The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a large, smart home speaker with a unique zeppelin-like design meant to be a focal point in your home decor. It has a metal base, and there's a purple LED light underneath the speaker that gives the impression that it's hovering. It has Alexa built-in, and you can connect its companion app with music streaming apps like Deezer, SoundCloud, and Tidal.
Our Verdict
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is good for music. It has a balanced sound profile, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of audio content, and there's a bit of warmth and boom in the high-bass range. There are bass and treble adjustments in its companion app, meaning you can customize its sound to your liking. However, it lacks low bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble in bass-heavy music like EDM or hip-hop. That said, the speaker gets loud enough to fill large spaces with sound without much compression at max volume, so audio quality remains clean and clear-sounding when you bump up the volume and doesn't degrade when it's maxed out. Its soundstage is also wide and immersive-sounding.
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Gets loud.
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Little compression present at max volume.
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Bass/treble adjustments.
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open and spacious soundstage.
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Lacks low-bass.
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Not very portable.
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Doesn't connect with other speakers.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is decent for watching videos and movies. Its balanced sound profile ensures voices and dialogue in your videos and movies sound clear and present in the mix. However, while there's some warmth and boom in the high-bass range, it lacks low-bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble typically present in action-packed scenes. It gets quite loud, and its soundstage is perceived as wide and immersive-sounding. It has low Bluetooth latency with Android devices, so there aren't any syncing issues between the audio you hear and the visuals on your screen. While its Bluetooth latency performance isn't as great with iOS devices, it has low latency via Apple AirPlay, so you don't have many syncing issues over this connection. It's important to note that it isn't designed for use as a soundbar. If your TV is Bluetooth compatible, you can connect it to it. That said, there are no ports like an optical or HDMI port to wire it to your TV.
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Low Bluetooth latency with Android devices.
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Low Apple AirPlay latency.
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open and spacious soundstage.
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Lacks low-bass.
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No Google Chromecast compatibility.
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High Bluetooth latency with iOS devices.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is alright for podcasts. It has a balanced overall sound profile, so voices and dialogue in your podcasts and audiobooks reproduce clearly and accurately in the mix. It also gets quite loud with little compression present at max volume, so you can still hear your podcasts clearly from across the room. However, it's designed to remain in one place, and needs to remain plugged into a power outlet to work, so you can't easily move it with you from room to room. It also doesn't connect to other speakers, so you can't continue to listen to your audio on a different speaker when you change rooms.
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Little compression present at max volume.
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Bass/treble adjustments.
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open and spacious soundstage.
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Not very portable.
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Can only connect to one device at once.
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Doesn't connect with other speakers.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 offers excellent voice assistant support. This home speaker comes with Alexa built-in, which you can activate with your voice. It can register your commands even when you're far away or in a noisy room. You can also mute its mic when you no longer want it listening to you. It has decent directivity, meaning you can hear your assistant's voice clearly from most angles. It also gets quite loud, so you can still hear Alexa from far away.
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Gets loud.
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open and spacious soundstage.
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Alexa built-in.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 isn't designed for use outdoors.
- 7.5 Music
- 7.4 Videos/Movies
- 6.4 Podcasts
- 8.7 Voice Assistant
- 5.6 Outdoors
- Updated Oct 17, 2023: Added market comparison for the Bluesound PULSE 2i in the Dynamics box.
- Updated Aug 17, 2023: Updated the Portability picture for greater clarity and consistency between reviews.
- Updated Feb 17, 2023: Added a market comparison to the Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge to the Voice Assistant box.
- Updated Dec 05, 2022: Added a market comparison to the Devialet Mania in the Portability box.
- Updated Aug 10, 2022: Review published.
- Updated Aug 05, 2022: Early access published.
- Updated Aug 01, 2022: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Jul 29, 2022: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Jul 23, 2022: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
- Updated Jul 16, 2022: The product has won our suggestion poll, so we'll buy and test it soon.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 comes in two color variants: Midnight Grey and Pearl Grey. This review represents the test results for the Midnight Grey variant, though they're expected to perform similarly.
If you come across any other variant, let us know in the discussions, and we'll update our review.
Compared To Other Speakers
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a large smart home speaker with a unique design that offers fantastic voice assistant support with Alexa built-in. However, unlike the Bose Home Speaker 500 and the Sonos Move, it doesn't support Google Assistant. It has a balanced sound profile overall, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of audio content. That said, unlike the Denon Home 350, it lacks a thumpy and rumbling low-bass. Also, unlike other home speakers we've tested, it isn't designed to blend into your home decor but rather stand out as a main focal point within it.
Check out our recommendations for the best home speakers, the best smart speakers, and the best Alexa speakers.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 and the Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge are both high-end home speakers with unique designs. Depending on your style, you may prefer one to the other. That said, only the Zeppelin offers built-in voice assistant support. It performs a little better at max volume, so you notice less compression in the mix.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a better speaker than the Sonos Five overall. The Bowers & Wilkins can get louder with less compression present at max volume, so audio quality doesn't degrade as much as you bump up the volume. It's also Bluetooth-compatible, comes with Alexa built-in, and can easily register your commands from far away and in noisy settings. If you prefer listening to bass-heavy music, the Sonos can produce a more extended low-bass that lets you feel the deep thump and rumble typically present in bass-heavy music.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is slightly better than the Denon Home 350, though they're similar speakers with different strengths. Both are smart home speakers that offer fantastic voice assistant support with Alexa built-in. However, the Denon can produce a more extended low-bass that can produce the deep thump and rumble typically present in bass-heavy music. You can connect it to a compatible Denon soundbar too. That said, the Bowers & Wilkins offers a wider-sounding soundstage and has less compression present at max volume, resulting in cleaner audio quality at louder volume levels. It also has lower latency with iOS and Android devices, making it better suited for watching videos and movies.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a better speaker for music than the Bose Home Speaker 500 overall. The Bowers & Wilkins can get louder with less compression at max volume, so audio quality doesn't degrade as much as you bump up the volume. Its sound profile is also slightly more balanced. However, the Bose offers a wider and more open-sounding soundstage. It's smaller and takes up less space than the Bowers & Wilkins. While both speakers have Alexa built-in, the Bose also comes with Google Assistant built-in.
The Bluesound PULSE 2i and the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 are both high-end home speakers. Depending on your style preferences, you may like one look more than the other. The Bowers & Wilkins brings a little more low-bass, though, and since its voice assistant support is built in, you don't need to connect it to a third-party device like with the Bluesound. That said, the Bluesound does get a touch louder.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a better speaker than the Sony SRS-RA5000. The Bowers & Wilkins offers a more balanced sound profile that can produce a slightly more extended low-bass. It can play stereo content without downmixing it to mono, resulting in a more immersive soundstage. It can get louder with less compression at max volume, so the audio quality remains clean and clear-sounding at louder volume levels. It also offers fantastic voice assistant support with Alexa built-in. While the B&W comes with bass and treble adjustments, the Sony is more customizable with a graphic EQ and presets in its companion app. It supports Sony's '360 Reality Audio' format, which you can find on premium music services like TIDAL. It also has an 'Immersive Audio enhancement' feature that the manufactuer advertises to enhance the speaker's soundstage.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a better speaker than the Yamaha MusicCast 50 overall. The Bowers & Wilkins offers a slightly better balanced sound profile that can produce a touch more low-bass. You'll perceive its soundstage as wider and more spacious. It offers outstanding voice assistant support with Alexa built-in. It also has a better latency performance with iOS and Android devices. That said, you can connect the Yamaha to a compatible MusicCast soundbar. Its sound profile is also more customizable, thanks to the graphic EQ and presets in its companion app.
Test Results
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 is a home speaker that, as its name suggests, is designed to look like a hovering zeppelin. It's fairly large, has a sleek overall look, and is meant to be a focal point in your home decor. It also has a purple ED light at its base that makes it look as though the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin speaker is levitating. If the Midnight Grey color isn't quite your style, you can also find it in Pearl Grey.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 isn't designed to be portable. It needs to remain plugged into a power outlet to work, and its large and heavy design doesn't make it easy to transport with you. If you want a stylish speaker that's more portable, check out the Devialet Mania.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin wireless speaker's build quality is alright. Overall, it has a solid and sturdy build with fabric that tightly covers the front of the speaker. The speaker sits on a metal stand, and there's an LED light underneath the speaker that makes it look like it's hovering. You can enable and disable this light in the app. Its texturized controls are atop the speaker towards the rear, so you have to stand over the speaker to see them. Its power port is also on its rear. Since it doesn't come with an IP rating for water and dust resistance, it's best to avoid using it around water sources, like on your kitchen counter.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 has a fair selection of easy-to-use, standard controls. You can press the + and - buttons to control its volume. You can also double-press the play/pause button to skip to your next track and triple-press it to backtrack. There's a voice assistant button you can press and hold to mute the speaker's mic when you no longer want Alexa to listen to you. There's also a multi-function button you can press and hold to enable Bluetooth pairing, which causes its indicator light to pulse blue. Unfortunately, it's unclear what other uses the multifunction button has aside from Bluetooth pairing, and the manufacturer doesn't provide much guidance regarding its controls. They may assign it other functionalities in future firmware updates, though this remains unconfirmed by the manufacturer. That said, the multifunction button's indicator light flashes white when the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin speaker is plugged in, and pulses yellow when it's ready for setup.
- Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021
- Power cable
- Quick Start guide and Safety Warranty guide
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 has a decent frequency response accuracy. It has a neutral sound profile overall, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of audio content. The overemphasis in the high bass adds a bit of extra warmth to the bass. The rest of the range is pretty balanced, so vocals and lead instruments reproduce clearly and accurately in the mix. It lacks low-bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble in bass-heavy music like hip-hop or EDM. If you like to having more control over your speaker's sound, you can use the bass and treble adjustments featured in its companion app to tweak its sound to your liking.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 has a good soundstage. It can play stereo content without downmixing it to mono. It means instruments and sound effects in your audio are localized to a pinpoint location, so if you play a song that normally has the keyboard on the left and the guitar on the right, it emits the keyboard sounds from the left side of the speaker and the guitar sounds from the right. It also has decent directivity, so the speaker projects audio in a way that its soundstage is perceived as spacious and open-sounding. As a result, your audio sounds the same when you listen from different angles, like when you listen from behind the speaker.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 has a very good dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill a large room with sound, and there's little compression present at max volume. The Bluesound PULSE 2i is a good option if you want a home speaker that gets even louder.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 needs to be wired to a power source for it to work and doesn't operate on battery power. There also isn't a power-saving mode.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin smart speaker has a fantastic voice assistant performance. It comes with Alexa built-in, which you can activate with your voice. It has little trouble understanding your commands when you're far away and in noisier rooms. You can also mute its mic when you no longer want it listening to you. If you want a stylish home speaker without voice assistants built-in, consider the Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge instead.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021's Bowers & Wilkins app doesn't offer many features. It's compatible with iOS and Android devices, and there are bass and treble adjustments you can use to tweak its sound to your liking. You can also use the app to access music streaming services like Deezer and Tidal, though you need a separate subscription for some of them. That said, you can't use it to pair the speaker to other compatible speakers to create a stereo pair or to amplify your audio across larger areas. You also can't pair the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin wireless speaker with other speakers to listen to different audio in different rooms at the same time.
Aside from its power port, the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin smart speaker has a USB-C port to service the speaker. You can't use this port to playback audio.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin wireless speaker has great Bluetooth connectivity. It has fantastic range, so your paired device remains connected to the speaker even when it's far away. It also has low latency with Android devices, so your audio and visuals remain in sync when using the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin wireless speaker to watch videos and movies. However, its latency performance isn't as good with iOS devices, so there are some slight syncing issues when watching audiovisual content. Some apps compensate for latency differently, and your experience may differ.
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021 offers great Wi-Fi connectivity. It supports Apple AirPlay and has low latency via this connection, meaning you can watch videos and movies over this connection without any syncing issues. However, some apps compensate for latency differently, and your experience may vary. Unfortunately, the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin wireless speaker doesn't support Google Chromecast.