On my quest to find better-quality music on the patio, I ran across this pair of bluetooth LED speakers from Sengled: Pulse by JBL Audio. Pulse offers a matched set of stereo speakers cleverly disguised as lightbulbs that you install into a light fixture and can then connect to their internal JBL speakers via bluetooth.

Available in pewter (the option I chose), red or white, it’s a simple setup with thoughtful inclusions of stem extenders (the white things pictured above) that help if your fixture is a little too narrow for the wide base of the speaker bulbs (as mine is).

Sengled says these are not safe for outdoor use, but I’ve been using them all summer on the back patio, and because they mostly live in the light fixture we have there, and they point downward, I’ve not had any malfunctions or leaks.

When you install the speakers and turn them on, the first thing you should do is to download the Sengled app [iOS Store link], pictured above, which allows you to control the brightness of the LED bulbs (or turn them off entirely) and the overall speaker volume, which I always just control with my iPhone volume rockers.

At $100, a stereo bluetooth speaker set with this much power (it’s 13 watts and can be expanded out to a total of 8 speakers) is a value. It’s unobtrusive and handy for a space that you don’t want to install unsightly stereos and it’s especially handy when you’ve got the fixtures in place already. I imagine a garage or man cave would benefit from a set of these as well. Get your from Amazon here.