IKEA ENEBY Bluetooth speakers

Friday I met a friend for coffee and noticed an interesting looking speaker in his office. It was modern with an impressive minimalism. It was a large, white square with three visible speakers and a single knob. I thought this might be some high-end brand. Could it be Bang & Olufsen? Or perhaps a Sennheiser speaker?

To my surprise it was a bluetooth speaker from IKEA. The IKEA ENEBY 30 to be exact.

Afterward I went to go look at one of these in the store. I have a few thoughts about the ENEBY:

One of the things I love about this is that aesthetically it’s unassuming—it’s just a white square—but at the same time it is such an interesting piece. It so clearly fits Dieter Rams 10 principles of good design.

There are a couple of different versions of this speaker:

There are also a handful of accessories:

I’m not a serious audiophile, but the sound seemed solid enough for me. There was a thread on reddit about the mids being a bit shallow. The consensus seemed to be that this was a solid buy for the price.

In my honest opinion, this is a very good bang-for-the-buck option for people who are in the market for something that works great, sounds good, and looks minimal. It is definitely not a high-class speaker, nor a mid-class speaker either. It is a low-cost speaker, for which you actually get a bit more than what you pay for.

Like many things IKEA, the ENEBY is very modular. You can mount it on the wall, put in a battery pack and use it as a portable speaker or you can add a stand and put it on a side table. In my opinion the stand is the way to go. Also, If you have a KALLAX or EKET shelving from IKEA the ENEBY 30 will fit perfectly into one of the shelves.

The speaker comes with either a gray or black fabric cover. Unless you’re trying to hide the speaker, I would remove it though. It looks great with the speakers exposed.

Unfortunately, this is not a Sonos. You can pair several devices with it, but two speakers are not able to pair together for stereo sound.

The ENEBY is an all around interesting product. It may not be the best bluetooth speaker, but if you’re in the market for something attractive and affordable, it’s definitely worth a look.

Honestly, this speaker doesn’t do much for me with the cover on. It’s a generic-looking gray box. However, without the cover it is so much more interesting.