Today’s gym-friendly speakers—whether for your home gym, the one down the street, or the makeshift workout room in your neighbor’s garage—should ideally be portable, affordable, and deliver solid, room-filling sound. The best gym speakers also look great and come with tons of baked-in tech, too. This ensures they play well with the gadgets you might already own, like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple AirPlay. We’re fans of speakers with built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to ensure maximum compatibility with all of the above, plus whatever new tech is lined up for next year and beyond.

What to Consider

Maximum Power Output

In general, a speaker’s maximum power output determines how just how loud it can get. A higher number typically makes for more room-filling sound, but some (often cheaper) speakers can distort at higher volumes. So, while a higher number usually means louder, it doesn’t always mean better. Smaller, bookshelf speakers (like Sonos’ 10-watt Era 100) are ideal for tight indoor spaces like bedrooms, and you can always buy a pair if you’re looking for a richer audio experience.

Look to something more substantial with 100 watts or more—like Sony’s Ult Field 7 or the JBL Partybox 310—for larger rooms like garages or basements or for outdoor use where you won’t benefit from the acoustics of walls and a ceiling to reverberate the sound off of.

Connectivity

The best gym speakers are wireless, with Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi connectivity, so they’re easy to control with a companion smartphone app. Many also offer built-in smart home tech like Amazon Alexa or Apple AirPlay integration. If this is important to you, make sure that whatever gym speaker you choose will play nice with your current smart home tech.

Battery Life

Except for the fully wired Sonos Era 100, all of the speakers we recommend below are wireless with built-in batteries for maximum portability. Look for models with a minimum eight-hour battery life, although 16-20 is better to save you the hassle of having to recharge constantly. The tradeoff is that the longer the battery lasts, the bigger and heavier the speaker will be. So, you’ll want to balance your power and portability needs.

Dimensions

Speaker size may or may not matter to you. If you’re an apartment dweller with limited floor space or looking for maximum portability, consider more compact speakers that are easy to move or toss in the back of your car.

Weight

The overall dimensions and weight determine the portability of any speaker. If you tend to workout in multiple locations (e.g., different rooms in your house, at the gym, in the park, etc.), you’ll likely want maximum portability. Look for a speaker that you can move easily (the JBL Partybox 310 below, for example, is probably not a good candidate. If, however, you tend to get all your sets in one place, portability likely isn’t as much of a concern.

How We Chose

For the last year, Men’s Health editors, with an assist from pro gear tester Mike Richard, vetted the bestselling, most popular, and top-rated gym speakers on the market. Our team tested dozens of options in a variety of environments, including our own home gyms, outdoor workout spaces in the city, and our local, neighborhood gyms, to narrow down our list. During our testing, we evaluated each model based upon ease of use, connectivity, sound quality, durability, battery life and how frequently charges were needed, and portability.

Ultimately, we agreed on the six models below as our honest picks for the best gym speakers worth buying in 2025.

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