Bose - Portable Smart Speaker with built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, Google Assistant and Alexa Voice Control - Triple Black

Add this speaker for a couple of years. Issues are the button identification is difficult if you have poor eye sight. Also when you run your fingers over the buttons you cannot differentiate between them. We have recently stuck a red dot on the volume up button. This is also helpful is the lights are off and what to use the volume buttons instead of asking Alexa to turn the volume down.

Basically, you cannot do anything without the Bose Music App, which IS NOT USER FRIENDLY. Seriously Bose, If I want to connect multiple wifi's to the speaker, why is there not a simpler function like a drop down list in the app? I am running circles connecting to the speaker wifi signal, then back to the app, then back to my normal wifi to JUST GET ONE CONNECTION RUNNING. That is a whole lot of steps and even MORE frustration when the app itself is not user friendly, and the speaker itself has toggle buttons to figure out to reset. I only got my speaker TWO WEEKS AGO, AND I THOUGHT... Let's connect to my cellular data, and also change my wifi bandwidth from 2.4Gz to 5 G. The speaker has good sound, BUT POOR functionality as a home base for your google assistant/ Alexa / smart home whose SOLE FUNCTION works with a home device that is easy to go in and out of different wifi networks. I mean, just to even see WHICH network the speaker is currently connected to, you have to DIG and search in to the Support > then go down the About info page to get to where the wifi SSID is listed. Seriously Bose??? This is supposed to be a PORTABLE speaker. You have to get it up and running to easily transition between networks! I should be able to EASILY connect to my home wifi, then when I am out to connect to my cellular data hotspot to USE HOME ASSISTANT ON THE GO. The technology is there! I see that the speaker detects my cellular hotspot. AND the technology for 5Gz network is there too to switch easily between 2.4 - 5 - to cellular hotspot. The APP however, is TERRIBLE. And you can't configure the speaker without it! Again, this frustration is on the APP and poor execution of the home speaker through it. I wasted a lot of time configuring this speaker. Right now, I have NO assistant (which i am supposed to have) and NO wifi. GREAT. I am only using it as a bluetooth speaker.WHY DID I PAY 400+ tax for THAT. And, not to mention because the speaker has both bluetooth and wifi built in, it DRAINS battery. Also, voice pick up is not quick enough.

I have had this for a couple of weeks now and love it. This it is the first item I have had with built in Alexa and thought it was going to be hard to get it going, but it was really easy. All I had to do was download the Alexa app on my phone and add all the other apps I wanted to use, like Pandora, Amazon music, and all the other music apps my family uses. The hardest part for me was remembering all my logins, lol I also added all my apps to the Bose app just so I have everything available and ready to go. Again all I had to do was download the Bose app. The Bose app is easy to navigate and get the speaker ready for use. It does get pretty loud and the sound quality is really crisp and clean. I love that I can take it anywhere I want to and listen to Music and the handle makes it easy to transport. As for battery life, can say yet how long it last when listening to music, but I do know it will only last about 2 days unplugged and on standby. It is a decent size and is nice looking for a speaker. I love playing with Alexa, and she does respond to everything we ask her. Playing music is so simple, can ask for certain songs, bands, stations, apps. Very easy to use. This is a great addition to our home.

(This review was collected as part of a promotion.) The speaker is nice looking, the handle is very convenient, and I use it with the charging base, which is not necessary as you can charge it with the cord, but it's a nice feature. This speaker sounds amazing. It has a nice balanced sound, not too much bass and not too much treble. And both can be adjusted if you could just easily access the Bose app… The Apps: The Bose app: This app is terrible. It just won't connect to my speaker unless I make my iPhone forget the speaker and then it will connect. Such a pain. I would've given this speaker a five-star rating, if it weren't for the problem connecting the app. I was getting really frustrated until I figured out that I needed to make my iPhone ‘forget' the speaker to connect it properly. Even the ‘help' section was useless. If this app would work properly, it would be awesome as it has satellite radio, TuneIn, and other features to control your speaker. Google: Now, in our house we had been using Google Home for our smart house features and for music, but the sound quality is horrible. I was excited to see that all we had to do was connect the Google app to this speaker and voila, we should have a better sounding experience. However, the Google app isn't properly supported with this speaker. We could only get the speaker to turn on lights and stuff, but to play music – forget it. It wouldn't connect to Google music and thus was pointless in having set up. So, we tried the Alexa app. At first it seemed promising to play music but there are no smart home features, so in using Alexa we lost that functionality. However, the Alexa app is not supported to use satellite radio i.e. SiriusXM. We have satellite radio and this was one of the reasons we wanted this speaker. Again, big disappointment. Plus, I think that because we are in Canada, we don't have the same Alexa app as is available in the US which, I believe is able to connect to satellite radio. So, I considered returning this ‘smart' speaker, but decided to see if there was a way I could use it without the useless apps. And, I can. I just Bluetooth the speaker to my iPhone and I can play SiriusXM, and music in my iTunes. I'm just really disappointed that I do not have access to all of the features unless I go through a few extra steps to get the Bose app to work.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] The Bose Portable Home Speaker is a great addition to the Bose collection. Super easy to set up and sync with the Bose app. In true Bose fashion is packs a punch with its sound quality. Got this right before hosting a birthday party was perfect for the music we played. Sounded great indoors as well as outdoors. Battery life is also good but with the charge base you never really run out of juice.