AQ AirPlay Smart Speaker

Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch were made for music on the move. Just pop in those iconic white earbuds and enjoy hours of your favourite tunes. But what about when you want to share that music with a room-full of people? Those tiny built-in speakers won’t do the job and you can’t all crowd around a set of earbuds.

The answer? Well, typically you’d have to plug your Apple gadget into a speaker with a dedicated iPhone dock, or connect it to your sound system with a low-tech AV cable. But that means leaving your gadget in one room while you mingle, hob-nob or generally job about the house. That’s no good. You want to be able to keep your iPhone on you; for flicking tracks, adjusting the volume and keeping out of the sticky mitts of your housemates. That’s where the AQ AirPlay Smart Speaker comes in.

Small but perfectly formed; this shapely single speaker can be mains powered, or run for a surprising 30 hours on a single battery charge. Place it anywhere in the house (even out in the garden if it’s a nice day) and it’ll play music and audio directly from your iPhone. No wires or integrated docks are required; just the power of your home WiFi network.

Using this wireless connection, your iPhone (or any gadget that uses Apple’s AirPlay technology) can be as far as 40m away; or simply in your pocket as you move around the house. You can even stream music to several Smart Speakers at once. Place two in the same room and you can set them to stereo mode; or place them in different rooms to flood your house with high quality audio.

So forget wiring up your home to an elaborate home entertainment system. Just sync this speaker with your Apple gadget and pop it anywhere you like! That said... using it on the bus might cause a few grumbles.