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 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 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.
Test Results
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