The Bose SoundLink Home is a chic Bluetooth speaker. As its name (and lack of an IP rating) suggests, it's meant for at-home use. Since it's small, portable, and battery-powered, you'll be able to carry it with you from room to room, which is handy if you often find yourself moving between the kitchen, bedroom, and living room.
Our Verdict
The Bose SoundLink Home is acceptable for listening to music. Its mid and treble ranges are well-balanced, rendering dialogue and instruments alike both accurately and with detail. This is a small speaker, so there's almost no low-bass, but there's enough mid- and high-bass to keep kick drums feeling punchy and basslines warm. You have to pair it with another unit to get stereo playback, and it's a front-facing speaker, so audio sounds different depending on your listening position. It doesn't come with a companion app to tweak the sound to your liking.
Balanced mid-range renders voices and instruments accurately.
No companion app.
The Bose SoundLink Home Bluetooth speaker isn't a good choice for watching movies or videos. It's a lightweight, portable speaker, so it's not really designed for that. It's not large enough to put out the kind of low-bass that makes rumbly explosion effects feel exciting. Nor is it going to make cinematic soundtracks feel especially wide and expansive since it downmixes your audio to mono. Fortunately, you can get stereo audio by pairing it with another unit, but you might find the latency leads to lip-sync issues. That said, different apps and devices compensate for latency in different ways.
Balanced mid-range renders voices and instruments accurately.
No companion app.
Downmixes your audio to mono.
The Bose SoundLink Home is decent for podcasts. Its well-balanced mid and treble ranges render dialogue accurately and with plenty of detail. Voices sound true to life. This speaker is portable enough to take with you from room to room, but since it doesn't get very loud, you'll find it better suited to average-sized rooms than larger spaces like garages. It's also front-facing so you'll want it pointed towards you most of the time.
Balanced mid-range renders voices and instruments accurately.
No companion app.
The Bose SoundLink Home is mediocre as a voice assistant. It does not have built-in voice assistant capabilities. However, you can use it with Siri or Google Assistant on your phone, and it does a passable job. It can pick up your voice from a distance and understand what you are saying, even in a noisy environment.
Excellent voice recognition even in noisy environments.
No companion app.
The Bose SoundLink Home is not designed for outdoor use. It doesn't have a water, dust, or impact protection rating, so take this outside at your own risk! Of course, it'll work to accompany you while you chill on your balcony on a sunny afternoon, but its small size and low battery life mean this isn't a good choice for soundtracking your next park hang or outdoor dinner party.
Balanced mid-range renders voices and instruments accurately.
No water, dust, or impact protection.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Bose SoundLink Home Bluetooth speaker comes in two color variants: 'Cool Gray' and 'Light Silver.' We tested the 'Cool Gray' variant, and this is its label. We expect our results to be consistent between variants.
If you encounter any other variants of this speaker, please let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review accordingly.
Popular Speaker Comparisons
The Bose SoundLink Home Bluetooth speaker is a forward-facing Bluetooth speaker from Bose. In that sense, it's similar to the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen) and the Bose SoundLink Max. However, where the Flex and Max are both IP-rated against the elements, the Home is meant for indoors. Its stylish design adds a touch of class to whichever room it's in. It would look great in a kitchen or living room, for instance. Of the three, the Max is the largest and so, unsurprisingly, gets the loudest, while the Flex is the smallest and quietest. None of them are huge speakers, so you'll miss out on low-bass thump with all of them, but all three pack a good amount of punch nonetheless.
Check out our recommendations for the best portable Bluetooth speakers, the best home speakers, and the best Bose speakers.
The Bose SoundLink Home and Bose SoundLink Max are both portable speakers, but they have different strengths. The Home is the sleeker version of the two. Its mid-century modern vibes add a touch of class to any room. But it doesn't have an IP rating against the elements, so it won't be the best companion for a camping trip. The Max is the larger of the two, so it gets louder and puts out more bass. Its IP67 rating and 15-hour battery life make it a better picnic buddy than the Home, and its companion app lets you adjust its sound to suit your tastes. That said, the Max doesn't have a mic, so it can't be used with your phone's voice assistant, unlike the Home.
The Bose SoundLink Home and Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen) are both small, portable speakers with a balanced sound that suits a wide variety of audio. But that's where the similarities end. The Home is sleek and stylish but meant for the indoors. It's not IP-rated against water or dust, and it has a poor battery life: this isn't a speaker to take on a picnic. By contrast, the Flex is well-fortified against the elements, but it doesn't look quite as fancy. If we had to pick a dealbreaker, we'd say the Home's lack of a companion app is a bit of a letdown, but that might not matter to you.
The Bose SoundLink Home and Anker Soundcore Motion+ are similarly-sized speakers with different use cases. The Bose is meant to be your stylish house cat. It's not rated against the elements, but its built-in microphone is excellent and makes it a handy companion for your phone's Siri or Google Assistant. On the other hand, the Anker has a water resistance rating, but its built-in mic is bad. The Anker also has a less well-balanced sound than the Bose, so voices in podcasts can sound a little muffled. But, in general, your use case will determine which of these you should choose.
The Bose SoundLink Home and the Bose Home Speaker 500 are both, you've guessed it, home-focused Bluetooth speakers from Bose. But there are some important differences. The Speaker 500 doesn't have a battery, so you have to plug it in to work. It's also a lot larger than the Home, so it gets noticeably louder and puts out a bit more mid-bass punch. On the other hand, the Home is battery-powered and portable but a bit quieter. Each speaker also takes a slightly different approach to voice assistants. The Speaker 500 has built-in support for Alexa and Google Assistant but won't work with your phone's voice assistant. The Home is the exact opposite.
The Sonos Roam 2 and Bose SoundLink Home are both small portable speakers with a balanced sound that suits a wide variety of audio content. As small speakers, neither reproduce low-bass thump, but both have enough high-bass warmth to keep basslines audible. The Roam 2 is a better outdoors speaker, as it's rated IP67, so it'll withstand a rainstorm, and its 360-degree design means audio sounds the same from whichever angle you're listening. The Bose has a sleek design that you might prefer to have in your home and supports Siri and Google Assistant via your phone. By contrast, the Sonos has built-in support for Alexa and the Sonos voice assistant, but not Google Assistant or Siri.
Test Results
The Bose SoundLink Home has a stylish and unique design among wireless speakers. There's something very mid-century modern about this speaker's sleek, elegant lines. A brushed metal band frames the speaker body while also elevating it above whichever surface you place it on. The bottom of the metal band is covered in a soft, silicone-like padding, so you don't have to worry about scratching your wooden tables. The speaker's body is covered in a grey cloth that complements the metal nicely.
The Bose SoundLink Home is remarkably portable. While not quite as portable as the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen), it's smaller and lighter than the Bose SoudLink Max, so should be fairly easy to carry from room to room with you.
The build quality is unremarkable. This speaker is designed to look sleek and stylish rather than withstand the elements. It's not meant for the outdoors, so there's no dust, water, or impact resistance. The aluminum band feels sturdy and high-quality. The cloth that covers the speaker's body is thick and feels good to the touch.
The Bose SoundLink Home's controls are excellent. Here are a couple of diagrams showing you how they work to control media playback and phone calls. The controls feel good to use. They make a satisfying click when pressed, and the layout is intuitive and easy to use. That said, it's a little frustrating that so many of the controls use the multi-function button, so you do have to remember a lot of button combos, a bit like using wireless earbuds. The speaker plays chimes when you pair it with a new device and reach the minimum or maximum volume. It also reads the battery level when powering up. You can use the shortcut button to pair the speaker with another unit for stereo playback.
The Bose SoundLink Home's frequency response accuracy is decent. It's a small speaker, so there's basically no low-bass thump to speak of. Fortunately, there's plenty of mid-bass and a slightly boosted high-bass, so kick drums and basslines sound punchy and warm. The mid-range is virtually flat, so voices in podcasts are reproduced accurately and with plenty of detail, while instruments sound convincing. A slight dip in the low-treble can rob vocals of just a touch of presence, but it's not something to worry about, as there's plenty of mid-treble detail and shimmer.
We tested this speaker using its Bluetooth connection, as we expect that to be the most common configuration. When connected to your device via USB-C, the sound is very similar, with just a touch more bass and treble.
The soundstage performance is disappointing. This is a forward-facing speaker, so you only hear its full sound when right in front of it. If you're behind the speaker, the sound will be noticeably worse. And unlike the Bose SoundLink Max, this is a mono speaker, so unless you pair it with another unit, some of the lush stereo details, like reverb tails, will sound quieter than you might like.
Fortunately, pairing with another SoundLink Home is fairly straightforward. Here are Bose's instructions for how to do so.
This speaker has sub-par dynamics performance. Since it's a bit larger than the Bose SoundLink Flex (2nd Gen), it's perhaps not surprising that it gets a bit louder. Still, at max volume, there's a fair bit of compression in the bass range, so your audio will be robbed of a little punch. At max volume, there's also a louder treble, which can make sounds like cymbals a bit piercing.
The battery life is poor. We expected better performance from this speaker, as Bose advertises it to last for nine hours continuously. But Bose tests their battery drain at 50% of the speaker's volume output while we run our tests at a calibrated volume of 80 dB. At that level, this speaker lasted for about 4.5 hours. For comparison, even though the Ultimate Ears BOOM 4 is slightly smaller than the Bose, it gets louder and lasts over 12 hours. That said, Bose advertises the speaker to take four hours to charge, and in our testing, it took just under three. The speaker also turns off after 15 minutes of inactivity, which is handy. But this setting can't be changed.
This speaker doesn't have built-in voice assistants. However, it has a built-in microphone, so you can use it with your phone's Google Assistant or Siri. The mic does an excellent job of picking up your voice, even if you're far away from the speaker or in a noisy environment.
This speaker does not come with a companion app. Consider the Bose SoundLink Max if app support is important to you.
This speaker does not have a 3.5mm AUX input, but you can connect audio devices to it via USB-C.
This speaker has a very good Bluetooth connectivity. Bose advertises the speaker to have a range of about 30 feet, but we found it to stretch as far as 334 ft / 102 m. This speaker will also connect to two devices simultaneously. When two devices are connected, you must first pause the audio playing from the first device before pressing play on the second.