Bose - Home Speaker 300 Wireless Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant Voice Control - Luxe Silver

I am aware that I am cheap. But, I also believe that spending extra money is sometimes a requirement in order to receive a quality item. While the price of the Home 300 initially pushed me away, I have learned that Bose costs more because it is better. The user experience is polished, the aesthetics are sleek and not overly designed, and both the volume & clarity are on point. Even the bass is impressive for the small size of the unit. The reason I rank this speaker as 4 stars is the following: - The Speaker is not able to use all features of Alexa. For example, you cannot send voice messages from your phone using the “Drop In” or “Announce” features within the communication section of the Amazon Alexa App - No internal battery. The small form factor would be perfect for a portable speaker, but no luck. - The speaker does not pair with older Bose speakers - only the current generation & newer. - In order to get full use of all of the smart features, you need a smartphone or tablet to download the app. This might not be easy for older generations who are not tech savvy. - If an update is required, Set-up was a bit of a nightmare. The Bose Music app walks you through set-up (which is normally quite easy), but, for me, the speaker needed an update right out of the box. After waiting for over an hour, I restarted the speaker and followed the manual upgrade process found on the Bose support website. If the wireless update does not work for you, follow the instructions on the Bose website: https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/updating-your-home-speaker-300.html Not only does the speaker sound fantastic, but it truly does an exceptional job at dispersing the audio in a full 360 degrees. And though the music can get quite loud, it did a great job at picking up audio cues (“Alexa”) while I was walking around my kitchen and dining room. At first I was annoyed that the speaker required the Bose Music application, but the app truly makes it incredibly easy to program the 6 presets / favorite buttons. Starting a playlist could not be more simple. No need to have your phone handy and no need to wake up alexa and hope that she can understand which playlist you want - just press number 1 through 6 and your playlist starts right up! Bose has always excelled at getting maximum volume from small speakers and this speaker carries on that legacy. And with the touch sensitive buttons, a Bose speaker has never looked quite so sleek. With the indicator light on the front, there is just enough feedback to ensure effective communication and easy of use. This speaker has exceeded my expectations and is definitely worth trying out.

The Bose Home Speaker 300 has graced my home for a few weeks now. It looks fantastic with its seamless all metal enclosure. I have fallen in love with it and it is hard to imagine life without it. It may not be for everyone though. Here is both the good and the bad of our experience with the speaker so far. PROS - Airplay 2! This Bose is Apple Music compatible and it works seamlessly through Airplay 2. Once the Bose HS 300 was set up on our Wifi then all our Apple devices recognized it as a streaming option. - The music quality is rich, detailed, dynamic and balanced. I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of music. The bass goes much deeper than most speakers of this size. Quality bass - tight and well controlled. Mids are just perfect. Both male and female voices sound transparent as though the singer is in the room with you. Music sounds just as it should. That is, unless you get to the higher volumes. - Another positive is that Alexa can actually hear me VERY well. We’ve tried many smart speakers and have never had the microphones work so well. Alexa hears me clearly and accurately every time. Even from the other room! If only my devices with Siri could hear and understand me that well! - I love the presets. Bose allows you to set up to six presets for music playlists or stations and program them to correspond to one of 6 buttons on the speaker. So, I can play a preset just be pressing the corresponding button on the speaker. It feels old school in a very good way. I am pleasantly surprised how nice it is to play music without going through an app or voice assistant. By the way, there are also physical buttons which turn off the mic, change volume and just about anything else. - Finally, the speaker is SMALL. Daily, this surprises me. We have a few older Bose SoundTouch speakers in our home. The smallest in that series is the SoundTouch 10. The SoundTouch 10 looks like a large brick compared to the 300 even though the 300 plays much louder. Very great. CONS - A downside to the HS 300 is that the sound goes sour above 75% volume. At the higher volumes it sounds like Bose is engaging digital sound processing to insure that nothing distorts. The result is a really poor and unbalance sound. Seriously, it just sounds bad. That said, the speakers max volume level is really high so I doubt many people will listen to the speaker above 75% to 80% volume anyway. I imagine this is a necessary trade-off by Bose to keep the form factor small. - Also, there is often a delay with the play / pause button. Several times now, I have pressed the pause button (either in the Bose Music App or on the actual speaker) only to have nothing happen. I will try again several times before my music finally gets paused. Unfortunately, it will pause and then play again because of my multiple press attempts. It is as though the button is simply sending a command to the internet that is processed through a complicated web of computer coding before it registers. Our SoundTouch speakers do not have this problem. Hopefully this will get fixed via a firmware update. CONCLUSION The Bose Home Speaker 300, though not perfect, provides a great experience. I am astonished by the good sound quality, Alexa tis very responsive and the form factor allows it to look great in any room. This all adds up to a package that makes it my favorite smart speaker to date. I think it is just a matter of time before it outsells everything else.

Our household loves to have music playing at all times. Music is on in the car, on our phones, through Alexa, our TVs, you name it and music is being blasted. The Bose 300 was a welcome addition to our family as it enabled us to enjoy quality music wherever we took it. I think in today’s world we easily play and listen to music but you don’t realize the quality you are missing until you listen to it through a speaker like this one. The music is rich, bold and clear, reminding you of what you’re missing when you settle for cheap headphones or speakers. And it does a great job of surrounding you in music, hence the 360 degrees of sound. Connection was easy, you can use Bluetooth and Apple airplay and we love having an automated and connected home with easy access to all of our smart devices synced to each other. Bose Home Speaker 300 gives us that with Alexa available through voice, a simple touch, or though the easily connected app on your phone (I love technology!). Ask her to play music or the time and she’s on it all through the Bose speaker. There are buttons to save stations or playlists, but I never found myself using them, I just use my phone or voice control since they were always more convenient. The downfalls: it is light, 2.1 lbs and for something that is $260, that feels cheap. The “buttons” on the speaker are not buttons really, they are flat and painted on the surface, although they do respond to touch. The buttons are not illuminating, so if you’re in the dark and wanting to physically control them, they are hard to see/read. Again, I use the app or the voice assistant to control her so I didn’t find it much of a problem. It also has to have a power source and it has to be plugged in, so it’s not the small portable speakers you take with you to parties. If you want to change the settings such as bass or treble, you have to use the app, this may be inconvenient for some people. All and all, it’s the amazing sound and bass you expect from Boss with the modern smart features techies like me enjoy. I do wish it was more portable and not require that it powered with a plug all the time, but it’s a small sacrifice for the sound.

This is by far the best sounding connected speaker that I have heard 1st hand. Tho I have several Bose products so I’ve been fan. This smart connected speaker is no exception when it comes to the actual sound quality. Mid(vocals) are rich. Highs are solidly sharp. And the bass is strong. Thought I think it’s a bit too strong for my taste. But the fact that this speaker has that much power In a small form factor says A LOT! Set up takes a few minutes and that’s how you sign in to your music apps, choose your preferred assistant (Alexa is mine) and also tune the bass and treble. The Bose music app works well with many of your Bose audio products. As far as Alexa goes and the built in mics. They work great. Maybe not as perfect as the new echo but you can whisper to the Bose speaker and she will hear you. I tested google Assistant and she knows everything in the world. But I have prime and amazon music so I stick with Alexa. Note that you can only use one assistant at a time but switching takes a min or 2. Build quality is superb and is to be expected. Sleek and I like the light bar. It’s like the Siri light bar. I have an iPhone. I set up Bluetooth and it works as it should. But I most likely will only use my assistant feature so I don’t have to touch my phone. All In all this is by far a better smart connected speaker imo. If you want better sound and love Bose like I do. This is the one to go for hands down. You pay for quality. This is a premium price. Note I recommend turning bass down to -50 and treble up to +30 or somewhere in that area. That sounds best I think. Good luck.

Sound is amazing. Out of the box the bass and treble are good. Once you set it up, you can modify the bass and treble to your liking. But this thing has some nice clear highs and some nice deep bass for something as small as it is. This thing is roughly the size of two 20oz bottles put side to side. You can connect Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify Premium, Amazon Music, Deezer, and TuneIn. With Spotify, you must have Premium for it to work with this speaker. There are 6 handy presets that you can set to a specific station/playlist. To set the presets, you must start playing a radio station on the speaker from the Bose Music app, and then hold down the preset you want to set to that station (just like setting a preset in your car radio). And then when you want to hear a station, you just press the preset and it starts playing. Very handy feature. Connecting music through bluetooth is very convenient just like any other bluetooth speaker. One disappointment with the advertisements about this speaker was that I was under the impression that since this speaker supports both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant that I could use both. However, you can only use one or the other, not both. I originally thought Bose had created the end all of all smart speakers by integrating both at the same time. Perhaps a future software update could enable such abilities, but for now you can switch back and forth between the two voice assistants in the Bose Music app. This brings up a point that if you do not own a smartphone or tablet, you will not be able to set this thing up. So if you are buying this as a gift for someone who does not know how to use a smartphone or does not have one at all, you may be frustrating the recipient. Another thing that may be a negative but also could be a positive is that the speaker does not have a battery built in. The negative is that you are tied to an outlet, but the positive is that you will not have to ever worry about the battery life diminishing over time. As long as the electronics hold up and you have a power source this thing will work. The power input to this thing is 24V therefore most battery packs pushing 5V 2.4A or even a Power Delivery or Quick Charge Power bank will not power this thing. Overall, I really like the way the Bose Home Speaker 300 sounds after tweaking the treble from the Bose Music app to my liking. The presets are a neat feature to get to the music you want to hear right away. Voice Assistants work well. Nice build quality and form factor. Fills up a room with bass rich (can be increased or decreased) sounds. This is a wonderful addition to our house. Will look forward to adding more of these smart speakers to other parts of the home to make a network of speakers.

It works great! I love it it plays music beautifully and it sounds wonderful I reccomend it ! It's great for parties and it's very easy to move since it's not too big

Overall, the speaker has a clean and sleek look. The sound is very nice for the size of the speaker, the audio is perfect. However, whenever I use Spotify, there the volume seems to control it self at times. Not sure if this is a software issue or hardware. I never have issues on other devices. Right out of the box, the package isn't bulky but still provided enough protection. Super easy to set up via Bose's app. I personally used the Google Assistant and never had an issue with it, can not speak for Alexa. I wish it had a clock so you could place this on your night stand but its just a speaker that I use to entertain guest when they come over.

The Bose Speaker 300 is a quality speaker. I will begin with the build quality. It feels very well made and can easily be carried with one hand. The speaker includes an LED indicator light that illuminates when searching for a Bluetooth device as well as when using one of the built-in voice assistants so that one knows it is listening for a command. The device has many options available for streaming music. You may connect it to your phone, for example, via Bluetooth or even directly via aux input. If not through your phone, you may connect the speaker itself to a WiFi connection and stream audio with Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio, and several other online providers. Please keep in mind that this speaker does NOT have an ethernet port for internet access. I find the voice assistant feature to be very convenient. The device truly has multiple microphones on top of the device that can recognize your voice even when the music is quite loud. It also has a mute feature which disables all of the microphones that illuminates a red color when activated. As for the sound quality, you will not be disappointed. It features genuine, quality Bose sound with deep bass that can be heard throughout large rooms. No matter where you are in the room, the speaker is omni-directional meaning that the sound is always reflected towards the listener. The only thing I wish this speaker had that it does not include is a battery. I understand that it is meant to be an indoor stationary speaker, but it can get so loud that it is even suitable for outdoor use. I like to take it outside sometimes and listen while working, but the only drawback is that it must be connected to a wall outlet. Other than that minor imperfection, the speaker is worth every penny, and I know I will be able to enjoy it for years to come! If you are even considering purchasing one, please do! You will not be disappointed.