Speaker

Amazon may have got the smart speaker ball rolling with its Echo, but competitors are closing in. Microsoft has teamed up with Harman Kardon to put Cortana in the home with the Invoke. Not only will the speaker offer 360-degree sound, it'll be able to control your smart home and make Skype calls.

In every speaker is a membrane that physically vibrates to generate sound waves. But now, researchers have developed a speaker that doesn’t need to mechanically vibrate at all. Instead, a graphene membrane is heated and cooled with carefully controlled electric currents to create sound waves.

Northern Ireland's Mindflood has developed the compact minijam studio platform to provide everything an electronic musician needs to create a beat or track. The first "tek" minijam range is made up of a drum machine, a wavetable synth module, an analog filter, a mixer unit and a portable speaker.

Samsung has unveiled a range of new home entertainment systems ahead of their debut at CES next month. Although there is a new sound bar and ultra high-definition Blu-Ray player, the headline act is the H7, which uses a 32-bit system to upscale music and deliver clearer, more detailed sound.

The Sound Torch is a portable Bluetooth speaker that adds a unique visual element to your listening experience thanks to a built-in pyro board, which fires up in different formations based on the music being played.

Apple sold 191.4 million smartphones last year, many of which would have replaced older devices. But designer David Choi has a plan to breathe new life into a mass of unused phones by integrating them with a Bluetooth speaker to act as retro-inspired digital radios.

Last year's International CES (the 2014 show) was chock full of Bluetooth speakers, and one of the few that stood out from the pack was Nyne's floating, waterproof Aqua speaker. Gizmag has since had the chance to test one out and see if it truly sinks or swims.

Tablets, smartphones and the like often lack in the audio department – especially when earphones aren't an option. The Avy Smart Speaker, which makes its debut at CES 2015, is designed to combine and Android-based tablet with a Hi-Fi system for the audiophile.

Ecoxgear has just announced two new Bluetooth speakers for its new Ecosmart line, and one of them features a staggering 50 hours of battery life on a single charge. For those long outdoor parties, it's good to know that the music can keep going without having to stop and charge.

Hong Kong-based startup Crazybaby has revealed a levitating Bluetooth speaker that floats above its charging station to promise improved sound quality. The Mars speakers follows the Om/One, the first speaker of its type, but does appear to pack in a few additional features.

Most modern smartphones have built-in voice assistants, be it Siri, Google Now or Cortana. Amazon's new virtual secretary, though, lives inside its own Sonos-like speaker.

Sam Beck from Portland, Oregon-based Blueshift has unveiled his latest portable Bluetooth speaker that can be charged within five minutes and boasts a rated lifetime of 500,000 charges thanks to being powered by supercapacitors.