It would be fair to say that a Wi-Fi connected speaker with a voice assistant has become the standard now. If you’re in the market for a speaker in the home, it is expected to have the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa onboard. Prior to that things like bluetooth or AirPlay would be the minimum requirements, but in saying that, many smart speakers dropped those capabilities along the way. Panasonic seems to have released a speaker that gives the owner a long list of mediums to get music to play.
The Panasonic GA10 is a smart speaker that will look great in most areas of the home. Being a smart speaker, Panasonic has opted for Google Assistant to answer your questions, control your smart devices and play music by simply using your voice. Whether you use Spotify, Google Music or even TuneIn Radio, the GA10 will play your tracks moments after you tell it to.
For those who prefer to stream music through bluetooth, you can use that too. The simple pair and play functions enable any bluetooth device to connect to the GA10 and start those tunes immediately. We found this handy when guests would come to the house and they prefer to hear the music from their own device. There are also instances where bluetooth isn’t even an option and for that Panasonic has kept an auxiliary input on the GA10, this means that essentially any device with a 3.5mm output on their product can pump audio into the Panasonic speaker.
Speaking of audio, something that is often overlooked when it comes to smart speakers is whether or not the sound is actually “good”. The GA10 packs 40W of power through a three speaker system made up of one woofer and two tweeters. The audio out of the unit is impressive for such a small device. The bass is richer than expected and the vocals are very clear and crisp. Panasonic allows you to use multiple units to spread the music around the house or use them as a stereo pair giving you flexibility of more room filling sound if it’s party time.
Panasonic does give you the option (not mandatory) to make use of their own app to control the speaker in many ways also. One of the advantages here is using the equaliser so you can tweak the sound of your speaker to suit you.
The Panasonic GA10 has an RRP of $379 however you will find it for less in stores. At that price it is at the higher end of many other multi-room smart speakers such as the Sonos One at $299. What Panasonic have that many in this category lack however is flexibility of inputs, and for many that will be enough to sway their decision. It’s available in black or white and will certainly look great in any room.
