In a recent show Allison described her journey to a new Bluetooth shower speaker. Based on the review I don’t think you could do better than follow her advice if you want an affordable Bluetooth speaker, but, what if you want AirPlay 2 in your shower?
If you’re an all-Apple house, AirPlay 2 lets you send audio from any phone, tablet, or computer to a speaker right from control center, and it just works. You can even play to multiple speakers at once! I made the switch to AirPlay a few years ago, and I just can’t imagine ever going back to Bluetooth for anything but headphones, which are very personal devices that I simply don’t want to share!
My second requirement other than AirPlay 2 is no smart assistant — I do not want a mic in my shower!
Having used the big Sonos speakers in various rooms around the house and been very happy with them, I didn’t hesitate to buy one when Sonos released the ‘SL’ version of their small portable Sonos Roam for €179. In Sonos-speak, SL means ‘no mic’, and, it means cheaper to boot!
Sonos have their own app, but you only need it to get your speakers onto wifi, to update their firmware, and optionally, to group multiple physical Sonos speakers into a single AirPlay ‘speaker’.
Initially, I simply brought my Sonos Roam into the shower and put it on the floor next to my feet. It worked fine, but then the wonderful Kelly Guilmot shared two fantastic recommendations with me on Chuck Joiner’s holiday gift guide the Christmas before last:
- An un-branded rubber case to give the speaker some protection and provide a loop to connect some kind of clip to for £21.24 on Amazon
- comes with a very basic carabiner, which I don’t use (see below)
- One silly shortcoming — it covers the status LED. I fixed that very easily with two snips from a pair of scissors 🙂
- The HeroClip — it’s like a carabiner, but more versatile. It bends and twists in all sorts of ways, making it great for hanging just about anything from just about anything! They come in a range of sizes and colours.