Bose’s Fancy Home Speaker Might Be the Best Sounding Echo Alternative Yet

The idea seemed silly at first . Bose made an Alexa - powered wireless speaker with a piddling screen , a swelled $ 400 price tagand a promise“to fill any room with an staggering stereo system execution . ” I ’ve been using the Bose Home Speaker 500 for a little more than a month , and there are a few affair I do n’t like about it . But it sure as shooting does sound great .

I ’m tempted to say that the Bose Home Speaker is the well sounding Echo alternative yet , but that would be irresponsible . I have not hear them all . I have spent a good deal of fourth dimension with other Alexa - power speakers likethe Sonos One , the UE Megablast , the Riva Concert , and every Echo model . Until now , I would have fence that the Sonos One carries the jacket crown of the proficient strait . The Bose Home Speaker is serious , and it pains me to admit it because otherwise , it ’s just not a great appliance .

Bose Home Speaker 500

Photo: Adam Clark Estes (Gizmodo)

What is it ?

An Alexa - enabled Bose speaker

price

Photo: Adam Clark Estes

Photo: Adam Clark Estes (Gizmodo)

$ 400

Great intelligent quality

Photo: Adam Clark Estes

Photo: Adam Clark Estes (Gizmodo)

No like

Too expensive , limited

One of the most noticeable affair about the raw Bose verbaliser is the size . It ’s beefy at eight inches tall and nearly seven inches all-embracing , and the equipment asserts itself with its ellipse shape , which does n’t fit neatly into a turning point or blend in with a rampart .

Photo: Adam Clark Estes

Photo: Adam Clark Estes (Gizmodo)

Meanwhile , with its satiny Al soundbox , the verbalizer is almost attractive , except for this weird LCD screen door slapped on the front of the thing . Best I can tell , the screen exists exclusively to show album artistic production and exhibit the time when the loudspeaker is in standby mode . Maybe it will do more in the future tense ! “ Maybe it will do more ” is a running theme for the Bose Home Speaker 500 , in cosmopolitan .

It ’s severe for me to look at the Bose Home Speaker without thinking aboutthe iconic Bose Wave Radio of other 1990s infomercial renown . This is n’t because Dr. Amar Bose has forge a new acoustic inclosure for wireless loudspeaker . Dr. Bose pass away in 2013 . However , the eponymic troupe that he plant is doing something a minuscule piece dissimilar with the Modern Home Speaker 500 , while paying testimonial to its yesteryear . The verbalizer has two drivers that fool away music out the slope of the speaker with the goal of bound sound off the wall . That ’s the proficient part . However , the utterer also features clunky controls — including six preset buttons just like the one on the old Wave Radio — and limited compatibility with other sound system . Those are the bad office .

First of all , the restraint are too complicated . There are 13 button on this appliance , all of which are touch sensible and none of which offer any haptic feedback . So it ’s next to impossible to pink one without doing a bit of hunting and pecking . And although they ’re a sort of court to an honest-to-god coevals of Bose design , the six presets do n’t make a ton of sentience . you’re able to program them to represent a Spotify playlist with one sense of touch . But who wants six playlists on requirement , and what is more , who can retrieve what all of them are ? On top of that , they ’re set so nigh to the edge of the speaker that I found myself campaign the presets accidentally any metre I moved the affair .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

The sound quality is great , though . I ca n’t say that enough . In a side - by - side test , the Bose Home Speaker 500 blew my Sonos One out of the water , and the huge soundstage that it bring forth sound more like my Sonos Play:5 in a like mental testing . The Bose speaker ’s bass response was not as good as the Play:5 ’s , but you would n’t expect it to be since the Bose speaker is less than half the size of the big Sonos . The tuning of the Home Speaker 500 also extend a pleasantly balanced audio . The acoustical guitar sounds peculiarly acoustic , for instance , on Iron and Wine ’s “ raw as We Came . ” On the other end of the genre spectrum , the synths and kick drum on “ First Time ” by Kygo and Ellie Goulding sound massive like you ’re standing in a concert mansion house .

This might be good news for someone like me , who lives in a small apartment and might just need one speaker system for the whole nursing home . However , if you ’re looking for a multi - elbow room solvent or tot up to an exist system , matter might get tricky with Bose Home Speaker 500 . The Alexa - enabled speaker should work with the rest period of Bose ’s new sassy speaker lineup , including the Bose Soundbar 500 and the Bose Bass Module 500 , through the new Bose Music app . you may create group of speakers and take heed to the same audio on all of them at once , just like you may with a Sonos system . However , the Bose Home Speaker 500 does not presently work with the previous genesis of SoundTouch talker , which use a unlike app , or other Alexa - enabled speakers , like the Amazon Echo kin .

It ’s not alone for a wireless audio system to be restrictive . Sonos , for one , has a famously restrictive ecosystem , so much so that its speaker do n’t even provide the power to dally audio via Bluetooth . The Bose speaker does extend Bluetooth capabilities . The society also say it will add up AirPlay 2 in former 2019 . It ’s undecipherable if the company plans to add Google Assistant capableness .

William Duplessie

Bose has n’t been sufficiently transparent about the Home Speaker ’s lack of compatibility with its older products , and that ’s lame . It ’s a serviceableness issue thathas already upset a wad of loyal Bose fans .

Meanwhile , the push issue would be something that I could disregard on a inexpensive gadget , but for $ 400 , I require this speaker to experience everlasting . I ’d require it to attend arrant , too , but that useless fiddling screen bugs me . If Bose removed the filmdom and all the button , I could at least focus more on the terrific sound lineament of the Home Speaker . After all , it ’s potential that Bose could fix the utterer group berth with a software update .

I keep encircle back to that Mary Leontyne Price rag , though . Bose is famous for betray well engineer , extremely customized speakersfor too much money . ( Somebody has to pay for the informercial , after all . ) In my opinion , the company is start to strike behind in terms of invention , though . Bosewas once practically unchallengedin the randomness - canceling headphones grocery store , and in the preceding couple of years , Sony has franklybeat it by form estimable headphones . The smart speaker situation feels like an even more striking ontogeny in this department .

Starship Test 9

That gravid $ 400 price rag can be restore with a effective cut-rate sale . And it well be an incredible sales agreement because a Sonos Onecosts $ 180 , sounds almost as skilful , and is a hell of a lot easier to use .