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Bose has long been recognized as a major player in the world of Bluetooth speakers, and the company’s most recent product, the Bose Portable Home Speaker, is well positioned to further bolster the company’s already stellar reputation in this space. If 2019 was the year of the smart speaker, then 2020 is expected to be the year of the portable smart speaker.
The market is already expanding at a rapid rate, thanks to products like the Bose Portable Home Speaker and other competing models that offer the intelligence of Google Assistant and Alexa in addition to Bluetooth connectivity. Is it possible for Bose to beat the competition posed by Sonos. We put the company’s most recent portable wireless speaker through its paces.
Bose Portable Smart Speaker Specifications
| Specification | Detail |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 7.5″ x 4″ x 4″ |
| Weight | 2.3 lbs |
| Battery life | Up to 12 hours |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Apple AirPlay 2 |
| Voice assistants | Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant |
Bose Portable Smart Speaker: Design
The Bose Portable Home Speaker is made to be portable in every way, from its small size and light weight to its easy-to-carry bucket-like handle and IPX4 water-resistant housing.
The Portable Home Speaker is 7.5 inches tall and has an anodized metal enclosure that comes in silver or black. We prefer the silver model, which looks more futuristic, but the black one is a good choice if you like a simple look.
Overall, it looks sleek and classy, and it’s very easy to carry around. You’d be surprised at how many portable speakers are a pain to take on the road because they’re big and don’t have handles. You can buy this speaker from its official website
Bose Portable Smart Speaker: Features
When it comes to compact speakers, battery life is the most important thing, and this Bose model can play music for a good 12 hours on a single charge. That’s more than the Sonos Move, but it’s not even close to the Tribit XSound Go’s 24 hours. Still, this one can’t match the sound quality of Bose or Sonos.
Setting up the Bose Portable Home Speaker is really easy. Just open the Bose Connect app and follow the steps to connect it to your WiFi, choose your voice assistant, and choose your music and radio services. These include Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, Amazon Music, TuneIn, and many more, as well as AirPlay 2 for iPhone and iPad users.
Bose Portable Smart Speaker: Connection
The Bose Portable Smart Speaker, as was previously mentioned, is app-enabled and can communicate with other devices using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth 4.2. Bluetooth codecs such as AAC and SBC are supported. Good for you, iOS user; Android people, alas, have no equivalently guaranteed high-quality, low-latency option. Even though Bluetooth multipoint isn’t supported, you can still pair up to eight devices at once by storing their information in memory.
Sound Quality and Battery Life
The speaker cover goes all the way around the speaker, which makes sense since the speaker sends sound in all directions. I found that this design does a great job of spreading the sound evenly in all directions while keeping the power and clarity. The three passive radiators make just the right amount of bass, which also spreads throughout the listening area.
The battery life of the Bose Portable Home Speaker is estimated to be approximately 12 hours, but the actual run time will differ depending on the volume settings you use. The speaker comes with a charging cable with a USB-C connector that can be connected to a wall adapter. Additionally, a charging cradle can be purchased for an additional cost of $29.
Price and availability
Bose’s black and silver Portable Home Speaker costs $349, £369.95, and AU$499.95 (except in Australia, where it costs AU$649), making it only slightly more expensive than the $399, £399 Sonos Move.
The Bose Portable Home Speaker is more reasonably priced than its primary rival, the UE Boom 3, which sells for $200 or £200 while the Bose Soundlink Revolve, the precursor to the Bose Soundlink Revolve, sells for just $129.99 or £129.99 or AU$199.95.
Final Words
The Bose Portable Home Speaker isn’t the brand’s first outdoor-friendly speaker, and it shows. It has a beautiful, simple design and is built to withstand the elements. It’s also light, so you can take it with you. Having a handle that looks like a bucket instead of the Sonos Move’s concave finger grip is the icing on the cake for travel. Connectivity, battery life, and smart features are all good, and having both Alexa and Google Assistant built in gives you more options.
Bose Portable Smart Speaker review: The good and The bad
The Good
- Great design
- Choice of Alexa or Google Assistant
The Bad
- Expensive
FAQS
Anywhere you have Wi-Fi, you can use your voice to control it and play songs straight from the cloud. Outside of Wi-Fi range, you can use your phone or tablet’s Bluetooth to handle it like any other portable speaker and listen to anything you can play on your device.
On the back of the SoundLink Mini speaker is a normal 3.5mm AUX input that can be used to connect it to a device without Bluetooth and a headphone jack.