Bluetooth speakers are convenient. They allow one to listen to music without needing a wired connection to whatever they are streaming their music from. However, there is one design flaw that can make an otherwise great Bluetooth speaker horrible – at least when the design flaw hits. That design flaw happens to be the nuisance of a nonstop “low battery” alert.

The type of “low battery” alert I mean here is not the type that interrupts the music only once or a couple of times (such as once at 20%, once at 10%, and once at 5%, at most). Rather, I mean the alert that interrupts your music every 30 to 120 seconds. Most Bluetooth speakers are designed to be listened to on-the-go, or in a location where there may not be the ability to charge the speaker. Therefore, it’s ridiculous to assume that the user can plug in the speaker, as there may not be any battery packs or outlets available to continue listening to the music while it’s charging. These alerts make the music so unlistenable that the user would might as well turn off the speaker, when usually the user would rather listen to the music until the speaker completely dies. The extra battery capacity that is spent crying about the battery being low is practically wasted at that point, so if a Bluetooth speaker has a battery capacity of 2,000 mAh, but 200 mAh is wasted with constant “low battery” alerts, then the battery is really only 1,800 mAh.

If you are currently designing a Bluetooth speaker, there is one way to fix this design flaw – limit the “low battery” alerts to three times in total, and make sure they’re decently spread out. This means that at most, have “low battery” alerts at 20% battery, 10% battery, and 5% battery. Additionally, if the Bluetooth speaker has an LED, make use of that to let the user know that the battery is low. Furthermore, make sure the speaker can be listened to while it’s charging. Surprisingly, some speakers will not let the user listen to them while charging, and to make matters even worse, some have both of these design flaws, which makes for an awful experience with the speaker. Finally, make sure your low battery sound is a bit less intrusive by only lowering the music for the duration of the sound (not pausing it or cutting it out) and making the low battery sound brief.

That’s all I have to say. I hope this helps you in designing a better Bluetooth speaker. Thanks for reading!