JBL is quietly switching its Bluetooth speakers to one app

If you own a JBL Bluetooth speaker, heads up: JBL is quietly moving its portable and PartyBox speakers over to the JBL One app.

Until now, JBL has had separate apps for just about everything. Portable speakers used JBL Portable, while PartyBox speakers used the JBL PartyBox app. JBL One was mainly reserved for soundbars and home speakers. It looks like that’s finally changing.

We opened the latest version of JBL One and found a growing number of portable and PartyBox speakers. Once connected, we also found new firmware updates available for some of our speakers.

JBL One now supports a lot more speakers

The change covers a pretty wide range of JBL’s lineup. We’re seeing everything from small portable speakers like the Go 4 and Grip, all the way up to the Boombox 4 and massive PartyBox 720.

I tried connecting a few models we have on hand and had no problem adding them to JBL One. More importantly, the familiar controls are here too. Depending on the speaker, that includes things like the EQ, stereo pairing, lighting controls, and other settings you’d normally find in JBL Portable or JBL PartyBox.

So far, using our speakers through JBL One feels pretty familiar. Playtime Boost and stereo pairing are still here, and Auracast works the same way it did before. The overall layout is also very similar to the JBL Portable app, even if it looks a little different.

What happens to JBL Portable and JBL PartyBox?

For now, both older apps are still working, so there’s no need to switch over to JBL One just yet.

What happens next is less clear. JBL hasn’t said much about the change, and we don’t know how long it plans to support the existing apps or which older speakers will eventually make the jump to JBL One.

We’re also looking into the new firmware updates appearing in JBL One. We haven’t installed them yet, so we’re holding off on saying what, if anything, has changed until we’ve had a chance to test them ourselves.

We’re still digging into the change and will update this story as we learn more. For now, it looks like JBL is starting to bring its growing speaker lineup under one roof.