This Bluetooth speaker’s battery life impressed me in testing, but it’s irredeemably bad in one vital respect

AO mini portable wireless speaker: two-minute review

If you don’t live in the UK, you’ve probably never heard of AO, so allow us a brief explainer. AO is a Bolton-based online electrical retailer that sells white goods – fridges, dishwashers, ovens, TVs, hi-fi equipment and the like – for a fraction of their store price. For an annual membership of £39.99, you get discounted prices when buying from its website because it cuts out the middle man and sells direct to the customer. It also has a natty advertising campaign that features the soundalike “Hey, hoh – let’s go!” refrain from The Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop. Got it? Good.

What AO has never done is make the audio gear it also sells. Until now. In the summer of 2025, the AO mini portable wireless speaker (yes, this really is its does-what-it-says-on-the-tin name) was part of a suite of releases to change that and try to provide an inexpensive entry to the best portable Bluetooth speakers on the market.

So, how does it fair? Well, the £29 price – $40 / AU$59, but only available in the UK (and only direct from AO) at the time of writing – is a strong start for a portable speaker with Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. Indeed, for AO members in the UK, it's cheaper still at £19. Better still, a 25-hour battery life dominates some of the biggest competition in the budget market such as the JBL Go 4 (seven hours), the five-star Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 (12, already four more than the first-gen model) or the Edifier ES20 (15 hours).

The AO mini portable wireless speaker is also nicely built, with sturdy buttons plus appreciated answer/end/reject call options (with decent accompanying call quality) that is increasingly absent from the competition. Plus, its IP67 waterproofing means it more than does the job in the shower or down at the beach.

Unfortunately, though, there’s the biggest of elephants in the room – the way the AO sounds. It’s not good. In fact, I’d rather listen to tunes coming out of my iPhone 15’s speakers or even my retro MacBook Air's pretty limited sound-producing alternative. For a bit of tech whose primary purpose is to elevate sound, add depth and make it louder – nope, it doesn’t do that, either – this is quite a big problem.

Is it going to be your primary Bluetooth speaker to while away hour upon hour? Definitely not, but that’s not to say it doesn’t warrant a place in your lineup of listening apparatus. The AO mini portable wireless speaker’s flexibility, solid build and near-peerless battery life make it a decent bet to accompany a long weekend away or just be left in the shower so you can sing along to Wham! to help wake you up, before you go-go. After all, that aggressive price is pretty hard to ignore…

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: price and release date

• £29 (not on sale in US or AUS)
• Launched in summer 2025

The AO mini portable wireless speaker was launched in the summer of 2025 as part of the retailer’s debut line of self-made audio products and costs £29 (£19 for AO members) in the UK. It isn't available in the US or Australia, but that equates to $40 / AU$59. Just to confirm, you haven’t misread that price – it really is that cheap.

TechRadar's review sample is black, but it also comes in white, which was the only color available to purchase on the AO website at the time of writing. It’s an opposite Model T Ford, then.

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: specs

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: features

• Excellent 25-hour battery life
• Shower-tested IP67 waterproofing
• Easy setup but no multi-point connectivity

For what is a pretty small bit of kit, the AO mini portable wireless speaker undeniably packs plenty in. Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity isn’t industry-leading – and a 3.5mm line-in for wired listening would’ve been nice – but it’s decent for a speaker as emphatically entry-level as this, while at no stage in testing did I encounter any drop outs.

It’s solid and reliable, the only minor gripe being its lack of multi-point connectivity option. At one point I needed to switch from music listening via Tidal on my iPhone to Match of the Day football watching on my laptop – technically, that’s still work, but only just – and discovered that I’d need to disconnect from the former to be able to connect to the latter. Sure, it’s not the greatest of impositions, but it’s nevertheless unwieldy.

At least the AO is quick and easy to set up. Within minutes of turning on the AO for the first time, my partner and I were dancing around the front room to Going Places by Teenage Fanclub – she effortlessly magnificent, me shufflingly dreadful, thanks for asking. Gerard Love’s lilting vocal complemented his erstwhile bandmates’ harmonies well enough but without a clarity or depth to be expected even at this low price point. More on which later, and the fault certainly doesn't lie with the Scottish group Kurt Cobain once called “the best band in the world”.

Better still, the AO’s IP67 waterproof rating makes it borderline impervious to dust and water ingress. Short of trying to bury it at the bottom of the Atlantic, or subjecting it to extended periods in your teenager’s never-cleaned dust box of a bedroom, you’ll do very well to stop it from working. I used the AO constantly in the shower for over a week and (much like me) it got absolutely soaked, but at no stage did the superb improv podcast Three Bean Salad featuring Taskmaster alumnus Mike Wozniak cut out or the speaker lose connection from my phone in the adjoining bedroom. A trip to my local beach also presented no issue for water ingress either from Portland Harbor or the heavens as an unexpected Dorset shower passed overhead.

No less sturdy is the battery life, which is nothing short of relentless. In testing, the AO’s claimed 25 hours proved plenty accurate – I used the speaker throughout three full seven-hour working days, plus aforementioned trips to the beach and in the shower, and it still had half its juice remaining according to the battery indicator on my phone.

Compare those figures with the as the JBL Go 3’s notorious five-hour lifespan, the updated Go 4’s seven and even the recent Edifier ES20’s 15 hours and the AO dominates the competition for half the (already pretty insignificant) price in some cases. Stuff it in your rucksack on a camping trip and it’ll neither take up much space, nor will it fail you across a week’s medium use before its next charge, a vital consideration when living off-grid in a field. Just 1.5 hours’ charging from the included USB-C cable gets it back to full power, too.

My only other issue is the lack of accompanying app, so there’s no option to tweak EQs or come up with your own presets to get the sound just how you like it. But at this price point what did you expect? This little box is packed with plenty.

• Features score: 4/5

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: sound quality

• Almost no bass
• Lacks clarity
• Limited top volume

Sadly, though, we can ignore the obvious no longer. The AO sounds dreadful, and you don’t need me to tell that this is a bit of a problem for a speaker. No separation, very little bass, a tinny sound and generally just not loud enough. This is regardless of the quality of source device music, too – I tried streaming hi-res FLAC content on Tidal but still to no avail.

A level of compression for a portable Bluetooth speaker this size is to be expected – it measures 82 x 47 x 98mm and though no weight is quoted, it feels lighter than the Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 I used as a comparison – but it is definitely possible to make a better sound than this within the dimensions. The AO’s 20mm driver soon hits a ceiling that others glide beyond and, though its timing is OK and it doesn’t feel too jumbled, the lack of definition and depth are immediately obvious.

Rich by Yeah Yeah Yeahs comes across as one-dimensional – something bordering a war crime – with no separation between Nick Zinner’s synth promptings, lead singer Karen O’s exultant, imploring vocal and Brian Chase’s percussive beat. Switching between the AO and the Tribit mid-song only serves to highlight the difference further – the latter delivers a clearer, punchier vocal and the frequencies are more faithful to the original.

The bass, hardly the thing you most associate with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is broader, deeper and much more noticeable with the Tribit, so I switch to a band known for allowing its four-string to drive tracks. New Order’s All the Way features arguably Peter Hook’s most melodic and rhythmic high-fretted bassline – thanks in part to the band’s increasing use of sequenced synthesizers and Hooky still wanting to be heard – but the AO strips all that away and it sounds tinny. Even the notoriously lo-fi band Guided By Voices, and the stellar Game Of Pricks, lacks oomph.

More infuriating still, the ‘power-down’ sound the AO makes when you turn the speaker off features a demonstrably bassy effect that is completely absent when listening to music. If the AO is capable of making that noise, why do we only hear it when turning it off? Here’s what you could’ve won.

Keen to find out what the AO could do in the open air, I took the speaker on a 10-minute walk to my local beach. Sadly, it’s no different. The gradual 40-second jangle-guitar intro of Star Sign by Teenage Fanclub from 1991 classic album Bandwagonesque is barely audible, then Brendan O’Hare’s driving bass drum lacks attack. The AO is quiet, too – I fire it up to maximum volume and it hits another ceiling all too quickly. Whack the Tribit up to a Spinal Tap-approved 11 on the same song, and two nearby seagulls take their immediate. It feels instructive.

Weirdly, the spoken word is better. The Elis James and John Robins podcast on BBC Sounds, featuring the two titular comedians and producer Dave, comes through impressively and sounds true-to-life. Even the choral theme tune to regular feature Cymru Connection, in which Elis has to find a mutual acquaintance with a fellow Welsh person inside 60 seconds, sounds well-rounded.

It's just a shame about, well, everything else.

• Sound quality score: 2.5/5

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: design

• Small enough to fit in a hoody pouch, but not a jeans pocket
• Tactile buttons
• Loop is small and not very versatile

The AO mini portable wireless speaker certainly lives up to its name. Its 82 x 47 x 98mm dimensions make it smaller than the Edifier ES20 (90.4 x 93.7 x 49.7mm) or the Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 (104 x 99 x 41mm) – it's perfect to pop in a bag to enjoy on the move. You could just about fit it in a hoody pouch, but a jeans pocket is probably a stretch too far, unlike the squarer Tribit which can squeeze into a back pocket with a bit of encouragement.

Simple to use, the AO has four buttons that sit on top of the speaker – 'on/off', 'volume up/skip track', 'volume down/skip back track' and 'play/pause'. Unlike some headphones' on-ear controls, where a double tap skips a track instead of increasing the volume by two, there’s no danger of an errant press, either. It’s a single press for each volume increment you want (no matter how quickly you push), and press and hold for three seconds to skip forward and backward – never once did I err, a minor miracle in itself.

A much-appreciated feature was the 'answer/reject call' option, something sorely lacking from similar products such as the JBL Flip 7 and Go 4. A quick press of the 'play/pause' button answers the call, a three-second hold rejects it – once on a call, the quality is good and stable.

It’s pretty well built, too. The AO’s unobtrusive rubber feet mean it isn’t going to go sliding off tables with an accidental knock, and even if you are on the clumsy side – guilty as charged, your honor – then it’s still plenty sturdy enough to cope with a few knocks on the floor.

There are, though, some flaws. If you’re planning on using the green plastic-covered coiled loop to hang the AO from something – a pole in the roof of your tent, or from a strap on a backpack, for instance – you’re going to need a carabiner of some kind to attach it because there’s almost no space in the loop itself. No rucksack release buckle is small enough to slide through.

There’s also good reason why you wouldn’t want to leave the AO suspended in midair. And, yep, it comes back to the sound. Though AO claims ‘multi-directional audio’ for its mini portable wireless speaker, in testing I didn’t encounter anything so aurally 360. Put the speaker next to your ear and it’s immediately obvious out of which side the sound emits, and it sure doesn’t come out of both sides, despite the impression given from a fabric jacket that covers 80 per cent of the product.

On a desk in front of you that isn’t much of an issue – just turn the AO to face you and you’re sorted – but if you’re taking advantage of the speaker’s brilliant battery life and it’s accompanying your outdoorsy endeavors then the situation is different. Assuming you’ve got the aforementioned carabiner, the AO’s sound pings off in whatever direction it happens to be hanging from a rucksack or your tent roof. Essentially, you’ve got three options: deal with it, try to balance the AO in an adequate position or adjust the gradient of the field in which you’ve pitched your tent.

• Design score: 4/5

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: value

• Astonishing price point…
• ... at which you shouldn’t expect too much

You might argue it’s a bit unfair to rag on something that costs as little as £29 (£19 if you’re an AO member in the UK, the only territory it's currently on sale) but I’ve done so anyway.

That being said, if you can look past the AO mini portable wireless speaker’s shortcomings in sound representation and volume, and aren’t going to use it for anything other than to listen to some tunes or a podcast on-the-go, then the price makes it an attractive option nevertheless.

The AO sits squarely in the gray area where ‘cheap’ and ‘good value’ merge.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Should I buy the AO mini portable wireless speaker?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

AO mini portable wireless speaker review: also consider

How I tested the AO mini portable wireless speaker

• Over two weeks as my primary Bluetooth speaker
• On my office table, in the shower, at the beach
• With a variety of music styles, sources and podcasts

I had just over two weeks with the AO mini portable wireless speaker, listening to various different music styles and resolutions via streaming service Tidal. I also listened to podcasts downloaded from Apple Podcasts and BBC Sounds onto my iPhone 15, plus music from my Apple MacBook Air.

I tested the AO indoors while writing and editing words about everything from audio to football, in the shower and at the beach. In short, in most everyday conditions possible (if you’re lucky enough to live by the sea, that is).

• First reviewed: November 2025
• Read more about how we test