5 Ryobi Speakers And Radios To Liven Up Any Workspace
A little bit of music can liven up any job site, and there are many different options for portable speakers and radios. There are hundreds of Bluetooth speakers on the market that can wirelessly connect to your phone and play just about anything you want, but there are a couple of reasons why you might want a sound system made by your power tool manufacturer. The first is the battery. It's never fun to have your speaker's battery die halfway through the workday and spend the rest of your shift with nothing but the whir and grind of your tools tickling your eardrums. The second reason is durability. Most portable Bluetooth speakers aren't exactly fragile, but they're also not really designed to stand up to the environmental hazards of a job site.
Ryobi has been around since the 1940s, and it makes a lot of great tools that are appreciated by pros and novices alike. The company also makes a lot of useful products that aren't tools, including a decent lineup of portable speakers and radios. These come in several sizes across multiple price points and offer a wide variety of different features. One of the best ways to learn about a product is to examine its specs and feature set and then to check professional and user reviews to see how it performs in the real world. Here are the five speakers and radios made by Ryobi that you can get to liven up your workspace.
18V Bluetooth Speaker
The first item on the list is Ryobi's standard cordless Bluetooth speaker. Like all of the speakers on this list, it's powered by Ryobi's 18V One+ battery system. This means that all of these speakers will be able to run on the same batteries that power your cordless Ryobi drills, drivers, and other 18V tools.
This dual 3" speaker system comes with Ryobi's Smart Amplifier Technology, which the company claims is able to deliver crisp and powerful audio with 8.5X the clarity that was offered by its predecessor, the P746. Ryobi also says that the speaker has a Bluetooth range that can reach over 125 ft. and that it can operate on a single 4Ah battery for over 10 hours. It also comes with a voice-controlled On/Off feature in case you ever need to turn off your music while you're elbow-deep in a project. It even comes with a USB 2.1 charging port, so you can keep your mobile devices juiced up while you stream your music.
The speaker has a 4.7 out of 5 on Ryobi's website, with most buyers stating that the audio is loud and clear. Reviewers also liked that it was easy to carry with the large rubber handle and that it lasted a long time on a single charge. The main issue that the speaker's critics seemed to have was that there was no way to adjust the bass or treble.
18V Cordless Compact Bluetooth Speaker
Next up, we have a slightly smaller and more affordable speaker. The 18V Cordless Compact Bluetooth Speaker goes for less than $30 and is only 2.75" high, 3.25" wide, and 5.35" long. This tiny little speaker packs a punch, though. Like its bigger brother, it comes with Ryobi's Smart Amplifier Technology and has the same voice-controlled On/Off feature. It has a slightly smaller Bluetooth range (only 75 ft.) but a big 20-hour run time on a single 2.0 Ah battery. That means you can listen to music twice as long on a battery half the size.
This pint-sized speaker has a 4.3 out of 5 on Ryobi's website. Fans of the speaker said that it was easy to set up, easy to store, and offers good audio for a speaker this size. Some complained that it wasn't as loud as they'd hoped. Pro Tool Reviews did a review of the speaker, however, and they found that it has better audio than you might think, thanks to the Smart Amplifier Technology. "Despite its size, Ryobi tells us that the PAD02B still delivers clear, crisp sound at any volume." So, it seems there is some disagreement over how much volume one should reasonably expect from a speaker that's barely any larger than the battery it runs on.
18V Cordless VERSE Clamp Speaker
While most of Ryobi's speakers are engineered with basic functionality in mind, the 18V Cordless VERSE Clamp Speaker definitely takes the crown when it comes to form factor innovation. Workshops can be messy, and you don't always have a nice, clean spot to set your speaker. That's why the VERSE comes with a built-in 1 ¾" clamp designed to make it easy to position your speaker right where you're working. You can clamp it to the edge of your workbench, a nearby shelf, a wall stud, or even the hood of your car and blast your tunes without taking up valuable workspace. The speaker itself is also positioned on a mount that allows you to angle and pivot the speaker in whatever direction you need.
Ryobi and Home Depot also sell these individually or in combo packs. This is particularly nice since the VERSE technology allows you to set up multiple speakers and synch them all to the same device without the need for an additional app. On top of that, it has the highest Bluetooth range at 250 ft. and boasts over 32 hours of runtime on a single charge.
The basic single unit has a 4.5 out of five on Ryobi's website. Most fans liked the versatility of the clamp and sound quality, though some complained that they had trouble connecting it to their phone. Pro Tool Reviews wrote a review of this as well and stated, "There are so many great ways to use these speakers that it's impossible to list them all, and the sound quality is enjoyable. The only twinge of regret I have is that they're not waterproof."
18V Cordless Compact Radio/Speaker
Streaming music has grown increasingly popular over the years, but there are still a lot of people who enjoy good old-fashioned radio. There's a lot to like about having a work radio aside from the fact that you don't need to worry about being your own DJ. Radio doesn't take any data from your mobile plan, and it doesn't rely on a strong signal from your cellular network. This gives rise to many situations where radio waves might just work better than your Spotify playlist. You don't have to choose between a classic radio and a good Bluetooth speaker though.
The Ryobi 18V Cordless Compact Radio has both an FM radio and a 175 ft. Bluetooth connection range. It's a 3" 15W speaker, making it the most powerful unit Ryobi sells, and it can operate for over 32 hours of continuous runtime. It also comes with a USB 2.1 port to charge your mobile devices.
Impressive as that might sound, however, this is actually the lowest-rated speaker that Ryobi sells, sitting at a 3.8 out of 5. Most reviews seem to agree that the speaker is powerful and offers good audio when it's connected over Bluetooth, but there are several complaints that it struggles to pick up radio stations. This is a shame since its radio capabilities are the speaker's main selling point. Conversely, Pro Tool Reviews didn't seem to have any issues with the radio's functionality but found that sound quality was better suited to single rooms than large job sites.
18V Compact Radio (small)
Those who want a radio they can take on the go are in luck, too. Ryobi also makes a significantly smaller 18V Compact radio designed to be easy to carry to any job site, no matter how remote.
This radio has four different listening modes: AM, FM, Aux, and Bluetooth. This allows you plenty of options for what you want to listen to. It also has a USB port built-in, so you can use it to charge your mobile devices.
It seems that this particular speaker isn't currently being carried by Home Depot, but reviews on Ryobi's website are fairly positive. It has a 4.6 out of 5, and there are a lot of reviewers who love its versatility and compliment its surprising volume. A handful of reviews from users claim that they loved the radio while it was working but found that it gave out around the 1-2 year mark. A few others didn't appreciate that the device requires AAA batteries in order to remember the time and station presets.
Our methodology
The goal of this article was to list all of the Ryobi speakers available and outline their various specs and features. To do this, we researched the Ryobi online catalog. This helped us better understand what they do differently from similar products and why a buyer might take an interest in one of them. We then looked into both user and professional reviews, checking for recurring issues that prospective buyers might want to know about.