affordable option for indoor, outdoor, and aquatic use, available in blue or purple. With an IP68 water-resistance rating, it can handle submersion up to 3 feet for 2 hours. Featuring Bluetooth 5.0 with an 85-foot range, its eight LED lighting themes illuminate your pool beautifully. The sound quality is surprisingly decent for its size and price, offering balanced frequencies and wide stereo spread, though true wireless stereo isn’t supported. Its 7-hour battery life (at moderate volume with LED on) and automatic sleep mode add convenience. While the plastic build isn’t rugged, the Kingsom is excellent value for casual use if handled carefully.
Best Value
The Blufree basketball-shaped Bluetooth speaker is a fun, compact, and affordable option for poolside use or casual listening. With an IPX7 rating, it handles exposure to water and hazardous conditions but is best suited for indoor or backyard use. Its control panel manages playback, volume, and LED lighting modes, and Bluetooth pairing offers a 50-foot range. Two units can link for stereo sound or higher volume. While the bass response is surprisingly warm for its size and price, higher volumes introduce distortion, and the highs can feel tinny. Hands-free calling is a useful addition, though microphone performance drops beyond 4 feet. Overall, it’s a decent budget choice for light use.
Best For Hot Tubs
The Skywin portable Bluetooth speaker is designed specifically for use in hot tubs, offering a stylish and versatile option for aquatic settings. With an IPX7 water-resistance rating, it performs well in most conditions, including brief submersion. Its circular shape allows for placement in various positions, though its larger size makes it less portable. The battery lasts around 5 hours at 80% volume without lights, or 2-2.5 hours with maximum volume and lights. Sound quality is adequate for background music but lacks bass and distorts at higher volumes. It supports hands-free calling but doesn’t excel in audio performance. Overall, it’s a good budget option, but a slightly higher investment could offer better sound and features.
When selecting the best floating pool speakers, we removed all initial products with common manufacturing or reliability issues. Since floating pool speakers are manufactured mostly by smaller companies, this knocked quite a few products off the list.
Next, we wanted to make sure that all our options had sufficient waterproofing to allow for a margin of error should you accidentally submerge your speaker for a brief period. The lowest rating on our list is IPX7, which means you have sufficient time to rectify any capsized speakers before they become damaged.
We then excluded all products where the audio quality wasn’t up to scratch. That’s not to say that all our listed products sound great; in some cases, we may have included lower-quality sounding speakers because other product elements offer something beneficial or different from other models.
Buyer’s Guide – What you need to know about floating pool speakers
In this buyer’s guide, we’ll review what you must consider when purchasing a floating pool speaker.
As we’ve touched on, floating pool speakers are not high-end audio products that seek to cover broad frequency response ranges or be able to withstand falling down a flight of stairs. They are mostly novelty by design, but that doesn’t mean they can’t provide endless hours of fun.
Ensure Sufficient Battery Life
Taking note of battery life is important for almost all portable speakers, and floating speakers are no different. The last thing you need is to have the music stop during your experience due to bad battery life.
Not all battery requirements are the same. If you’re someone who spends only an hour or two in the pool and you’re looking to purchase a floating pool speaker for that use alone, you’ll be able to get by with most products on the market; however, if you’re someone who spends a lot of time in other areas of water, perhaps in a lake while out on holiday, you may want to make sure that your floating speaker can provide you with enough battery life for you and your friends to spend the day out in the water.
Also, remember that battery life is usually determined by how you use it. While some manufacturers will show you an inflated number based on low-volume use, we always recommend seeing the estimated battery life at full volume for a better idea of what to expect. Similarly, if you use the LED lighting effects on your speaker, your battery will wear out quicker too.
Something to look out for here is a lithium-ion battery. A well-integrated lithium-ion battery that can be recharged with a micro USB or regular USB cable is convenient. You do not want to have always to be buying batteries.
We found that the Poolmaster and the KingSom offer some of the best battery life on our list.
Set A Realistic Expectation Around Sound Quality
As with any speaker, audio quality is something you’ll want to pay close attention to. However, when buying floating pool speakers, you should accept that they aren’t likely the same wide audio experience you may find in many of the higher-end Bluetooth speakers on the market. This is especially true for the frequency response ranges.
Floating pool speakers place more of the development budget on waterproofing, affordability, and unique design approaches, such as the lighting effects often found on these speakers.
Please don’t get it misconstrued, though. We’re not saying that all floating pool speakers sound bad. We came across some surprisingly decent performances when exploring these products. They will, in most cases, suit their use as desired. But if audio quality is very important to you, we recommend looking at your options. If you’re looking for some sound at your swimming pool, you’ll more than likely have a more fulfilling experience with a quality waterproof Bluetooth speaker placed on the side of your pool.
Not All Waterproofing Is The Same
Arguably the most important topic when it comes to speakers meant to sit in water. Good waterproofing and a solid design will ensure that your floating speaker doesn’t encounter problems during its intended use.
Because these speakers aren’t usually created to be fully submerged, the most typical designs revolve around fully waterproof elements. In contrast, other parts of the speaker are more prone to water damage if they flip over or end up submerged.
However, floating pool speakers will typically consider this with the design. They will still be able to survive for a fairly long time before they start encountering issues of leaking and subsequent product damage.
Our list’s products tend to be IP67/IP68 or IPX7. While these are all acceptable levels of waterproofing, IP68 will have the most resistance. And while we don’t recommend submerging floating pool speakers, you will be protected if an accident happens and your device ends up tipping over or becoming submerged for a short period.
If you’re unsure of water-resistant ratings, you can always reference our guide here.
Controlling A Floating Speaker
It may not be the first thing you think of when buying a speaker, but for floating pool speakers, in particular, having a well-thought-out control decision can make the experience much better.
If you purchase a floating speaker with no control panel, keep in mind that you’ll have to use your phone (or Bluetooth source) to change the volume, the song, pause the music, etc. We find that a good control panel with a good layout and easy-to-press buttons can make using a floating speaker that much easier.
Durability Is Important
Durability is always important to remember, especially if you’re purchasing a product for a child. It is more than likely that your speaker will see some impact at some point. Ensuring that your product is made with durable materials will give you peace of mind about how long it will last.
As with most purchase decisions, it will mainly be based on what you plan to use the product for and the type of environment it will be used in. If you’re looking for an ambient speaker to float around your pool while you have a late sedate late-night swim, durability isn’t as important in comparison. You wouldn’t need to worry about the decay of materials due to hours of sunlight, nor would you need to worry about someone doing a cannonball directly onto it.
Stereo Pairing
Stereo pairing essentially turns two of the same device into their own unique audio channel, with one speaker becoming the left and the other becoming the right.
Stereo pairing isn’t just for high-end Bluetooth speakers anymore. We’re seeing more of the Bluetooth market adopting this approach of creating more audio depth, and floating pool speakers are no exception.
Suppose you have a very large pool or plan to use the speakers in a large body of water. In that case, it’s worth considering the idea of stereo pairing your speaker to increase the depth of your sound and create a larger area of sound out on the water. Because paired speakers are usually placed slightly apart, you can ensure that both the shallow and deep ends of your pool receive audio.
The stereo pairing will typically work with the same brand and model of floating speaker. That is to say, if you have a Poolmaster floating speaker, it will likely only pair with other Poolmaster floating speakers.
Bluetooth Connectivity
While all of our listed models offer Bluetooth connectivity, it should be noted that not all Bluetooth is equal. Bluetooth 5 technology will ensure faster transfer speeds along with more connection range.
Since almost all floating pool speakers use Bluetooth as their sole connectivity method, you don’t want to slack on this area. Suppose you only use the speaker within a few meters of your mobile device. In that case, the Bluetooth version probably isn’t an issue, regardless of whether you use Bluetooth 4 or 5, but for those who plan to have their Bluetooth source far away from the speaker, you will need Bluetooth 5.
Unfortunately, not all manufacturers specify the Bluetooth version in their notes, so if you’re looking for a lot of range on your speaker, we highly recommend ensuring that the product you choose offers Bluetooth 5 functionality.
Lighting Effects
While most LED lights are unnecessary, they are typically just placed to add a bit of flair to a product. With floating pool speakers, however, the included lighting in most models can offer more than just something exciting for the kids to look at. They can offer value for those who enjoy a summer dip in the pool at night.
That’s not to say, however, that all floating pool speakers offer viable lighting that can help illuminate your speaker or the water around it to the degree you may be looking for. For instance, the Mcanbr (discontinued) offers a lot of lighting on the top of the device but nothing that illuminates the water. On the other hand, models like the Skywin, Bluefree, KingSom, and Poolmaster offer more thorough lighting additions, which are made to light up the water around them.
Warranty
Because smaller companies typically create floating pool speakers without an established brand authority, we recommend that if you’re looking to spend money on one of these speakers, look at the warranties provided by the manufacturer. With a quality warranty, you can remove some of the stress from the purchase and rest easier knowing that should your floating speaker not behave as advertised, you can get a refund or replacement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Floating Pool Speakers Waterproof?
You can expect most models of floating pool speakers to offer some protection against water. However, that doesn’t mean they are made to be submerged. Pool speakers are designed typically to provide a platform where the speaker driver is housed and for that panel to be water-resistant at a minimum. If you’re worried about your speaker submerging during use, we recommend an IPX7-rated speaker.
What’s the Difference Between a Floating Pool Speaker and a Pool Speaker?
While both are considered types of pool speakers, when referring to a pool speaker, it is typically a mounted speaker placed around your pool area. These are often a type of patio speaker that gets mounted under the eaves of your patio. Traditionally mounted pool speakers will cost much more on average than a floating pool speaker, but they will also provide superior audio quality.
We recommend mounted pool speakers as a permanent and wider-encompassing audio solution for your pool area.
Do Floating Pool Speakers Work Underwater?
While these speakers sit on top of the water, you won’t be getting underwater audio. One can achieve underwater audio using aquasonic speakers, though these cost thousands of dollars.
Update History
03/30/2022 – Replaced all products with new models. Added comparisons with waterproof Bluetooth speakers. Rewrote our buyer’s guide.
05/29/2020 – Restructured the content to focus on floating pool speakers and update ratings.
03/31/2020 – Removed the Sharkk 20 from our list. Great speaker but just too many issues with availability.
03/31/2020 – Removed the Aomais Surf. Not listed on their site anymore and seems to have been discontinued.
03/31/2020 – Removed the Sharper Image SBT606. Just not good enough to be on our list.
Altec lansing rockbox xl is fantastic for the pool floating