Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: The Bose Home Speaker 500, is a business known for producing high-quality wireless speakers, continuing a tradition dating back to the days of the Bose SoundLink Revolve+.
The Bose Home Speaker 500 costs a whopping $399.95 (£399.95/AU$599.95), making it more expensive than the combined price of the Google Home and Sonos One.
What exactly do you get for your money then? The Bose Speaker 500’s use of groundbreaking audio technology sets it apart from the competition and makes it an audiophile-friendly smart speaker. While the speakers from Google and Amazon are certainly smart, the majority of their smart speaker lines fall short in the area of audio performance. For sure in deciding whether to buy this speaker, our Bose Smart Speaker 500 review will provide all the necessary information for you to evaluate.
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: Design
The Smart Speaker 500 has a smooth elliptical shape and an anodized aluminum finish that, if you choose the silver variant, will attractively reflect the light in your space. Overall, it has a very noticeable appearance.
For those who prefer a less visible look, the glossy black version we tested, has a sleek look and might be a better choice.
An ultra-small full-color display on the front of the speaker shows the album art as you play music and has auto-dimming so you won’t be dazzled when using it in low light.
The display can also show the time, which is a nice feature, but smart displays like the Google Home Hub and Amazon Echo Show can show artwork, news, and more besides the time. That makes the basic Bose display somewhat obsolete.
The speaker grille is well drilled to ensure both sound quality and a high level of finish, and overall it looks quite nice.
There are controls for basic operation on top of the speaker, as well as six preset buttons that you can configure to play your favorite playlist, radio station, or album in one click. The Home Speaker 500 has been designed for voice control via Amazon Alexa.
Although Bose announced it will update the speakers to allow voice generation of the presets next year, you may already have stored the presets through the Bose app.
The speaker also has a light bar that changes color based on the type of audio input you’re using to play your music and glows when you interact with Alexa (e.g. blue for Bluetooth). You cannot use it as a portable speaker because it must be plugged in.
It’s really aesthetically pleasing and presents itself well enough to be the design centerpiece of your home without being too competitive with your décor.
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: Sound Quality
The only way Bose could justify such a high price point was by offering an amazingly sound product, which they were fortunate enough to do.
The Bose Home Speaker 500 has two specialized drivers that aim in opposite directions, allowing sound to easily bounce off the wall and fill the room. While it’s not a genuine 360-degree speaker array, it works as well as one. The tunes in Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” are clear, crisp, and precise, and the bass is deep and resonant throughout the space.
The sound quality is basically unchanged even when I turn the volume up as high as possible (my neighbors love me), although it’s not as sharp as at normal human volume. The mids and treble are where the Bose Home Speaker 500 really excels, with superb dynamics producing the ideal song after track.
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: Features
The Home Speaker 500 uses enterprise-patented microphone technology that allows speakers to take commands even when music is playing loud – it features an eight-microphone array for near- and far-field listening, and of its main selling points.
You can communicate with the speaker easily from the other side of the room because of the special ability of the microphone that can pick up our voice even from a considerable distance.
Currently, the Home Speaker 500 only supports Alexa, but Bose plans to update the new range to support Google Assistant this year. (Don’t worry, if you have different Alexa-enabled devices in your house, you don’t have to worry about them all turning off at the same time when you issue a command – only the speaker closest to you will respond.) .)
The original Bose Music app gave us some problems connecting the speaker to our WiFi network, and we discovered that its functionality changed depending on the phone model we were using. . For example, when we were using an older iPhone, the app didn’t recognize the speaker, but it worked fine when we switched to an iPhone 7.
You can connect to a variety of streaming services through the app, such as Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, TuneIn, and SiriusXM, providing you with a wide selection of podcasts, music, and radio stations.
The ability to save presets through the app is a useful feature whether you enjoy listening to a particular radio station in the morning or have created your ideal playlist on Spotify. Once you’ve done that, you can use the buttons on the top of the speaker to choose from up to six presets.
Through the app, you can connect to a number of streaming services, including Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, TuneIn, and SiriusXM, giving you access to a wide range of podcasts, music, and radio stations.
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: Smart Assistant
Can’t decide between Google Assistant and Alexa? Why not combine the two? You can activate any of the two beloved AI companions included in the Bose Home Speaker 500. On the surface, their powers seem pretty similar, but there are a few significant differences between the two. they.
While it doesn’t allow voice control, there are methods to help your assistant play music streaming services, and you can play everything through AirPlay (on iPhone) or casting (on devices). compatible) (Android).
Second, there is the problem of intelligence. While Google is definitely the best when it comes to general knowledge queries like “Who is the lead singer of Lime Cordiale?”Alexa is excellent for shopping requests since it conducts a more comprehensive search rather than just skimming a Wikipedia page (what do you expect from Amazon AI?).
Bose Smart Speaker 500 Review: Price
Well, you will need to pay $599.95 for this speaker. Many people will be baffled by the price, but remember we’re talking about Bose here. They wanted explosive sound and high-end electronics; Cheap and cheerful is not their thing.
The average cost of the speakers we tested was around $200, so there’s no escaping the fact that it’s definitely one of the most expensive smart speakers out there.
Conclusion
Check out our Bose Smart Speaker 500 review. You can spot the highlights that make it worth its price. But if you can’t afford this speaker, there are a few other options with equal quality (for example the HomePod costs $349 / £319 / AU$499, around $50 cheaper than the Home Speaker 500). Please refer to other articles on our website to see other quality speakers.
