In case a certain recent product unveiling got you hankering for a connected speaker with impressive, room-filling audio performance, you’re in luck: The Brookstone Big Blue Party Indoor-Outdoor Wireless Wi-Fi Speaker[1] is exactly that, and you can buy one right now. Plus, it’s currently available for $249, which is less than the price of that other speaker[2] even when it does eventually go on sale.
The Big Blue Party Speaker is not itself actually blue: It comes in two color options, including light gray and graphite, which roughly match up with Google’s silver and black Pixel phone colors. The speaker is large, standing almost a foot-and-a-half tall, and it’s relatively heavy at 12 lbs. But its size and weight are indicative of its quality in this case, since the solid speaker puts out sound in 360-degrees, and is built for durable use in all sorts of weather, with a water-resistant exterior housing.
Given its sound quality and built-in battery, the Big Blue Party Speaker would be a good deal even if it only offered Bluetooth connectivity (hence the “blue” in the name, if you hadn’t guessed). But that’s actually not all that the speaker has in terms of connection options: There’s an auxiliary port for hardwired connections, of course, but there’s also Wi-Fi built-in, which makes it possible to connect with Chromecast devices for multi-room synced audio streaming.
This is really the product’s killer feature, and what makes the difference between it and the Bluetooth-only version, which is $50 cheaper at regular price but which lacks Wi-Fi. But the upgrade is worth the cash, since this is one of the only devices out there that currently offers Chromecast built-in as well as battery power alongside weather-resistant construction....
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