Are the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers any good?. How are they compared to other Bluetooth speakers? And what are the advantages of these speakers, if any?

We bought a pair of the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers with the idea of testing them out to see if they’ll work on a project idea that we have. But I did have some concerns about these, not the least of which is sound quality since it appears that it’s just a 1.5” driver.

Ryobi One+ speakers

I have to admit - I have an addiction. I have a lot of Ryobi One+ tools and gadgets in my arsenal as I’ve shared in the past. Among those gadgets are a lot of lanterns, an inflator, and a couple of radios/Bluetooth speakers. While I no longer really listen to terrestrial radio I do see the value of having an old-fashioned radio around in the event of some sort of emergency.

But for music or podcasts, my phone is the answer and I have an Apple Music subscription so I pretty much can listen to whatever I want.

So that previous radio/Bluetooth speaker how I judged the potential of these speakers. One of those radios is an older Ryobi radio with Bluetooth and, quite frankly, it’s pretty disappointing. It doesn’t put out much volume and the sound quality is pretty mediocre.

You’d think I’d learn. But I have found that, as time marches on, Ryobi’s One+ products keep getting better. Much better.

So my first concern about these speakers was the sound quality as it appears it may be the same driver (speaker) inside the enclosure. I fired up the first of the two speakers I bought and synced it with my phone which was quite simple to do. No fiddlyness whatsoever.

I always use Van Halen’s Jump as my sound test and, about what I expected, it wasn’t going to provide concert-quality sound. You can only do so much with a small driver like this.

There is decent volume coming out of the speaker and I was surprised as this single speaker seemed to be able to get louder than the two on the radio that I had. That’s a good sign.

Once I got the second speaker in on the party, it was even better.

I put the two speakers on the back porch of the house and cranked them up pretty loudly. Then I went to the other side of a building on the property and I could still hear them sufficiently well. Plus, the sound quality was clear with no discernible distortion.

Of course you’re going to get mostly midrange and highs out of drivers this small but the sound quality, all things considered, is not disappointing nor is the volume.

Bluetooth and linking advantages in the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers

This is a Bluetooth speaker first and foremost and setting-up the Bluetooth functionality is really simple. You turn on the speaker and look for Ryobi Clamp Speaker. A moment later you tie it to your device and you’re done. That’s it.

If you have multiple Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers then you push the link button on the primary unit and power-up the secondary speaker(s). Push the link button on that and, a moment later, you have them linked. There’s even a voice inside the speaker that tells you what’s going on.

Ryobi claims that you can put up to 150 feet of distance between speakers and that you can link up to 100 of these little speakers in a chain. Further, the company claims you can have up to 250 feet of distance between the initial source and the first/primary Bluetooth speaker.

That’s one great way to put sound in a large area. Instead of one or two speakers blaring audio, having a bunch of smaller speakers distributed throughout the area means everybody can hear what’s being broadcast while also being able to actually think. The old “wall of sound” is far less ideal to play for an audience depending on what you’re playing. Obviously this doesn’t hold true for something like an AC/DC or KISS concert.

I will say that I first linked the primary and secondary speaker to my phone but then wanted to switch to my laptop. The way I accomplished this was by asking my phone to forget the pairing so the laptop could take it over. So, there is no provision for multiple Bluetooth connections but that’s okay.

Using the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers with our RV

While we have an idea for a project with these speakers, what they will do quite a bit is play music and podcasts in our RV. We presently have that Bluetooth Ryobi radio that I mentioned that I don’t like. I also have a JBL Clip speaker which I do really like.

That JBL Clip has outstanding sound quality plus it’s really convenient.

So, quite honestly, these Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers do not sound as good as the JBL does.

I like that these use the same batteries we’re using for so many other things in our RV. Ryobi claims that, with a larger battery, you’ll get 32 hours of run time with these speakers. Not bad.

I also like that the heads can be moved around just like the Ryobi One+ Clamp Fan that we have. These are also the same size and incorporate the clamp so we can clip them to our awning or tables or wherever.

While I did say that these aren’t as impressive as the single JBL Clip speaker in sound quality, they can also be paired-up and can sit on a table as well as being clamped to things, so they win on flexibility. So that JBL and the Ryobi radio are both going to end-up on Facebook Marketplace soon.

A few more details

There are a few more things worth mentioning about the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers. There is a little recess on the back of the top of the speaker head on these which makes them very easy to carry. It’s a little thing but it’s pretty neat.

If you power-down the master speaker it will remotely power-down all the other speakers in the chain. However, powering up the master does not power-up the other speakers. If you do have 100 speakers, you’re going to be out in the field pushing a lot of power buttons.

There is also a play/pause button on the head of the Ryobi One+ Verse Bluetooth clamp speakers as well as a volume up/down.

Ryobi could do a better job documenting these speakers. There are a few inserts inside the package including one on a single-sheet instruction page that tells you how to turn on and sync one speaker and the subsequent ones. But the QR code on that sheet, which I thought would take me to more detailed instructions, takes me to a PDF of that very same sheet. Silly.

The other downside of these is that you can only buy them at Home Depot in the US which means you’ll be navigating the aisles waiting for a disinterested employee to get your products out of product jail if you can even find an employee who is authorized to release products from jail.

Unfortunately, in the future, when Home Depot is long gone we won’t have to wonder why they shuttered their operations. We’ll just buy stuff on the Internet where we can find answers to our questions and we don’t have to stand there with several other customers bemoaning the lack of employees to retrieve the products we want from jail.

I think whether or not these speakers work in your world depends on your use case which would include whether you’re in the Ryobi One+ universe or not. I will say that I have liked Ryobi One+ products for a while and they just keep getting better and better and more and more innovative.

If you join us in Quartzsite you will be able to see the sound project that we bought these for although, of course, if you’re camping near by we hope you’ll join us for a beer and a bit of Jimmy Buffett’s music played through these speakers.

Our video review of the Ryobi One+ Verse clamp speakers