Your Mini Jambox Can Now Talk to Other Mini Jamboxes

Jason O. Gilbert
·Technology Editor
Updated
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Good news for Mini Jambox owners: You can now set your little speaker up on a playdate with fellow Mini Jamboxes.

On Tuesday, Jawbone updated its Mini Jambox Bluetooth speaker with a neat new trick: Any Mini Jambox can now be paired with any other Mini Jambox to form either a left-right stereo pair or an even louder, tandem sound machine.

Jawbone calls the connection feature Multi Play, and any Mini Jambox will be able to Multi Play after an update.

The update can be downloaded now on the Jawbone website. Just connect your Mini Jambox to your computer and head to http://jawbone.com/update. For now, the function will work only between updated Mini Jamboxes, and not other models of the popular Bluetooth speaker.

So you can’t pair a Mini Jambox with a Big Jambox; nor can you pair two Big Jamboxes together. This is only for the Mini.

The Jambox is a colorful wireless speaker made by Jawbone, which is also known for its Bluetooth earpieces and its UP fitness-tracking band. You can connect any device to the Jambox and play music via Bluetooth connection. As of now, there are three different sizes of Jambox: the original ($150), the Mini Jambox ($130), and the Big Jambox ($299).

The Jambox is more expensive than some of its competitors, but critics have praised the line for its ease of use and sound quality.

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Multi Play connection is simple enough: Long-pressing the three top buttons on any two Mini Jamboxes connects them to each other and lets them play any song in sync. After you’ve paired the two, you can press the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons at the same time on either speaker to form a left-right speaker pair for stereo sound.

Once the two speakers are paired, either smartphone can control the music that’s played. I tried the Multi Play feature this weekend, and it worked as promised.

Both functions are reminiscent of features offered by the Sonos sound system. Jawbone representatives pointed out that the Sonos is a stationary system, while the Mini Jamboxes are designed to be transported around.

Multi Play is not a game-changing or ultimately transformative new feature for the Jambox Mini, but it is a positive sign that Jawbone continues to innovate and update its pricey little speaker with fun new tricks that cheaper models won’t perform.

You can learn more about the Jambox line here.

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