Counter question: Where do the speakers get their power from in these two scenarios? I could well imagine that the power supply from the laptop via the hub (with possibly other consumers there?) simply does not provide more power...
Must be possible: I just plugged their USB-C cable to a multiple-USB-C power socket, and it works (sound streaming on Bluetooth).
- it frees a USB-C port on the Mac
- apparently, you can send sound to the Pebble (Bluetooth) *and* Airplay speakers at the same time after setting in the Midi Audio Setup utility. But you can't stream to Pebble (BT) and Sonos speakers simultaneously.
The manufacturer has not provided this information, but theoretically, if both devices (player and speaker) are Bluetooth 5.0, they should hold the connection to ~240 metres in open space, but of course this is not often seen in real-world usage scenarios