JBL Clip 5 Portable Speaker – Squad

JBL Clip 5 Portable Speaker – Squad

The JBL Clip 5 is the fifth generation of JBL’s clip-on portable speaker, built around one simple idea: a speaker you never have to carry in your hand. A wide carabiner is integrated into the body itself, so the speaker hooks onto a backpack strap, a belt loop, a bicycle frame or the edge of a beach bag and stays there, playing, while your hands stay free. This listing is the Squad finish, a camouflage-style print that gives the fabric-wrapped body a distinct look next to the plain colour options in the range.

For this generation JBL increased the output to 7 W RMS and fitted a larger 45 mm full-range driver working with a passive radiator. The result is a speaker that plays louder and fuller than its size suggests, with the punchy low-end character JBL’s portable range is known for and a frequency response running from 95 Hz to 20 kHz. It is a mono, single-driver design made for personal listening on the move — music and podcasts for one person or a small group, close by, rather than filling a large room.

Key features

• 7 W RMS output from a 45 mm full-range driver with passive radiator
• Up to 12 hours of playtime, extended to 15 hours with Playtime Boost
• IP67 waterproof and dustproof sealed body
• Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint connection and Auracast support
• Wide integrated carabiner that clips to bags, belts and frames
• USB-C charging, fully charged in about 3 hours

Playtime Boost and battery life

The built-in lithium-ion polymer battery is rated at 5.32 Wh (3.8 V, 1400 mAh) and delivers up to 12 hours of music from a full charge, depending on volume and content. Turning on Playtime Boost in the JBL Portable app trades a little low-end weight for longer runtime and stretches that figure to as much as 15 hours — useful on a full day out when there is no charger at the end of it. Charging is over USB-C and takes about 3 hours from empty, and the speaker is made in part with recycled plastic and fabric in the grille, in FSC-certified packaging.

Built for wet and dusty days

The IP67 rating means the Clip 5 is sealed against dust and can be submerged in up to a metre of water for 30 minutes. Rain on a trek, spray on a boat, sand at the beach and a rinse under the tap afterwards are all within its design brief. That sealing, together with the fabric-wrapped body and the carabiner that keeps it off the ground, is what makes the Clip format work outdoors in a way a conventional box speaker does not.

Connections: multipoint and Auracast

Bluetooth 5.3 handles the wireless link, with multipoint connection so two devices — a phone and a laptop, for example — can stay paired at once. The Clip 5 also supports Auracast, the broadcast audio standard that lets one source feed multiple compatible speakers, and lets several Clip 5 and other Auracast-enabled JBL speakers play the same stream together. Playback controls sit on the body, so basic operation does not need the phone in hand.

At 86.3 x 134.5 x 46 mm and 285 g, the Clip 5 is small enough to live permanently on a bag strap. In Squad finish it is the version to pick if you want the current Clip generation — more power, longer playtime and Auracast over the Clip 4 — in the print finish rather than a solid colour.