Bose Home Speaker 500 is the new small house of the American audio brand. Small so to speak, when compared to other quality products, however the shape is challenging on the desk or shelf in the living room, but guarantees an audio quality worthy of the important name it represents.
The real killer function, however, goes far beyond the acoustic performance and ranges in an extreme versatility of options that make it a true butler of the house, and is the possibility of talking to Amazon Alexa , a extremely fruitful bond that adds to the qualities of the other Bose speakers and for which we will hardly do without in the future.
It is also compatible with Airplay 2 and therefore you can use it in a multi-room system controlled directly from iPhone and iPad or from Mac with independent volume adjustment or with different songs selected from your local library and from Apple Music.
We tried it for a few weeks in different areas, let's see how it went.
Bose Home Speaker 500, the review
Out of the box
The box of the Bose Home Speaker 500 is minimalist, because inside, in addition to the speaker, there is only the power cable and a few small introduction sheets. Even the installation of the hardware is quite simple: once the cable is connected, the small front display turns on and invites you to download the Bose Music App, from which you can then perform all the necessary steps.
From a physical point of view the diffuser (if we want to call it that but it is something else) is a tapered cylinder weighing just over 2 KG, with dimensions of 20.3 cm (H) x 17 cm (W) x 10.9 cm available in Black or Gray variants. No internal battery, the cable is the only form of power supply.
The surface is satin, with holes for the speaker in the lower part and a small display in the upper part, while above all touch controls are placed: finally, just below, the connector for analog audio input via Jack and the socket opens. power supply (with elbow connector, here perhaps something more standard was better).
The weight and shape make it suitable for flat and stable surfaces, obviously close to an energy socket, while a Wi-Fi network or the proximity of a Bluetooth device is sufficient for correct operation.
First installation
The installation phase, as we have said, practically takes place via the App for iPhone or Android: from within this you create a free Bose.io account, through which you can link the speaker to the owner and then, following the instructions on the screen, first perform Bluetooth pairing and then Wi-Fi pairing with Alexa.
In our experience the first association did not go completely well or at least it was partial with the recognition of the Device but music services that did not start. The second time, performed with the Alexa App already installed on the iPhone, everything went fine with the Bose Home Speaker 500 which started responding correctly right away, in a very natural way.
The Bose Music App, here on iPhone 8, which allows you to manage the various musical inputs and also connect Alexa
Music and More…
Operation via Bluetooth is simple but effective: the App is not strictly necessary but it is very convenient because the Bose Home Speaker 500 remembers all the devices to which it is connected and via the App allows switching between them very quickly, without having to forcibly turn off the bluetooth on one to switch to another. During operation via Bluetooth, the display shows the metadata of the song being played but not the cover image (pity).
The upper keys allow you to select the best input, between Bluetooth and analog, while the voice controls via voice are activated … precisely via voice. Although in fact using Bose Home Speaker 500 via Bluetooth is convenient to take advantage of the iPhone's internal library, in our case through the Vox App, it is obvious that the most fruitful and fun part is in the exploitation of the Alexa voice assistant.
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Small front display shows text metadata during Bluetooth connection 
With Amazon Music instead there is also the cover 
Ditto for the radio: here Radio DeeJay
The Bose Home Speaker 500 is in fact a sort of Amazon Echo on steroids, capable of picking up all voice inputs starting with “Alexa …” and thanks to the integrated technology it communicates with all compatible connected devices: Alexa's microphone is always on, for which is used for everything, for example also to turn on the speaker when stopped.
Regarding the things we can ask Alexa to take full advantage of the speaker, it depends a lot on how many and which equipment we have installed: strictly on the Bose Home Speaker 500 we can play songs that come from Amazon Music Unlimited, or Spotify Premium, Deezer or all TuneIn radios. .
Some of these choices are also adjustable through the presets at the top, so that it is easier to identify them (like the car radio in the car, for example): we used the presets to record our favorite radio stations. The quality level of the eight microphones arranged in a radius is very good and in almost all cases the speaker responded correctly even when we called Alexa with a lot of noise or with a song that was playing at an important volume.
The use with Alexa starts from the musical control, being able to choose a song (“Alexa plays In the End by Linkin Park”), an artist (“Alexa plays something by Hans Zimmer”) or an event (“Alexa plays the Sanremo songs “, in this case played in order of ranking) and being able to act on playback as well (” Alexa pause “or” Alexa turn down the volume “).
By playing a little with the App it is also possible to install some skills that work even without home automation hardware, through which we could listen to the news of Repubblica and those of Cyberlayman.it, so like calling a specific radio directly or asking what time it is.
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Without forgetting the audio
However, we would not like to seem trivial and allow ourselves to be influenced: the use of the Bose Home Speaker 500 is not only Alexa, mind you and when we talked about the comparison with Amazon Echo it was only for the smart part because here the audio performance is quite another thing.
The sound appears soft, full-bodied and well balanced in any situation: we used the Bose speaker both in Bluetooth playback and with Amazon Music Unlimited music and, always in Bluetooth, with a MacBook Pro for the audio of Movies and TV series with considerable satisfaction in all areas without noticing any difference.
We never noticed any inflection or flaw in the sound, and when we tried to crank up the volume, the barely perceptible distortion was perhaps due to MP3 compression of some songs via Bluetooth rather than a real defect in the speaker.
Conclusions
In the final judgment of the Bose Home Speaker 500, the brand name imprinted on the front counts a lot, because the legacy it brings is not a trivial matter: we can however say that the task is carried out flawlessly and that the Bose Home Speaker 500 represents for today an uncomfortable term of comparison for any other mid- or medium-high-end Bluetooth or smart speaker, because the access price of 449.95 Euro is still important.
The technical features are there, the integrated voice assistant is a very valid help and, in a nutshell, the one that until now has best managed to gain an important market in the sector, all seasoned with a mature and extraordinarily efficient App.
The aesthetic shape, minimalist, sober and authoritative, you may like it or not (but it is a design that those who use Bose know and appreciate), but if you want uncompromising quality, there is plenty of it here.
Pro
Versus • Price is important
Retail Price 449.95 Euro: readers can find Bose Home Speaker 500 in specialized Bose stores, or even online in the official store, but the product can also be found online on the Amazon.it pages, in both Gray and Black versions.
