Putting a Bluetooth Speaker In an End Table Is a Bad Idea, Actually

Shoving gadgets into furniture isn’t at all necessary, but gosh darn it, is it fun. That’s why Ikea has speaker lamps and air purifier side tables.

But just because putting gadgets into furniture is fun doesn’t mean it’s straightforward. Figuring out how to combine tech and furniture comes with a difficult balancing act. You have to account for properly cleansing air in someone’s apartment, but also… acting as a tasteful surface for a glass of orange juice? They’re silly and self-inflicted challenges, but when they’re met properly, they’re kind of neat. And when they don’t? Well, we’ll get into that in a moment…

The ultimate end table?

My most recent foray into smart furniture was the DecorTech Bluetooth Speaker End Table, which is exactly what it sounds like; it’s an end table that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. The design is nothing special (there’s no Ikea-like Scandinavian attention to detail here), but it’s inoffensive enough to blend into most living rooms without looking cobbled together. Out of context, you might think it’s an electric drum or something, but next to a couch, the picture comes together.

Where the table’s masquerade as just a banal piece of furniture comes to an end (no pun intended) is when you take a gander at the top. Here, you’ll see a black surface with an array of buttons, including a power button, an FM scan button, and a play/pause button, as well as volume up and down buttons. These, as you may already know, are not in regular tables.

I’ll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of buttons, and while volume up/down on a hardware level isn’t necessary, since most people are just going to use their phones to control volume, it’s still nice to have. Even nicer is the inclusion of a radio, in my opinion. Call me an old man (not so loud, please; it’s past my bedtime), but I love listening to the radio, and tuning in from my phone just doesn’t feel the same, even if it’s technically more convenient. A Bluetooth end table, though? That somehow feels appropriate in the arbitrary spectrum of gadgets I’ve deemed acceptable to have a radio in.

If there’s one pretty ugly downside to the whole FM radio thing, it’s that the DecorTech Bluetooth Speaker End Table includes an FM antenna extension, which is actually just a long cable that drapes off the back. I guess it could be useful if you need to position the antenna for a better signal, but I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to do that. Tape it to the wall? Run it under the rug? Stick it to the window with a piece of bubble gum? The choice is odd, and the disheveled vibe it brings to the table is even odder.

Another surprise inclusion in this table is a wireless charger, which is indicated by a symbol plastered in the middle of the table. There’s not much to say about the wireless charging in this case, but it does work, and if you like to be by your phone at all times like I do, it’s really convenient being able to just slap that glass rectangle down and (very slowly at 10W) charge it up. If wireless isn’t your thing, you can also charge wired via the built-in USB-A port. No USB-C here, sorry, literally everyone.

All of this, of course, is just an accoutrement to the real star of the show: Bluetooth audio. This is a speaker table after all, and if you’re buying one of these things (or thinking about it), you’re going to want it to sound serviceable. And luckily, if a speaker-clad end table is high on your priority list, I have good news. The DecorTech Bluetooth Speaker End Table sounds pretty alright, though with one crucial flaw that I’ll get into in a sec.

The speakers, while not exactly hi-fi, did a much better job than I expected for a $115 table that can be ordered from Walmart. I played music through Spotify on my phone, including some ambient and some jazz tunes, and it handled songs admirably. On folky singer-songwriter-y tracks from MJ Lenderman, I was less impressed, as vocals took a little too prominent of a place in the mix, but instrumental music is where things felt more cohesive, with mids and highs meshing well with lows.

Inside, there’s a 6.5-inch subwoofer and a 2-inch speaker, so there’s not a huge sound, but there’s probably more than you’d expect from a speaker that’s also an end table, wireless charger, and a radio. You’re not going to get the same quality audio as you would on a dedicated Bluetooth speaker from Bose or even a nice soundbar from Sonos or a comparable brand, but as a secondary audio device that you maybe only plan on using sometimes, it’s still decent. That is, if you can hear it properly…

Let’s table that idea

Now, remember earlier in this review when I was talking about the constraints of putting gadgets into other gadgets? Yeah, well, turns out the DecorTech Bluetooth Speaker End Table is kind of a perfect example. Speakers, as we all know, need to be positioned properly, since audio is a very spatial thing. This is why, generally speaking, most people’s main home theater systems or hi-fi audio setups put the bulk of the audio in front of the listener. Sure, you might have surround sound speakers flanking you as you watch something, but those aren’t doing the heavy lifting. You probably see where this is going.

An end table is (say it with me now) at the end. That means the audio, if you were to place the DecorTech Bluetooth Speaker End Table next to your couch, like a lot of people would, is coming from the side as you’re listening. There’s nothing ideal about that placement, and while it might not bother everyone, it will most definitely bother people who want to hear their speaker properly. Having listened to the speaker from both positions (sitting to the side and sitting in front), I can tell you that there is definitely a difference in the clarity of audio you’re getting. I suppose you could always reposition the speaker to the front of your couch, of course, but that’s not totally ideal either.

For one, this end table is an end table, both in name and in height, which means it’s meant to sit at an ideal level relative to the arm of a couch, so you can place things on it, like your phone or that cup of tea you’re going to forget about by accident until it goes cold. Because of the height, putting the speaker in front of your couch just looks weird, and that’s not even taking into account that it also does a bad job of hiding the power cable, which, as we all know, is bad for decor.

The worst part is, there’s really no way of getting around this fact, which kind of punches a hole in the entire conceit of having an end table with a speaker in it in the first place. The reality is, if you’re buying a speaker/end table, you’re just going to have to be okay with poorly positioned audio. That being said, if you do have some kind of setup in your home where you think you’ll have an end table that faces you, I guess this end table could work? Then again, if your end table is halfway across the room, it’s not really much of an end table, is it? Also, you can kiss the convenience of the wireless charger and buttons goodbye.

Solid execution on a bad idea

Listen, I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade; as I said previously, furniture with tech in it is kind of cool. I admittedly am a sucker for what Ikea does in this space, and even if it’s expensive and unnecessary, I can’t help but want it anyway. And you know what? Sometimes there’s even real ingenuity in tech-laden furniture. Heck, maybe you live in a micro apartment in Tokyo, and you simply don’t have room for a coffee table and an air purifier in one place.

However frivolous it may seem, there’s a right and a wrong way to shove gadgets into stuff, and the wrong way is doing it in a way that ignores the function of both things you’re mashing together. A coffee table air purifier? Okay. A speaker lamp? Fine. These are things that coexist. But there’s a start and an end to where that mashing works, and the end, for me at least, is this decent but ill-conceived end table.