Built-in pool float speakers are mostly a gimmick.

Pool floats with built-in speakers exist, and most of them sound bad enough that you’re better off buying a regular float and sticking a waterproof Bluetooth speaker on the inflatable pizza.

Here’s what happens: the speaker is either a cheap little driver sewn into a pocket or mounted near the headrest. Inflatable material is basically taut rubber, so the whole raft becomes a vibrating mess. Water also dampens sound, and if you’re half-submerged, you’ll barely hear it. Then the float gets a punctured seam after a season, and now you’ve lost both a float and a speaker.

A separate waterproof speaker (like an Ultimate Ears or JBL) costs about the same as the “pre