As summer approaches and families and friends head to the beach or the park, many of them are on the lookout for a seemingly simple but hard-to-find product: a good, durable Bluetooth speaker. It sounds like an easy product to make, but most options have pretty severe flaws.

Many speakers are too quiet; or fire music straight ahead rather than around them; are only audible at a volume that distorts audio quality; or over-emphasize bass for a dramatic but unpleasant sound. Some do not last long on a charge or have weak Bluetooth connections, and many are extremely unattractive. Even if a speaker looks like it went to Navy bootcamp, it probably lacks splash or dust resistance, which is essential for outdoor use, and it will be too ugly or blaring to use indoors, out of picnic season.