Best AirPlay Speakers of 2026

Most speakers in this guide are boxes you hide behind a plant. The Authentics 200 is the one we left on the shelf in plain view: an aluminum frame wrapped in a leather-textured sleeve, a gold-trimmed grille, and proportions that read more like a 1970s receiver than a smart speaker. At 10.48 inches wide it's the broadest cabinet here, so measure the shelf before you fall for it.

Behind the grille sit two 25 mm tweeters, a 5-inch woofer, and a 6-inch passive radiator, with 200 watts of rated output behind them. Highs come through crisp, the bass has genuine punch, and the knobs on top for volume, bass, and treble mean you can tune it without opening an app — a small thing we used constantly. AirPlay 2, Alexa Multi-Room Music, Spotify Connect, and both major voice assistants are on board, and there's an Ethernet jack if you want the firmest possible connection.

Where it gives ground is the network. Ours has needed the occasional nudge to reappear in the AirPlay menu, and Bluetooth is the fallback when that happens — a reminder that these speakers are only as good as the Wi-Fi they sit on. If there's a spare Ethernet port near the shelf, use it and that whole class of annoyance mostly disappears.

A handle is the tell. Sonos put one on the Move 2 because this speaker is meant to be picked up and carried out, and the two tweeters inside — one more than the first Move had — are the reason the trip is worth making. It's 9.49 inches tall, rated IP56, and shaped to sit on a counter without disappearing behind the fruit bowl.

The wireless charging base comes in the box, so the speaker's home position is also its charging position, and the USB-C port can top up a phone while the music plays. Automatic Trueplay retunes it every time it's moved, which is the quiet advantage of a Sonos portable: it doesn't become a different, worse speaker the moment it crosses the threshold. AirPlay 2 handles streaming at home; Bluetooth takes over at the beach where there's no network at all.

What we like most is how little it asks of you. It comes inside, sits on its base, and it's charged. Nothing about the Move 2 feels like a compromise between a portable and a proper speaker — it's the only battery model here that holds its own against the corded ones in a large room. The trade is real, though: it's the heaviest battery pick in this group and the most expensive, and both of those are the cost of the sound it makes outdoors.

The cheapest speaker in this group is also the toughest. The Charge 5 Wi-Fi carries an IP68 rating, which means dust-tight and happy to be dunked, and 20 hours of playback from a battery that doubles as a power bank for a phone. It's a 1-kilogram cylinder 8.78 inches long with a USB-C port and not much else — no screen, no microphone, no fuss.

What that money buys is the full wireless menu: AirPlay 2, Chromecast built in, Alexa Multi-Room Music, and Spotify Connect over Wi-Fi, with Bluetooth as the fallback when you're out of range of the router. That combination is unusual at this end of the range, and it's why the Charge 5 earns a place: it's a genuine AirPlay speaker that can also go to the beach. Twenty watts and one small cabinet won't fill a large open-plan room the way the corded boxes here will, but in a kitchen, a bathroom, or a garden it's plenty.

One more detail worth knowing: it charges over USB-C rather than sitting in a dock, so there's no base to lose and no cradle to line up. Set it on the counter, plug it in when the battery light complains, and it's ready for the next trip outside.

If you want AirPlay without giving up the idea of a stereo system, this is the most complete answer in the group. Two MDF cabinets, each with a 5.5-inch woofer and a 1-inch tweeter, 120 watts RMS between them, and decoding that handles up to 24-bit/192 kHz — it's a bookshelf stereo that happens to speak AirPlay 2, not a smart speaker dressed up as hi-fi.

The inputs are why it can anchor a room: optical and coaxial for a TV or a CD player, RCA for a turntable with its own phono stage, Bluetooth 5.0, and Wi-Fi with AirPlay 2 plus Spotify and TIDAL Connect. The cabinets are wired to each other, so you're placing a pair rather than two independent speakers — enough freedom for a sideboard, not enough to put one in each corner of a big room. Get that placement right once and the stereo image is worth the fuss.

Where it's least charming is the software. Edifier's app is the plainest of the ones here — fine for joining a network and grouping rooms, thin beyond that — and AirPlay is the smoothest way to use the pair day to day. Feed it from an iPhone or straight into the optical input and you rarely need the app at all.

Two phones, two ecosystems, one speaker: that's the case for the Lifestyle Ultra. It's the only corded speaker here that carries AirPlay 2 and Google Cast side by side, plus Bluetooth and the new Alexa+, so an iPhone can hand off to an Android without anyone hunting for a cable or an adapter.

For something 7.27 inches tall and 3.7 pounds, it throws a wide, dimensional soundstage — Bose calls the processing TrueSpatial, and the practical effect is that instruments sit outside the cabinet instead of inside it. CleanBass keeps the low end controlled rather than muddy, and the adjustable EQ in the app lets you tilt the balance toward vocals or bass without moving the speaker. Ninety watts, one box, and a second unit pairs for stereo.

It's the newest speaker in this group, which is also the one thing we can't yet judge. There's less long-term history behind it than behind the Sonos and JBL models here, so buy it for what it does now rather than as a decade-long purchase. The upside of the newness is the ecosystem: it slots into Bose's soundbar and subwoofer setups later, so a kitchen speaker can become rear channels.

What we appreciate most is that it doesn't force a household to pick a side. Everyone with an iPhone will get more speaker for the money from the Era 100; in a house where the phones are mixed, this is the one that keeps the peace, and that's worth more than a small difference in specs.

Wood, a fold-down handle, and a row of ivory keys across the front: the Edifier D32 looks like a 1960s table radio, and it's the sort of speaker you buy partly to look at. The MDF cabinet is part of the sound rather than just the styling, and inside there's a 4-inch mid-low driver, two 1-inch silk-dome tweeters, and a pair of bass reflex ports behind a 60-watt amplifier.

Around the back are the hidden handle, a USB-C port, and an aux input, with Bluetooth 5.3 and LDAC for Android phones. Over Wi-Fi it takes AirPlay 2, which is the smoothest way to feed it, and the battery is rated at 11 hours — enough to carry it to a patio for an evening. The front-panel controls mean you can change volume or input without finding your phone, which sounds trivial until you're using it daily.

What it isn't is a room-filler. Sixty watts in a cabinet 9.84 inches wide gives clean, well-balanced sound at close range — a desk, a bedside table, a small study — and it holds together at low volume, which is where a lot of desktop speakers fall apart. Treat it as good-looking furniture with a proper speaker inside and it earns its spot; expect it to carry a dinner party and you'll be disappointed.