Yes… there is, there are many differences, all of which combine to create a pretty substantial difference.
When it comes to the the specifics that differentiate bluetooth and wi-fi, particularly when you are considering streaming music, there is a sound quality (and other factors we’ll discuss here today) that are undeniable.
Lets start with a few different use cases.
When using Bluetooth you will typically be streaming music from a phone or tablet to your speaker or speakers.
Alternatively, when it comes to using Wi-fi you will most likely be accessing the music from either the internet or a computer on your home network.
Beyond that the biggest differences would be range, sound quality, and connectivity, all of which we will now discuss.
Bluetooth only has a range of about 10 meters. You may get a bit more, or perhaps less, but give or take expect 10 meters (or roughly 30 odd feet). This is something to consider because for example if you’re listening to a speaker in your yard, you can run into connectivity issues depending upon distance.
When you compare that to wi-fi on the other hand, wi-fi offers a much larger and broader range. As a rule, most people will be able to cover their entire home and even encompass their yard when it comes to using wi-fi.
Wifi’s data transfer rates are also substantially better than Bluetooths. This means that wi-fi will provide better sound quality.
Finally with wi-fi allows you to connect to multiple speakers simultaneously, which usually can’t be done with Bluetooth.
So there you have several advantages that wi-fi offers when compared to Bluetooth. Having said all of that, you should know that its not a complete blowout in wi-fi’s favour as Bluetooth does have a few benefits that slants things in its direction depending upon your needs.
First, is portability. To use wi-fi you need routers, so there really isn’t any portability to speak of.
Second, Bluetooth also uses less power than wi-fi.
So if you’re on the go Bluetooth is your best bet… but otherwise wi-fi outperforms in pretty much every other consideration.