LG’s take on portable audio with a hint of celebrity goes second generation in the 2026 era of Xboom.
It’s a new year, and you know what that means: new gear aplenty. Yes, it’s that time again, as manufacturers look set to show us what’s to come, and LG is doing an awful lot of that over at CES.
There have been big new TVs aplenty, home theatre speakers, and even a robot that can do your laundry. But one of the gadgets that’s probably more attainable by most from LG’s slate of gear is the humble speaker, particularly the humble celebrity connected gear that saw release last year.
You might recall that LG teamed up with former Black Eyed Peas frontman and artist will.i.am ahead of CES last year for some speakers that came with a dash of AI-connection and a heart button, a feature designed to work with Apple Music that felt a little under-developed by the time it was released.
While will.i.am’s own FYI.Raidio service was supposed to be connected, the heart was a feature connected with Apple Music that required a lot of management and not enough ease of use, while FYI is different again, providing a music and AI service that uses digital DJs.
This year at CES, LG says the tech has reportedly improved, with FYI Raidiyo now integrated and allowing people to converse with the digital DJs, while that extra button now working with this service.
If you use Spotify or Apple Music, or really any other music service, the LG XBoom speakers still work in much the same way, only there are now four to choose from.
There’s a giant model, the Stage 501, which is more of a karaoke speaker with an AI system that can adjust or remove vocals to let you sing over them, and a good 25 hours of playback from its battery that can also be swapped and replaced. Lights are a part of the package, because you can’t have a big party karaoke speaker without lights.
Next is a big speaker made for outside, but not really karaoke. The XBoom Blast is a large speaker with up to 35 hours of battery life, but the battery can’t be swapped in a jiffy.
By comparison, the Blast is more of a ruggedised speaker, and kind of looks like the modern equivalent of a boombox.
Next are the compact models, with the Xboom Mini providing a pint-sized 10 hour battery life in a small style, while the Xboom Rock offers something similar with a touch more durability.
The speakers will apparently include some improvements for delivering sound across large spaces, with the big models even supporting a calibration mode to adapt the speakers to the places they’re used. All well use a degree of AI to optimise the sound, adjusting the equaliser to account for the audio being played.
Our only hope is that they turn out to be better than what we saw last year, which felt more like a first-gen product than something final.
There’s no word yet on whether Australia will see the full range, or even what the prices are, but we’ll let you know when that changes.
