Xiaomi Sound Outdoor Speaker review

The Xiaomi Sound Outdoor Speaker is the latest portable Bluetooth speaker from the brand. The speaker features a 30W output, dual driver design, IP67 protection, and the ability to pair with up to 100 speakers at a time.

The Sound Outdoor has a typical portable Bluetooth speaker design with a tubular shape. Almost the entirety of the exterior is covered by a fabric with a rubber strip on the back that also forms a loop. The black model featured here has a contrasting orange loop but the red and blue models get matching red and blue loops.

The Sound Outdoor features two active drivers on the front, which includes a 20W woofer and a 10W mid-range driver. These are aided by two passive radiators on either end of the tube, which work in tandem with the woofer to passively boost the low frequencies.

On the back of the unit are three buttons, which control power, pairing, and syncing with other speakers. A flap covers the USB-C connector used for charging. The Sound Outdoor does not have an audio jack for wired audio input and can only work with Bluetooth.

Speaking of Bluetooth, the Sound Outdoor supports Bluetooth 5.4 with SBC. There is no NFC so pairing has to be done manually. This speaker's main party trick is that it can pair with up to 99 others of the same model to create a chain of 100 speakers playing simultaneously. While I didn't have 99 other speakers to test, I did see a Xiaomi demo where they paired four speakers across the room, and they all played in perfect sync. You can also just pair two speakers to get stereo sound.

The Sound Outdoor works well as a party speaker for indoor use. The woofer and passive radiators can move a surprising amount of air, resulting in a powerful, punchy sound that can get sufficiently loud even with just one unit. The sound also doesn't distort even at maximum volume.

Outdoors, you don't get the same thump and bass response and the sound is much flatter as a result.

For critical listening, the speaker has a few issues. The unit needs careful placement as the bass response benefits from being placed near a wall or a corner and with the speaker being a certain distance away from the listener. However, the mids and highs are very directional and unless the speaker faces you directly, you lose a lot of clarity in the sound. The highs, in general, are quite dull even when facing the speaker as there is no dedicated tweeter.

The speaker is also just mono, which shouldn't be too much of a surprise but there have been Bluetooth speakers in the past in this form factor with stereo configuration. The result of the mono configuration means sometimes music can sound quieter than it should as the wide stereo imaging in the recording gets condensed into a single channel. You might want to consider investing in a second unit if stereo sound is important to you.

The Sound Outdoor has good latency performance when tested with a single unit. Audio always remains in sync with video content when tested with a variety of sources. However, latency with multiple paired units wasn't tested, and video synchronization likely goes out the window when multiple speakers are paired.

The Sound Outdoor also includes a microphone for calls. The microphone quality was abysmal during testing, with the audio being barely audible even shouted into the speaker, and being garbled to boot. You should absolutely not be using this speaker for voice calls.

Xiaomi claims a battery life of 12 hours for the Sound Outdoor when played at 50% volume, which is par for the course for devices of this size in this segment. The speaker charges in about 2.5 hours with a 15W or higher charger. Charging is only one-way and you cannot use the speaker as a power bank to charge other devices.

Overall, the Xiaomi Sound Outdoor Speaker offers good performance at an affordable price. At INR 3,999, it costs half as much as competing products from brands like JBL and Sony while being just as good. If you don't care about NFC or aux input, then the Sound Outdoor is a great option.