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The new Transparent Light Speaker is a portable beauty

Its lantern-like look will brighten up any room.

The new Transparent Light Speaker is a portable beauty
Marc Chacksfield
01 November 2021

Transparent, the innovative speaker company, has revealed its latest design showcase - The Light Speaker.

The company, best known for its see-through speaker setups, has gone portable with its new speaker. Originally announced back in January, The Light Speaker is now available to buy and ShortList has been listening (and looking) at the things for a little while now.

The new Transparent Light Speaker is a portable beauty

Let's start with the design. The Light Speaker is lantern-like - made to looks like a traditional outdoor lantern, crafted using borosilicate glass and aluminium grills. To cap off the 'lantern' look it has a light at the bottom that glows as a candle would, with the flickering following whatever music you are listening to. The light base is also where the bass comes from, so watching it vibrate is pretty hypnotic.

It's got an IPX2 rating so can handle the outdoors (to a point) and has a modular design, with the idea that you can upgrade parts of the gadget if and when upgrades become available.

In our time with the speaker, we got around 10 hours' battery life out of the thing which is decent and were impressed with the sound. Connectivity is through Bluetooth only, so this speaker doesn't come with its own app. This does mean that setup is very easy.

The Light Speaker has been given a 5W power output, 2.5-inch full range driver and a passive 3-inch radiator and offers a warm, surprisingly loud sound.

The new Nightmare's On Wax album sounded fantastic through it and the flickering light was a great addition when listening at night.

The new Transparent Light Speaker is a portable beauty

There is some assembly required, but only if you want to add on the handle - simply unscrew the screws that are on the sides with the supplied Allen key and attach. Be careful, though, as we managed to slightly scuff ours when attaching the handle - a good wipe, though, and it looked like new.

The Light Speaker is priced at £290 / $370 and is available to purchase now (with shipping in December).