Bose Residence Speaker 500 evaluate

The world of smart speakers is ever-expanding, and the Bose Residence Speaker 500 is among the many. Bose has plenty of good audio system in its arsenal, and the Residence Speaker 500 fills the area of interest of being reasonably sized, however with loud audio. Is that sufficient stand out from the remaining?

• Bose Residence Speaker 500: $379 USD / $479 CAD / £359 / €399

The Bose Residence Speaker 500 is a smart speaker that works wirelessly over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth 4.2, with help for the SBC and AAC audio codecs, and it has a 3.5mm aux enter as properly. It must be plugged right into a wall outlet to work, and requires the Bose Music app (accessible on iOS and Android) to make use of Wi-Fi options, however these Wi-Fi options additionally embody Apple AirPlay 2 and Chromecast. There’s Alexa and Google Assistant integration, so you’ll be able to select which you wish to use with it.

The Bose Residence Speaker has capacitive contact controls on the highest of the speaker, which let you modify quantity, play and pause music, activate Bluetooth, flip the microphone on and off, and choose presets. You may as well management the speaker from the Bose Music app. It has an LCD show on the entrance, which can present what you’re listening to, and album artwork while you’re listening to music.

The speaker options two 2.5-inch full-range drivers, one on both facet of the speaker, and Bose advertises good stereo separation.

Arguably an important features of a speaker are how loud it will get and the way good it sounds. Fortunately the Bose Residence Speaker 500 does properly in each of these areas. The speaker will get fairly loud, even when the quantity is barely half means up. It sounds actually good, with a powerful bass response and nice treble. After I play Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift by way of the speaker, the bass sounds punchy and loud whereas not drowning out the oscillating synth, and Swift’s voice comes by way of clearly all through the entire observe. The bass may be a little bit bit loud for some by default, however the Bose Music app enables you to modify it or treble, which I discover actually helpful after I wish to keep away from irritating my neighbors.

The Bose Music app works rather well for essentially the most half. You’ll be able to choose your most well-liked voice assistant from Alexa or Google Assistant, join a music streaming service and select music, modify bass and treble as talked about, set up updates, and extra. It’s a easy app that helps out so much with getting essentially the most out of the speaker.

The speaker can join with different Bose speakers (to an extent, extra on that later) to create an ecosystem in your own home. This manner you should use your voice assistant in a number of rooms, play music in numerous rooms, and revel in your personal good residence setup.

The contact controls on the Bose Residence Speaker 500 are fast and responsive, and there are six buttons on the contact panel for presets, so you’ll be able to shortly play your favourite playlist or music at any time.

It’s additionally very aesthetically pleasing. The aluminum exterior works properly with plenty of totally different inside kinds, and it blends in simply in a house. The sunshine silver colour I’m utilizing matches plenty of my tech merchandise in my residence.

Instantly upon establishing the Bose Music app, the speaker had an replace. This replace took 10 minutes to put in, and made me assume one thing was flawed. Unending updates are a identified challenge with the speaker, and may generally take hours or by no means full in any respect. After downloading the replace, neither the app nor the speaker present progress for the way lengthy the replace will truly take to put in, so that you’re left to surprise while you’ll be capable to use the speaker. After that, setup does take some time and the method is kind of convoluted.

If you wish to use the Bose Residence Speaker 500 as a part of an ecosystem with a Bose Soundtouch speaker, you’re out of luck. You’ll be able to pair this speaker with different audio system that use the Bose Music app, however because the Soundtouch line makes use of the Soundtouch app, the 2 aren’t suitable.

Whereas the buttons are responsive, I want it had a means of letting you understand you used a management. A sound, or haptic suggestions, and even bodily buttons could be preferable. It simply looks like I’m touching a chilly piece of steel and hoping it does one thing, and it could be good to truly really feel like I’m urgent a button. The display screen exhibits a lightweight strip while you press one thing, however that doesn’t actually really feel like sufficient of an indicator.

A priority that applies to all good audio system is privacy. The entire level of a sensible speaker with a voice assistant is that it’s listening to you for a wake phrase or command, and the truth that it’s at all times listening could be fairly creepy. You’ll be able to flip off the microphone, however then you definitely gained’t be capable to use the voice assistant. Your instructions and questions are recorded and despatched to servers which helps voice assistant software program enhance. Your data is also collected by way of the Bose Music app, including to the knowledge corporations have about you. This speaker, and good audio system on the whole, should not actually for individuals who don’t wish to compromise on information privateness.

It’s a good suggestion to know what you’re entering into while you’re shopping for a sensible speaker, so right here’s a few of the most essential issues to know concerning the Bose Residence Speaker 500.

Total, the Bose Residence Speaker 500 works rather well and sounds nice, making it a strong selection for anybody on the lookout for a top quality good speaker. The most important caveat is simply how costly it’s, coming in at $379 USD. I’d advocate this speaker to anybody with some huge cash who desires a loud good speaker of their home. I wouldn’t advocate this for almost all of individuals, for whom the $379 USD price ticket could also be too costly. There are less expensive alternate options that might swimsuit these with decrease budgets, and this speaker isn’t the be-all and end-all of good audio system. I additionally wouldn’t advocate this speaker, or any good speaker for that matter, to individuals who don’t wish to compromise on their information privateness.

In order for you a less expensive choice with Google Assistant integration and good sound, the Google Nest Audio is a good choice. You’ll be able to even pair two collectively to get stereo sound, or put a number of in numerous rooms to create a house ecosystem. You’ll be able to choose up the Google Nest Audio for $99.99 at Google.

One other speaker with plenty of related options to the Bose Residence Speaker 500 is the Sonos One (Gen 2). It has Alexa and Google Assistant integration, streaming service integration, and in-app EQ within the Sonos app. It’s extra reasonably priced than the Residence Speaker 500, although nonetheless expensive. You should buy it for $199 at Amazon.