The idea for the hack started when Sonos announced a battery-powered speaker for outdoor and indoor listening — the Sonos Move.

But it came with the price tag of a whopping 399.- EUR.

So I wanted a cheaper alternative and looked up the IKEA SYMFONISK bookshelf speaker.

EUR 110 sounded a lot better to me.

IKEA items used:

SYMFONISK WiFi bookshelf speaker

SYMFONISK | IKEA.com

Other materials and tools:

Mi Power Bank 2S

Digital multimeter

Screwdrivers

Hot glue gun

Step-up boost convertor

Soldering iron

DIY IKEA SYMFONISK battery-powered speaker

I took an IKEA SYMFONISK WiFi bookshelf speaker, some already available instructions, a step-up boost and a few things I had lying around at home and went to work.

The first step was to figure out how to open up the SYMFONISK. Fortunately, someone already did it. I just followed the instructions here.

Then, I watched this video which explained how to make a Sonos Play:1 USB capable.

With the SYMFONISK opened, I removed the board and soldered two cables to it.

The next thing was to drill a hole at the back of the SYMFONISK to let the USB cables through.

I fixed the cable from the inside.

After that I soldered the USB cable to the step up booster.

Made checks with a multimeter to ensure that the power output is set correctly.

Last thing was to connect the cables to the power bank.

Here’s the final result. Photo below shows the back of the speaker, where the bulk of the work resides.

I added Velcro strips (black strips would be better) to fix the power bank to the back of the speaker.

And a video of the battery-powered speaker in action.

Please understand that if you do hack this battery powered SYMFONISK, it is at your own risk. You can lose the warranty, damage your speaker and/or hurt yourself. So be very careful!

Visit my site for full step by step instructions.

~ by Emanuel

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