Bose’s sound addition to ANY room
Handy portable wifi speaker for homes
FRONT LCD SCREEN DISPLAYS BOTH TRACK AND ARTIST DETAILS
SPEAKER REALLY GETS SOUND TO FLOW AROUND A ROOM
Bose Smart Speaker 500
From €380 ★★★★★
Portable smart speakers are a wonderfully convenient way to get music and radio into any room of your home.
By using wifi or Bluetooth you can simply plug them in and have your favourite music, audio books or radio station playing anywhere in the house.
Increasingly, portable speakers have been getting smarter, and many now integrate the Alexa, Google or Siri assistants.
With the right setup this allows you to control smart-home devices, make calls or ask the assistant for help on minor everyday queries.
The Bose Smart Speaker 500 is a premium model, with sound that should set it apart from many other smart speakers.
In the box is just the speaker, a power-cable and a user guide.
It weighs in at 2.15kg, so it’s easy to move from one room to the other if you need to.
At just over 20cms tall and 17cms wide, it’s a discreet piece of tech in a living room. However, if you want to have it on show, it really does cut a dash if given pride of place on a sideboard or shelf.
Available in Triple Black or Luxe Silver, the latter version is extremely stylish with anodised aluminium and an attractive speaker grille.
On the front is a full-colour LCD screen which will show information on what’s currently playing, album art and artist details, and if you like, it can display a clock in standby mode.
The screen is not touch responsive, but it does dim based on the brightness of the room and will turn itself off if you’re not playing anything.
On the top of the unit are control buttons which you can use for play or pause or to skip to the next track of a playlist.
You are more likely to use the voice control or the free Bose Music app to control the speaker but the addition of reliable analogue buttons is a nice touch, and I found myself using them mostly for play or pause.
The app is available for iOS and Android and, as well as using it for speaker set-up, it allows you to establish the presets for the speaker, as well consolidating your music and radio stations in one accessible place. For household use, every family member can have their own presets and favourite music, which is a nice feature, and if you have multiple Bose smart speakers or a soundbar in your home you can group them for multi-speaker control.
The Bose Smart Speaker 500 speaker is equipped with wifi and Bluetooth and it has Chromecast built in as well as Apple AirPlay 2.
There are also integrated music services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Pandora.
And, of course, using Alexa or Google Assistant you can easily access other music or TuneIn Radio.
The integrated services provide decent options, but it’s fair to say if you can get audio on your smartphone you can then play it to the Bose and enjoy the superior sound.
Inside the Bose Smart Speaker 500 are two custom drivers that point in opposite directions designed to deliver a wide, true stereo sound.
For a device that delivers great volume, the Bose speaker also manages to make the Alexa or Google functionality work well, with an eight-microphone array that will hear you from way across the room.
Many smart speakers sound fine for audio books or chatting to Alexa, but the sound from the Bose Smart Speaker 500 is truly excellent, and moves towards an audiophile experience.
While those twin custom drivers don’t produce a deep stereo experience, for a single speaker they really do a great job of creating a wide sound stage.
Sitting back on the couch in a midsized living room this small speaker really does get the sound to flow around the room.
Bass is good, not overdone, with a smoother delivery than rival speakers such as Apple’s full-sized HomePod.
In a similar way to how some people love the marshmallow-like bass of Beats Headphones, some people are fans of the crispness of Bose.
I found the higher-end on jazz and pop a little flat for me, but Bose fans will be delighted.
If you already have some Bose kit already, or you simply want to upgrade the basic audio from most digital assistant speakers, while pricey, the Bose Smart Speaker 500 is a wonderful looking, wellmade device that delivers very satisfying sound.