We Linked 150 of Ikea’s $10 Speakers to Make a Wall of Sound
An ambitious audio experiment brought together scores of inexpensive Swedish furniture retail speakers to test the limits of multi-speaker Bluetooth technology.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
An Ambitious Audio Experiment
When Ikea launched its affordable $10 Kallsup speakers, the Swedish furniture brand claimed it was possible to chain up to 100 of the 2.75-inch sonic cubes together. Intrigued by this capability, a technology team reached out to Ikea headquarters in Älmhult to push the boundaries even further. Ikea not only agreed to the test but upped the estimate, noting that linking up to 150 units without breaking the connection might actually be feasible.
To conduct this test, the team received 150 speakers directly from Sweden. Unfortunately, one unit suffered shipping damage and arrived with a loose interior rattle, leaving a total of 149 functional speakers for the installation. This hardware test set out to explore the limits of consumer-grade [Bluetooth speakers] in a high-density configuration.
Chaining the Sonic Cubes
The linking process itself proved remarkably straightforward. After pairing a single Kallsup speaker to a music playback device—specifically an [iPhone 16 Pro]—operators simply powered on additional units while music was playing and held down the Play button until a chime indicated multi-speaker mode activation.
Thanks to this seamless chaining process, linking all the units took roughly 30 minutes. The speakers feature [Bluetooth 5.3 support] and utilize a single 1.8-inch full-range driver powered by a 3-watt amplifier, omitting separate tweeters or woofers in favor of a compact design.
Building the Wall of Sound
As the team continued adding units past the 100-speaker mark, signs of the chaining capacity reaching its technical limit began to surface. While earlier units paired instantly, the incidence of failing to chain on the first attempt increased slightly during the final stages of the build. Nevertheless, no individual cube required more than two attempts to join the collective network.
With 149 individual 1.8-inch drivers active simultaneously, the combined surface area roughly equated to a single massive 22-inch driver. Combined with individual 3-watt amplifiers, the entire wall generated a cumulative rated output of 447 watts, producing sound levels that testers described as comparable to a fire alarm rather than a traditional hi-fi system.
Performance and Real-World Limitations
At modest, background volumes, the combined array performed surprisingly well, particularly when handling acoustic tracks. However, pushing the volume to maximum levels resulted in distorted audio lacking deep bass and sonic detail, an expected limitation given the hardware's budget origins and lack of the sophisticated digital signal processing found in dedicated party audio systems.
While assembling a wall of 149 units totals $1,490 and requires significant physical stacking effort without dedicated top indentations, the experiment successfully demonstrated the surprising wireless synchronization capabilities of Ikea's budget audio hardware.
Sources
- WIREDWe Linked 150 of Ikea’s $10 Speakers to Make a Wall of Sound
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