In the early days of the smart speaker revolution, finding a speaker that was both smart and had great sound was a challenge. Thankfully, those days are long gone. With products from Sonos, Marshall, Apple, and Amazon, you can now have your cake and eat it too. But before you settle on a new wireless smart speaker from one of those companies, you should consider the $300 Bose Home Speaker 500. With an intriguing mix of sleek design, expansive sound, and a choice of digital assistants, it could be just the smart audio device your home has been missing. But is it right for you? Let’s take a look. Available in your choice of triple black or a sophisticated two-tone of silver and white, the Bose Home Speaker 500 is deceptively sized. With an elliptical shape that is much wider than it is deep, its base is small enough that it should easily find a perch on a counter-top, bookshelf, or mantle. At just 4.75 pounds It’s also surprisingly light for its size. Nothing breaks up the speaker’s smoo...

Expansive stereo sound; Sleek, attractive design; Choice of Alexa or Google Assistant; Easy-to-use controls; Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and line-in options; AirPlay 2;

Expensive; Some music services not supported; Slightly awkward multiroom control; No Chromecast option for Android;

The Bose Home Speaker 500 sounds great for its size, and the bass rattling can be forgiven because it only happened on one track and wasn't actually distortion. Regardless of how rich and crisp the drivers can sound, however, the wide stereo experience that Bose claims is not something we...

Powerful audio performance with rich bass and clear highs; Streams via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi; Works with Alexa, and will eventually work with more voice assistants

Expensive; Display looks a little dated; DSP thins bass out at top volumes; Some deep bass causes enclosure to rattle

Sound quality amazing as it always is with Bose

The main problem is that the speaker has a very nice colour screen but it is impossible to get the album artwork on the display, so you never get to see the screen in action; Mine only shows volume or which device is connected, in black and white.

Cant use this speaker in a multi group speaker. I have several echo dots attached to speakers via aux. They all recognize each other and play with no problem. I have two soundtouch series speakers with echo dots up upstairs and they dont recognize bose smart speaker.

Unbelievable that this is not backwards compatible with the sound touch series! If you sit like me with such and want to expand the system, you are smoked! If at least one had been able to add old speakers just to be able to play songs.

"Alexa, play some new Trance music," a simple call that I make to the Amazon Echo Plus speaker at home every evening. At some point, my wife would chime in with a request for Alexa to play her Zumba playlist, and eventually, the parents would demand some order be restored with some Hindi pop or...

An Alexa-enabled Bose speaker

Great sound quality

Trusted Reviews went ears-on with the Home Speaker 500, the new smart Alexa-enabled speaker from Bose, at a cosy press launch at the AV manufacturer's recently refurbished flagship store on London's Regent Street. In lieu of our full review, here's how we got on.

Alexa and Spotify support; AirPlay support in the pipeline; Multiple mics mean Alexa will hear you loud and clear; Colour screen displays Spotify album art

Won't work with SoundTouch products; Expensive compared to rival products

The Bose Home Speaker 500 is a powerful chunky black anodised aluminium addition to the list of Alexa powered smart speakers at a premium price of $599 RRP. I listened to it for a week before it had to be returned to Bose but that was enough time to get a good impression of it's capabilities.

The idea seemed silly at first. Bose made an Alexa-powered wireless speaker with a little screen, a big $400 price tag and a promise "to fill any room with an astonishing stereo performance.

Great sound quality

Too expensive; limited