During the summer, Ultimate Ears unveiled its refreshed line of portable Boom speakers, including the Wonderboom 4, Boom 4, and Megaboom 4. But they were accompanied by a new entrant to the family: the Everboom. The Everboom’s functionality, portability, and price slot it in between the cylindrical Megaboom and the double-wide Epicboom. It sports all the sensibilities the line has come to be known for, with an emphasis on big sound and portability.
Does this $250 rugged speaker offer enough to differentiate it from the rest of the Boom lineup, and find its way into the ranks of the best portable Bluetooth speakers? Let’s find out.
Ultimate Ears Everboom
It wasn’t clear if there was room for the Everboom in the Ultimate Ears’ existing portable speaker line, but it balances the strengths of its smaller and larger siblings well. That said, you can get clearer sound and more features from similarly-priced rivals.
- Powerful sound indoors or outdoors
- Rugged design
- Respectable battery life
- NFC pairing is Android-only
- No Wi-Fi or smart functionality
- Speakerphone would have been more useful than Megaphone
Price, availability, and specs
Announced in late June 2024, the Everboom clocks in at $50 more than the more conservative Megaboom 4 and $100 less than the $350 launch price of the more premium Epicboom from 2023. It’s available directly from Ultimate Ears, as well as big-name third parties, like Amazon and Best Buy.
It comes in Charcoal Black or Azure Blue (pictured in this review). However, Lilac and Raspberry colorways are set to arrive in certain markets — including the US — later in 2024 (at the time of writing).
What’s good about the Ulra Ears Everboom?
Powerful, well-built, and long-lasting
There’s a lot to like about the Everboom; it boasts traits from the beefier Epicboom in its design and feature set. It does a great job at delivering on the promise of 360-degree sound, with clear stereo separation head-on, and enhanced clarity when listening off-angle. Pair it with the Boom app, and five EQ presets are also accessible (including the podcast preset highlighted on the Wonderboom 4), along with five frequency sliders to customize the sound profile that can then be saved as a custom preset.
The Everboom, among the latest generation of Ultimate Ears’ speakers, also supports the brand’s PartyUp feature; it can be paired with up to 149 other compatible Boom speakers simultaneously, and stereo pairing is also an option if you have another Everboom handy. Megaphone is a novel addition, which lets you relay your voice through the speaker, just by talking into the microphone within the Boom app.
The Everboom’s Bluetooth connection promises up to a 55-meter (180-foot) range, while the dedicated Outdoor Boost button on top-ups output beyond the Everboom’s standard 90dBc maximum (to 91dBc). In practice, I never felt the need to push the volume past 50% when listening inside, while outdoors the Boost button did a great job of keeping the audio intelligible, despite the crashing waves of England’s southern coastline.
If you plan on carrying it around, the speaker’s rugged, rounded form, chunky physical controls, and IP67 certification against dust and water ingress should offer ease of use and peace of mind. What’s more, it sports a greener design, using recycled magnets, 58% post-consumer recycled materials in its plastic parts, and 100% recycled polyester for that signature mesh cladding. While it skips out on the Epicboom’s magnetic strap, you do instead get a fabric loop on the back that pairs with an included carabiner. So, attachment to a bag or placement on a hook is easy and convenient.
Unlike older Boom speakers, the Everboom benefits from Ultimate Ears’ recent switch to USB-C charging, which is a long overdue upgrade that most modern smartphone users will appreciate, as it means one fewer charger or cable to carry around. (A USB-C to USB-C cable is also included in-box.). A quoted battery life of 20 hours also gave me a week of extensive use on a single charge, with the remaining power indicated by the three LEDs behind the speaker’s mesh grille (and also viewable as a percentage in the Boom app).
Having not used an Ultimate Ears speaker in a while, the Bluetooth Standby functionality — which lets you power the speaker on and off from the app — was great, too. What’s more, the ability to preset a chosen track or playlist (from supported services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, or Spotify) and then quick-launch that preset by long-pressing the play/pause button (dubbed the ‘Magic Button’) — even when the speaker is off — is a neat trick that’s ideal for tracks or collections you might keep coming back to (like a workout mix or a soundtrack to underscore dinner in your garden).
What’s bad about the Ultimate Ears Everboom?
Clarity and functionality for the price
For as much power as the Everboom clearly has at its disposal, you don’t have to push too hard to find its limits. Using the default ‘Signature Sound’ EQ preset as a baseline, the Everboom delivers a broad, open sound that lends itself to outdoor use cases, but this does mean fidelity feels a little lacking, especially across the mids and highs. I still haven’t found a custom EQ profile that I’m totally happy with when using the speaker indoors, but I always find myself dropping the lower frequencies in favor of the higher bands. Push past 70% volume and clarity breaks down there, too.
Even with more portable proportions — relative to the Epicboom — at just under a kilogram (2 pounds), it is still a weighty speaker to carry around in-hand, or even clipped on a backpack. (Its heft is noticeable while you walk.)
The iconic sizable volume buttons and durable design are welcome inclusions, but the fabric finish does run the risk of holding onto stains, which seems odd for an outdoor speaker that has the potential to wind up in lake water or at a muddy festival. Its sealed design also means you can’t mount it on Ultimate Ears’ convenient Power Up charging base, and while 20 hours of longevity is respectable, 2.5 hours of recharge time is a little lackluster — even if it isn’t the slowest around.
Speaking of battery, it seems odd that Ultimate Ears hasn’t added power bank functionality (found on the more affordable JBL Charge 5 and JBL Xtreme 3) to the Everboom, especially considering it packs a capacious cell. Other missing features, like a speakerphone, would also be more useful than the Megaphone function found on the Boom app.
As for connectivity, it’s unclear whether the responsibility falls on Ultimate Ears or Apple, but Android-only NFC pairing seems like an odd quirk, while the speaker’s not-insignificant asking price does raise questions about whether adding Wi-Fi functionality and, perhaps, even basic smart speaker features, is warranted, considering what else is available for similar money.
Should you buy it?
The Everboom achieves its goal of delivering a bigger outdoor-suitable sound in a more compact form, compared to Ultimate Ears’ bigger Epicboom. Its fun, durable (and greener) design is approachable, and its interplay with other Boom speakers is a great brand-exclusive bonus that you’ll be hard-pressed to find at the same scale from rivals.
The asking price probably places it at the ceiling of what’s acceptable for what is still fundamentally a Bluetooth-only speaker, and not a smart speaker. Obvious opportunities for features like power bank and speakerphone support have also been missed, either by choice or complacency.
If you’ve already bought into the Boom speaker ecosystem, or want one of the more powerful outdoor speakers around this price, the Everboom is a great choice. Otherwise, your money will likely go further with entries from the likes of JBL or Bose.
Ultimate Ears Everboom
The Ultimate Ears Everboom does just enough to justify its asking price, with a clean, durable design, good battery life, and strong outdoor performance for its size. However, a little more thought on the functionality side would have taken this speaker from ‘good’ to ‘great’ value.
