How to turn a Bose SoundLink Mini into a white noise machine

January 5, 2017 by M.B. Grant Leave a Comment

Continuing our series of re-purposing Bose SoundLink speakers, today’s post is about how to use a Bluetooth speaker (such as the popular Bose SoundLink Mini) as a white noise machine!

If you have a Bluetooth speaker laying around and you want to use it as a white noise machine, read on!

Previously: How to use your Bose SoundLink Mini as a soundbar for your TV

This is the speaker I use as a white noise machine, but the techniques I describe in this article can work with virtually any speaker.

When our first baby was born 3 months ago, we quickly realized that white noise helped her (and us) fall asleep and stay that way in our small apartment where everyone can hear everyone else. I have several dedicated white noise machines (my favorite is the LectroFan Jr.) but I thought, why not turn the Bose SoundLink Mini into a white noise machine, too? It’s not like I’m using it for music while I’m trying to get myself or the baby to sleep.

Turns out, this was easy to do – and there’s quite a few ways to do it.

(Don’t feel like you have to do it this way or you have to have this exact equipment – I just didn’t want to be vague and refer to features that may or may not exist on specific Bluetooth speakers.)

What speakers does this work with?

I wrote these steps for the SoundLink Mini because that’s what I use, but there’s really nothing particularly special about it. If you have a speaker with AUX in or Bluetooth pairing capabilities, then one or more of the techniques in this article should work for you.

Since most people want to play white noise for hours on end (ie: overnight), you’ll want your phone plugged in to a power source if you’re streaming over Bluetooth or you’ll want to stream over WiFi so your phone’s audio isn’t tied up (explained more further down in this article). Also, if your speaker is portable and rechargeable, you’ll want keep the speaker plugged in or on its base so that it doesn’t die in the middle of the night.

Technique #1: Stream to the SoundLink over WiFi with an Echo Dot and Spotify Connect

I think this is the best approach. It’s “set it and forget it”, versatile, and easy to use. You don’t have to leave your phone near the speaker or tie up its audio output. However, this technique works only if you have access to a WiFi network, so it’s great for home but not so great for travel. You’ll need an Echo Dot to give the SoundLink WiFi capabilities, since the SoundLink speaker can’t connect to WiFi on its own.

This is my default setup for playing music and white noise over my SoundLink Mini.

What you need

Spotify Premium account with a playlist containing at least one “white noise” song
Amazon Echo Dot
3.5mm AUX cable
A speaker with an AUX input jack (SoundLink Mini and Amazon Tap both have this)

This setup looks complicated compared to the others, but it’s great because you can just stream from an online service (such as Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, etc) to your speaker without having to tie up your phone’s audio output, draining your phone battery on Bluetooth, having to keep your phone near the speaker, or having any issues with the Bluetooth connection cutting in and out.

To get a setup like mine:

Set up a Spotify playlist of one white noise “song” and set it to loop. This is my Spotify “white noise” playlist
Hook up an Amazon Echo Dot to your Bose SoundLink Mini (via an AUX cable) to give the SoundLink speaker WiFi capabilities. (If you’re trying to stream to a speaker that has built-in WiFi connectivity like a Sonos PLAY:1, you can skip the Echo Dot middleman part.)
Turn on the speaker
Set it to AUX input
Open the Spotify app and select the white noise playlist
Hit play and set the Device to your Echo Dot

The SoundLink does not have WiFi connectivity by itself; you have to hook it up to something like an Echo Dot to give it that power.

Advantages

Easy to set up and use
Streaming over WiFi doesn’t drain phone battery like Bluetooth would
Can still use phone for calls, watching junk on Facebook, recording videos of your pets or kids, etc while the white noise is going
No Bluetooth dropout from interference
Control volume from your phone (or any device with Spotify on your WiFi network)
Play/Pause from your phone (or any device with Spotify on your WiFi network)
Easily switch to music when you’re done with the white noise
Don’t have to keep phone near speaker
You get all the fun features of Amazon’s Alexa

Disadvantages

Requires an Echo Dot to make the Bose SoundLink Mini into a WiFi speaker
Not travel friendly: having to bring a Dot and pair it with WiFi in every hotel would be annoying
Streaming over WiFi isn’t 100% perfect – I still hear the occasional dropout, though far less on WiFi than over Bluetooth. Some days it goes for hours without a cutout, so it might just come down to connection quality.

This approach isn’t ideal for travel, since you’d have to bring your Echo Dot with and get everything on the WiFi network wherever you go (assuming there even is one).

Technique #2: Stream to the SoundLink over Bluetooth from your phone

This is an alternative way to turn your SoundLink into a white noise machine. If you don’t have (or want to buy) an Echo Dot, you can instead connect to the speaker over Bluetooth. The big disadvantages here are that your phone’s audio output is tied up (you can’t make a call or watch a video on Facebook, for example, without stopping the white noise) and streaming Bluetooth from your phone drains the phone’s battery. You also have to keep your phone near the speaker (or at least in the same room-ish).

To play white noise over Bluetooth:

Set up a Spotify playlist of one white noise “song” and set it to loop. This is my Spotify “white noise” playlist. (Or use whatever music service you like – I recommend something you can play from your phone’s local storage without WiFi so you’re not also draining your battery on Bluetooth streaming.)
Pair your device with the SoundLink mini
Let ‘er rip – white noise will play through the speaker until you tell it to stop

Personally, I find Bluetooth connections kind of unstable. They seem more prone to blips and brief interruptions, which is particularly annoying when you want a solid whooosh of white noise washing over you without pauses.

Advantages

Requires the fewest parts – assuming you already have a phone and a SoundLink, you have everything you need for this approach
Easy to use – just like how you already use the speaker for playing songs
Travel friendly

Disadvantages

Can’t play any other audio on your source device, since its audio is being piped to the SoundLink (so YouTube, Facebook videos, recording videos on your phone, and making phone calls are all out while the phone is busy playing white noise through the SoundLink)
Drains device battery streaming Bluetooth
Somewhat more prone to cutting out – not ideal for a white noise experience
Your phone has to stay in range of the SoundLink speaker

Technique #3: Connect via an AUX cable and play directly from your device to the SoundLink speaker

This is my favorite technique for turning a SoundLink into a white noise machine when I travel. The SoundLink travels pretty well so I often bring it with in my luggage. The AUX cable provides a much more stable connection to the speaker than Bluetooth does, in my experience. Once connected, set the SoundLink to AUX mode and play the white noise song like you would any song. Like the Bluetooth technique above, though, this technique also ties up audio on the phone.

Advantages

Strong connection unlikely to cut out
Easy to set up
Travel friendly

Disadvantages

Must keep phone close to speaker and connected from a wire – not great for in-bed phone web surfing
Drains device battery because it’s constantly playing music

Where to find a white noise “song” to play

You’ll need some kind of white noise audio source, whether it’s on your device (ie: saved to your phone) or on someone else’s server, such as Spotify’s. Honestly, finding a good song that would loop cleanly (no fades, no obvious markers of repetition inside the song) was the hardest part of this whole project.

Why I recommend Spotify

Spotify’s a great place to browse for white noise “songs” because you can find out if they loop or not without spending buck after buck or having to wade through reviews and guess. Spotify has a lot of white noise “songs” to choose from. Some are better than others – a lot of them have an audible fade out/fade in, which sucks and totally defeats the purpose.

After some trial and error, I found Pouring Rain – Loopable with no fade. This is my favorite “white noise” song on Spotify because it sounds great and I can’t hear it looping. I found this song inside a larger collection called White Noise Therapy, which has about a zillion similar “songs” to pick from so you can find your favorite (also good: Waterfalls and Dulled White Noise).

To get a single song to loop on Spotify, you have to make a playlist and put that one song in it. Set the playlist to loop with this arrow button:

Here’s the 1-song playlist I use for Pouring Rain (you may have to set it to loop yourself, I’m not sure if looping on/off is “saved” with a playlist). Since I have Spotify Premium, I downloaded the song locally to use it even when I don’t have a WiFi connection.

Note: I’ve never used Spotify without Premium so I don’t know what the non-Premium experience is like. Presumably, Premium means I can play it as much as I want and without ads, which is essential to having a nice, relaxing loop going.

Dig around in your favorite music streaming or music buying app and I’m sure you’ll find something you like.

Happy listening!

The best speakers for listening to Spotify via Spotify Connect

September 28, 2016 by M.B. Grant Leave a Comment

Sonos Play:3 – just one of the many great speakers you can pair with Spotify Connect

I’m a recent Spotify convert, but I’m already spoiled by the convenience of streaming Spotify music to a speaker over WiFi in my home.

This article is about how Spotify Connect works and speaker recommendations that suit your budget and any existing audio equipment you already have.

What is Spotify Connect?

With Spotify, your phone, tablet, PC, or laptop no longer has to be the source of the song files themselves. Pick a song and it plays from Spotify’s servers out of that device.

With Spotify Connect (a Spotify Premium feature), your phone, tablet, PC, or laptop can be like a “remote control” for the music you are playing, and a different speaker on your WiFi network can play the music.

You can play anything Spotify has on offer (which is a staggering variety of music, both niche and mainstream). Cool!

Some huge benefits to the Spotify Connect new hotness:

You don’t need to store the audio files on your device
Play from any of Spotify’s curated playlists (or your own custom made playlists on Spotify)
You don’t have to “pair” your device with the speaker
Your laptop or phone can still play its own sounds or make calls without interrupting the music
You can leave the room or even the WiFi network with your device and the music will keep playing
Sound quality is better over WiFi
Change which speaker is playing Spotify music without having to restart the song or lose your place in the playlist

With just a few drawbacks

Your device and speaker must be on the same WiFi network when you kick off the playlist
Spotify Connect doesn’t work with local files, so if you have a song that Spotify doesn’t, you won’t be able to play it over Spotify Connect
Spotify Connect is part of Spotify Premium, so you have to subscribe to get it

You can get some pretty complex setups going

From your phone, choose a playlist of lullabies for your baby’s room
From your PC, change the song being played through your TV’s PlayStation4
From your phone, stop music from playing on your PC in the other room… and start it playing in your kitchen
Ask your Amazon Echo (Alexa) to play a playlist from Spotify without lifting a hand

How to use Spotify Connect

Again, you have to have Spotify Premium. Once you do, in the Spotify app, click DEVICES AVAILABLE to get a list of available devices.

On Windows, it looks like this:

spotify_connect_via_spotify_app_on_pc

Select a speaker and, if necessary, authorize it to Spotify.

When you want to change which speaker or device is playing music, just pick that device out of DEVICES AVAILABLE. You can do this from any instance of the app.

So many different ways to play music with Spotify Connect

Once you see how cool Spotify Connect is, you might want to expand your speaker collection to take advantage of it. Spotify has its own long list of recommended speakers but this list isn’t sorted, features a lot of very high priced products, and doesn’t explain the overwhelming amount of options available (it also leaves out some really good choices).

You don’t necessarily have to buy new speakers – scroll down for some solutions for using speakers you already have, even if they aren’t WiFi. What you choose depends a lot on your budget, your wants, and what you already have.

In this section, I’ll show you what I would buy (or have bought) for playing music over Spotify Connect in a variety of scenarios.

Best Standalone WiFi speakers for Spotify Connect

These are speakers with the built-in ability to connect to a WiFi network. This is as “plug and play” as it gets. You simply put your WiFi speaker on the network, authorize it to Spotify, and there you go – now you can play anything Spotify has to offer from that speaker!

Be careful that you’re buying an actual WiFi speaker and not just a Bluetooth speaker – a lot of Bluetooth-only speakers show up in searches for “WiFi speakers”. You want a WiFi speaker that’s always “on” and waiting for instruction from you.

Speaker	Price	Sound quality	Bluetooth	Special features
Bose SoundTouch 10	$$	Better	Yes	Remote control, 6 on-unit hotkeys you can map to play certain playlists
Libratone ZIPP Mini	$$	Good	Yes	10+ hour rechargeable battery, pair up to 6 ZIPPs
Libratone ZIPP	$$$	Better	Yes	10+ hour rechargeable battery, pair up to 6 ZIPPs
Sonos Play:1	$$	Better	No	Part of the expandable Sonos family
Sonos Play:3	$$	Best	Yes	Part of the expandable Sonos family
Bowers & Williams Zeppelin	$$$$$	Best	Yes	Deluxe audio quality

I picked these speakers because:

All are WiFi speakers
They all have excellent sound quality
They work with Spotify Connect right out of the box
Most are within a $200-$400 price range
All have overwhelmingly positive Amazon reviews
Some have nice extras like a remote control, a battery so you can take it with you around the house, or buttons you can save to certain playlists

Bose SoundTouch 10

I think the Bose has a slight edge when it comes to overall sound quality vs. the similarly priced speakers. It’s just got a wonderful richness to it that’s kept me coming back to the Bose brand over and over.

The SoundTouch is the most affordable Bose speaker with WiFi connectivity built in.

But wait, there’s more! The Bose SoundTouch 10 has 6 customizable buttons that you can map to actions, such as playing a particular Spotify playlist. 1 can be your “morning routine” playlist, 2 your “chillout at night” playlist, etc. The remote control gives you access to those same hotkeys.

Bose SoundTouch’s 6 buttons can be personalized: set them to play your favorite Spotify playlist, Pandora station, iTunes playlists, and more.

The SoundTouch 10 supports both WiFi and Bluetooth, so you still have the option to bring it with you to places where WiFi isn’t available and stream music from your device to it (provided you can plug it into AC power).

Libratone ZIPP WiFi + Bluetooth Multi-Room Wireless Speaker

The ZIPP comes in four attractive colors and is truly portable (and wireless) with a rechargeable 10-hour lithium battery.

With its beautiful physical design and excellent sound quality, the ZIPP WiFi + Bluetooth Multi-Room wireless speaker is like an Amazon Tap on steroids. The 360 degree sound projection, carry strap, and 10-hour lithium battery all add up to make the Zipp the most portable WiFi capable speaker in this comparison. The ZIPP might be the perfect speaker for you if you want fantastic sound out of a speaker you can easily grab and take with you into the backyard, along on a road trip to the beach, or into your apartment complex’s rec room.

It comes in two versions that are fairly close in price and features: ZIPP and ZIPP Mini.

libratone_zipp_vs_zipp_mini

These two speakers are almost identical in features (battery, carry strap, touch controls on top). The major difference is the wattage and the size of the woofer, which mainly affects the overall sound quality and how well it holds up at louder volumes.

ZIPP speaker

4″ neodynium woofer
100 watts total power
10 hour battery
3.3 lbs
10.3″ tall

ZIPP Mini speaker

3″ neodynium woofer
60 watts total power
10 hour battery
2.4 lbs
8.8″ tall

If you’re having a hard time deciding, go with the full size ZIPP. These two speakers are very close in price and the bigger ZIPP has an edge when it comes to overall sound quality.

Sonos Play:1 Compact Smart Speaker

The Sonos Play:1 offers some of the best sound quality you can find at this price point.

The Sonos Play:1 Compact Smart Speaker is part of a whole family of amazing-sounding speakers that coordinate to play the same song in multiple rooms, or stream (via Sonos’s own proprietary app) different songs to different speakers.

The Play:1 is actually the entry-level speaker in the family: there’s also the Sonos Play:3 and the Sonos Play:5, which are also WiFi enabled and better at filling larger areas with even better sound. The Play:1 is at home on your desktop or bedroom, somewhere where you aren’t necessarily trying to fill the room but just want some easy listening right next to where you’re sitting. It still sounds good at higher volumes, but if you think you’ll be regularly filling a room with music, the Sonos Play:3 is better suited to that job.

When you synchronize a whole bunch of Sonos speakers, the auditory experience is nothing short of incredible, and there’s virtually no limit to how big an indoor space you can soak with Sonos goodness.

There isn’t a bad one in the bunch: the whole Sonos Play family is fantastic.

If you only intend to get one speaker you’ll miss out on the Sonos’s unique feature and major selling point: its ability to integrate with a collection of Sonos speakers. With multiple Sonos speakers, you can fill a room or have the same song play in multiple rooms.

Sonos Play:3 Smart Speaker for Streaming Music

banner_up_a_notch

Bigger, better sound from the Sonos Play:3 make it a smart choice for better, bigger rooms.

If your budget allows for it, it’s totally worth it to go up a bracket and get the Play:3. Compared to the Play:1, the 3’s sound is richer, deeper, and crystal clear even at high volumes.

The Sonos Play:3 has two mid-range drivers, one tweeter (each with their own dedicated amp), and a bass radiator (contrast with the Play:1’s two custom-designed drivers with dedicated amps). Basically, the Play:3 adds a tweeter and bass radiator – and what you hear is a richer range of sound. It’s serious business in a fairly conveniently sized package.

You can orient it vertically or horizontally. There’s no battery in it, so it’s not really meant to be portable, and it works with virtually any streaming service, not just Spotify Connect.

Bowers & Williams Zeppelin

Full disclosure: I don’t own this speaker and I don’t know anyone who does, so it’s the only speaker in this list I haven’t tried in person and listened to myself. Spotify.com recommends it, though, and I felt this list could use at least one super deluxe option.

The Bowers & Williams Zeppelin has the widest “stereo image” of all the speakers in this list. (Normally you’d use multiple speakers to get a wider stereo image.) The Zeppelin has 2 double dome tweeters, two midrange drivers with FST technology and a 6.5″ subwoofer for deep bass. If that comes off as just a bunch of jargon, don’t worry – it means this speaker has multiple sets of what makes speakers sound great, plus a generously sized subwoofer for its size.

This is a total luxury purchase for music streaming. If you want the experience of multiple good speakers packed into one awesome speaker (and your budget is generous), check out the Bowers & Williams Zeppelin.

I have an awesome home theater and I want to play Spotify music through it over WiFi

Cheap solution: get an Amazon Echo Dot. Amazon Echo Dot turns any speaker into a Spotify Connect capable speaker. You can control a Dot (and through it, your speakers) with your voice or the Alexa app. (See the Dot section further down in this article to learn more about using Dot with Spotify Connect).

Pricier solution: upgrade your receiver. If your current one is kinda old and you want more ports, WiFi support, etc, you might be best off upgrading your receiver to a WiFi receiver (and keeping all your existing speakers).

The Onkyo HT-R593 is a reasonably priced choice that supports both Bluetooth and WiFi. This isn’t quite the one my family uses, but it’s close (ours was part of an Onkyo speaker bundle).

Upgrade to a WiFi capable receiver and you can stream Spotify to your existing home theater setup. Look, it even has a Spotify sticker on it!

I don’t have an awesome home theater but now I kinda want one

Now, if you want to upgrade your entire home theater speaker setup, check out the Onkyo HT-S7700 5.1.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver/Speaker Package. This is what we have in our house for TV/movies/gaming/recreational music listening and it’s just an amazing home theater set. The bundled receiver works great with Spotify.

The Onkyo HT-S7700 is an all-in-one home theater package (5 speakers and a WiFi capable receiver). We often stream Spotify to it when chillin’ out in the family room.

I have (or want) an Amazon Echo, how does well Echo work with Spotify?

In a word: seamlessly.

I use Spotify Connect with my Amazon Echo all the time. The Echo lives on my nightstand and gets a lot of use as a late-night relaxing music playing machine. Spotify Connect totally replaced Amazon Music for me, which I was only using begrudgingly (the Windows application interface takes some getting used to, and I hate when I ask it to play a song and get a sample instead).

You can tell it, “Alexa, play <PlaylistName> playlist from Spotify” and it’ll find the playlist, whether it’s a Spotify playlist or one you created yourself. You can also set Spotify as the default music player so you don’t have to specify, “from Spotify”.

One caveat: Spotify has a lot of its own playlists, so you might have to come up with creative names for the playlists you make. For instance, I struggled to get Alexa to understand that “New Stuff” was the name of one of my playlists. I renamed the playlist to “Beep”, which Alexa reliably gets right.

New for 2016: The Echo now comes in both black and white so you can experience more choice paralysis in your life.

Now, as far as being a speaker goes, the Echo is just okay. It’s better at low and medium volumes than it is at high volume. I use mine for listening to “chillout” / “relaxation” type stuff before I fall asleep or in the morning before getting out of bed, and for that, it’s perfect. Virtually any similarly priced speaker from Bose, Sonos, or similar will sound better than the Echo does, but you don’t get all the cool voice control stuff.

However, Amazon has a solution to this. It’s called…

Amazon Echo Dot

Amazon Echo Dot turns any speaker into a Spotify Connect capable speaker. It’s also back in stock starting October 20, 2016, after selling like a heap of hotcakes this spring.

The Dot listens for your requests just like an Echo, and instead of using its own built-in speaker (which it has, but it’s pretty poor quality for music), it pipes the audio into the (much better) speaker you’ve plugged into it. The only “catch” here is that the speaker hooked up to the Dot has to be turned on.

connect_dot_to_any_speaker

Also new: you no longer have to already own an Echo in order to get a Dot – you can order a Dot directly from Amazon.com.

Dot also comes in both black and white now!

Awesome speakers on your computer itself

If you spend a lot of time on your computer (and keep it on a lot) like I do, you might like having a good set of speakers on your computer itself. As long as my computer is turned on and Spotify is open (which is almost always true), I can stream Spotify music through my PC’s speakers from any instance of the Spotify app.

Yes, this means I can be nowhere near my computer, controlling the music coming out of it via the Spotify app on my phone. (This is also great when I realized I left my computer playing music in the other room and don’t want to get up to turn it off. Apparently, I am that lazy. Also, we have a new baby, so little conveniences like this really add up.)

Attached to my computer are a slightly older version of the highly-rated Bose Companion 2 Series III Multimedia Speakers. These are the PC speakers I recommend to everyone who asks because:

the sound quality is incredible
they’re reasonably priced
they don’t take up a lot of desk space
you can plug your headphones right into the front of the right speaker without getting out of your chair

The sound quality way better than a few larger speaker sets I’ve owned that came with more speakers and a subwoofer.The headphone port is in a convenient place, too, not on some “pod” that’s easy to lose track of or on the back of the speaker. I’m still using these Bose “TriPort” headphones (mine are of 2006 vintage, they’re immortal), and when one of my favorite bands puts out a new album, these speakers are what I first hear it on.

bose_multimedia_speakers_for_PC

Why use Spotify Connect over WiFi instead of playing through Bluetooth?

When you play music to a speaker over Bluetooth, the sound quality is worse and you’re restricted to having to stay near the Bluetooth speaker you’re playing to. If you go too far or put the phone in your pocket, the signal quality is degraded or drops entirely. If you open a YouTube link, get a phone call, or something autoplays on Facebook, your music-over-Bluetooth stops and you get your (possibly accidental) audio instead.

Basically, streaming over WiFi is just a better overall experience, but you will still appreciate Bluetooth connectivity if you want to take your device and your phone outside of WiFi range. (In that case, I hope you have a good data plan or your carrier lets you stream Spotify for free, because streaming over wireless data is usually less than ideal.)

The bottom line

I love playing music to any speaker in my home with Spotify Connect, and I love all the conveniences of switching which speaker is currently receiving the stream. Streaming has largely replaced playing over Bluetooth for me, and it’s an all-around better experience.