Ultimate Ears UE Blast

Great sound by smart speaker standards ; Rugged design ; Decent battery life

Low end can be a little fat ; Still some issues with Alexa smart features

The UE Blast with Alexa is the one of the best portable Bluetooth speakers with Alexa money can buy.

Cool design ; Gets loud without distortion ; Solid battery life ; IPX7 life-proof

Can’t charge the speaker while it’s standing up ; Microphone doesn’t always pick up commands

We came in expecting to be impressed by the Blast, and that’s what happened. Aside from a few Alexa-related hiccups, the speaker performed wonderfully, filling rooms with sound clearly and effortlessly. It’s not the best smart speaker we’ve ever used,...

Amazon Alexa voice control. Rugged build. Generally solid audio output.

Struggles with deep bass.

Bottom Line: The Ultimate Ears UE Blast puts Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in a portable, rugged, waterproof Bluetooth speaker.

Excellent sound quality ; Good battery life ; For home and on the go

Amazon’s walled garden ; Alexa useless without Wi-Fi ; Poor voice recognition

The Ultimate Ears Blast is really two products in one - it's primarily a portable Bluetooth speaker but with the added functionality of smart speaker like the Amazon Echo. The inclusion of Alexa makes the Blast useful in the home when paired with the...

Great portable design ; Exciting, dynamic sound ; Good detail and punchy timing ; Strong midrange ; Easy to use

Top end can get excitable at loud volumes ; Alexa features not exhaustive ; Relatively pricey

The Blast’s energetic performance and fun design makes this wireless speaker a joy to use

Waterproof ; Excellent design and build quality ; Fun sound signature

Alexa requires a Wi-Fi connection ; No Bluetooth aptX support

At £109, the UE Blast is the cheapest, most versatile smart speaker on the market. No other speaker is this rugged and waterproof, has Bluetooth and Alexa compatibility. It’s compact, too, and although it doesn’t sound as good as its bigger sibling,...

The UE MegaBlast is a portable, fully waterproof Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker that has Amazon's Alexa voice assistant built in. It sounds very good for its compact size, is durable and offers strong battery life.

Somewhat expensive; speakers can't be linked; no Alexa voice support for Spotify playback (can only stream Spotify via Bluetooth); USB charging port is a little bit of a pain to access, making the optional charging base more of a must-have accessory...

While it's expensive and still a work in progress, UE's Megablast speaker is the best-sounding portable Alexa-enabled speaker out there right now.

Gets seriously loud ; Built-in Alexa support is great extra ; Water resistant rubber makes it pretty much life-proof

Can’t charge while standing up – unless you buy the dock ; Music Unlimited only at launch ; No PartyUp speaker pairing

One of our favourite rugged speakers gets Alexa support and wireless charging, but it’s missing a few features out of the box.