At under $200 there’s something to love about the Laser WiFi Multi-room speaker, and given that it offers plenty of features you’ll find in some of the biggest name in multi-room audio it’s well worth a look if your budget conscious.
Sure you can spend $500 or more and get some serious power and features with the big names, but wander into a Big W or Officeworks and pickup the Laser WiFi Multiroom speaker and you’ll get something great for the house with a few great little features.
Setup and connection isn’t an absolute breeze, so blokes – read the instructions – it’s that easy. Sometimes I assume I’ll just get things working, but with this one I just needed a bit of a read through before I got the gist.
You connect direct to the speaker via WiFi then using a browser give the speaker a name and set it up on your WiFi network.
Once that’s done, the speaker is visible to any Qualcomm AllPlay compatible app. There’s an AllPlay Jukebox which lets you choose audio on your device to play direct to the speaker. I found myself come undone here because the music in my Apple library seemed to all come up as having DRM restrictions.
But fear not, like millions of others, I’m right into Spotify. And the Spotify App has direct integration with AllPlay.
Inside the Spotify App I simply choose the output device from a list and bingo the songs come through loud and clear.
Because it’s a WiFi speaker, and there is no Bluetooth, you can’t make a direct connection as you might with a portable speaker. But consider that this is meant to be a part of your home – so as soon as you touch the top and power it on the blue light comes on and within a minute you can start streaming your Spotify playlists.
Add a second speaker in another room and you can group them together in the AllPlay app to spread the music around.
Something intriguing we discovered about AllPlay was that the data seems to be shared across the WiFi Network. As I bopped away in the kitchen, the kids were able to see the name of the songs I was listening to as they changed – on the screen of the TV in the lounge room! Go Figure, but awesome!
Sound quality isn’t comparative to the big names, but for $179 you simple can’t expect a full dynamic range. I felt the sound was just a touch muffled but with the speaker on one afternoon while I cleaned around the house all I really cared about was keeping the music playing.
This is a great gift idea, or a great option for the home where music is something the family loves to enjoy together.
Available at Big W, Officeworks and selected retailers and online at LaserCo.com.au for RRP $179.95.
