I’ve been on the lookout for a shower-friendly waterproof Bluetooth speaker for a few years, but never really made the plunge. In my previous rentals, I had a bath with a shower curtain, which made it easy to prop up my phone on the nearby vanity to play podcasts while I got ready in the morning. Paying for a standalone speaker seemed like a luxurious upgrade then, not a necessity.
But after moving to my new home a year ago, I missed this setup. My glass-enclosed shower blocks most of the sound coming from my phone; even with the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s louder speaker and the trick of using corners to amplify sound, I couldn’t hear it clearly in the shower. So I started looking for options from Soundcore, JBL, Tribit, Bose, and others, and eventually made an impulse buy in the unlikeliest of places: the IKEA home electronics section.