Bose is selling its new Home Speaker 500 system, which offers a compact smart speaker along with a pair of new soundbars that all sport Alexa functionality. While Bose cautiously embraced Amazon’s smart assistant in recent years, the trio of new products from the company are the first speakers to feature Alexa built-in.
The Home Speaker is a compact device which measure 8x6x4 inches. The speaker is equipped with two custom built-in drivers, allowing the device to reflect sound off of walls. Although TechCrunch believes the looks could be more appealing, the sound is really what counts.
The Bose Home Speaker 500 is focused on giving music the best possible sound while the Bose Soundbar 700 and Soundbar 500 focus on home theater-style simulation. The items crush the limitations of spaciousness from a single enclosure while providing superior voice pick-up with the power of Amazon Alexa.
There are eight microphones equipped with the soundbars to support Alexa, which are built from the same tech found on the company’s headsets meaning it should also play well with other Echo devices. The mics deliver instant, easy access to hear commands better over louder listening levels.
Incorporating Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Alexa enables millions of songs and easy access to information, entertainment, smart home controls and more. The products work brilliantly alone or together as a multi-room system.
“Voice-controlled speakers aren’t new, and there are plenty of great options to choose from. But we had a different vision for ours, inspired by what we could uniquely do to make the experience better,” said Doug Cunningham, category manager in the Bose Consumer Electronics Division. “All of our new smart speakers double up on functionality. It takes just one Home Speaker 500 to deliver true stereo separation — there’s no need to pair two. Our Soundbar 700 and 500 are thin and discreet with jaw-dropping surround sound — whether you’re streaming Spotify or watching a movie. They combine Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for unbeatable ease of use, can be mixed and matched to play in sync or separately, and with new Alexa functionality and more VPAs on the way, they’ll only get better over time.”
All three Bose devices will be available for purchase in October. Currently the smart speaker runs for $400, the soundbar 500 is priced at $550 and the Soundbar 700 holds a price of $800. Bose also mentioned that support for other smart assistants is forthcoming, with several new products up its sleeve, including an AirPlay 2 feature.
