Bose Portable Smart Speaker review

The Bose ecosystem is vast, and smart speakers are a natural extension of the brand’s reach. The Bose Portable Smart Speaker aims to combine smart functionality with the ability to move from room to room or even outside.

But there are a lot of smart speakers out there; does the Bose Portable Smart Speaker stand out from the crowd? We spent two weeks with it and to learn everything you need to know.

What’s it like to use the Bose Portable Smart Speaker?

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker is compact and true to its name, with a handle you can use to tote it around. It weighs in at around 1kg and measures 191.5mm x 119mm x 104mm, so it’s not too heavy or bulky to move about. And the IPX4 rating gives you some reassurance against splashes or drips. You can’t submerge this speaker or subject it to harsh conditions, but incidental moisture shouldn’t be a concern. Bose claims it can sit precariously close to bodies of water, but it likely wouldn’t survive a plunge. Still, you can take it outside to a patio or park and enjoy a picnic with background music.

As a refreshing change from other smart speakers, the Bose Portable Smart Speaker isn’t too tricky to set up. Bose has a smart ecosystem in place, and this model is clearly intended to integrate with other Bose speakers. However, it can certainly stand on its own. You can set up either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, select a streaming service, and bark voice commands at it.

Being a Wi-Fi speaker with Bluetooth functionality introduces the same quirk as many other such configurations: syncing via Wi-Fi alone means compatible apps will play through the speaker, but everything else won’t. For example, opening YouTube on your phone when it isn’t connected via Bluetooth means the audio will play through your phone, not the speaker. To get everything playing through the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, you must set up both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections.

The control buttons on the Bose Portable Smart Speaker are all on the top side and include power, Bluetooth pairing, volume up and down, play/pause, mic mute, and an action button. This is also where the status LEDs reside, which can get quite nuanced. All of the buttons are concave circles and are indistinguishable from each other, except for a small nub under the power button. That might be less than ideal for visually impaired users. The action button can be used in conjunction with your voice assistant to perform various functions.

Voice commands are of course what sets a smart speaker apart, and the Bose Portable Smart Speaker lets you use them to raise and lower volume, ask questions, and more. However, not every music streaming service lets you play/pause content or skip tracks. Bose maintains a list of which services and smart assistants in various parts of the world you can control via voice commands. If your combination of smart assistant, region, and streaming service isn’t on there, you won’t have access to every possible feature.

The Bose Music app is necessary to get the Portable Smart Speaker set up with Wi-Fi. You also need the app to select either Alexa or Google Assistant as your smart assistant, and choose a compatible streaming service.

Inside the app, you’ll find a very basic equalizer that lets you adjust bass and treble. You have a rather limited selection of streaming services compared to offerings from competitors like Sonos. You can also assign a room and name to the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, so if you have multiple models from Bose spread out through your home, you can control them and move sound around. I can’t test this with only one speaker, however.

What I can test is how the Bose Music app interacts with multiple Bose products. See, you use the same Bose Music app for the company’s latest generation of audio products, such as the Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 or the QuietComfort 45. If you have a compatible set of headphones or a SoundLink speaker, you can take advantage of the SimpleSync feature. This lets you play the same content on multiple speakers at the same time or listen through headphones while controlling the volume of the speaker independently. Wearing my NCH 700, for example, I can head upstairs while lowering the volume on the Portable Smart Speaker downstairs independently.

Overall, the app is simple if a bit under-featured. You’ll need it to get the smart assistant working, but you can sync up the speaker via Bluetooth without it.

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker can connect via Wi-Fi using the app, as mentioned, or via Bluetooth 4.2. It has support for the AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs. That’s fine for iOS users, but Android owners don’t have a reliable high-quality, low-latency option available.

There is no support for Bluetooth multipoint, but you can store up to eight devices in memory to avoid needing to manually go through the Bluetooth syncing process each time.

You can also use Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Chromecast to stream your own local content to the speaker. The speaker doesn’t claim to support HD or Ultra HD playback, though, so if you have a big library of FLAC files, you won’t be able to take full advantage of them.

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker comes with a USB-C cable and an adapter in the box. That’s likely because charging it demands a hefty bit of power, which not every wall wart can supply. In our testing, we got 13 hours, 6 minutes of usage from the Bose Portable Smart Speaker with the constant playback of real music, peaking at 75dB(SPL) from a one-meter distance. That beats out Bose’s claim of 12 hours. This should be more than enough time to get you through a party or a day trip.

Bose sells a charging stand separately if you want a place to charge the speaker while it’s seated upright, but you can also do this with the included cable. The speaker can continue to play content while being charged. It takes about four hours to fully charge the battery using the included adapter, according to Bose.

Portable Bluetooth speakers tend to have a similar deficiency in their frequency response: a lack of sub-bass. This is often quite noticeable because consumers usually prefer a loud and powerful bass response from audio products. But smaller speakers just don’t have the room to include the large drivers necessary to make that possible. However, there’s a bit more to the story regarding the Bose Portable Smart Speaker.

Lows, mids, and highs

You can put the Bose Portable Smart Speaker almost anywhere you want, given it’s, well, portable. Placing the speaker in a corner (something Bose suggests you do) creates a surprisingly powerful bass response. In such a spot, the speaker reproduces a punk track such as 333 by Against Me!, with unexpectedly loud bass notes for such a small speaker. Thankfully, clarity is not too compromised, and the cymbals are still amply audible, as are Laura Jane Grace’s vocals. The bass is so prominent, in fact, that you might want to knock it down to -10 or -20 in the Bose Music app’s basic equalizer.

This surprisingly powerful bass response is only possible when the speaker rests on a floor or other solid surface near a wall or corner. Placing it on a table, for instance, removes most of the oomph from the low notes. It seems that what the speaker lacks in space for big drivers, you can somewhat make up for by considering where you place it. Indeed, you could hang the speaker by its carrying strap, but that robs you of quite a bit of bass.

If you’re worried about the clarity and instrument distinguishing capabilities of the speaker for mid and high notes, rest assured that unlike the JBL Flip 6, for example, the Bose Portable Smart Speaker handles these frequencies well, too. Tectonic by Brendan Maclean begins with synthesized electronic highs, and the speaker reproduces them all clearly. Once the song transitions to both bass and highs together, you can still make out the synthesizer, but it’s noticeably quieter than the lows. For songs like these, reducing the bass by -20 in the Bose Music app, as mentioned, goes a long way to make everything sound more equal.

Of course, the many variables introduced when listening outdoors mean its hard to say how this speaker will sound everywhere you go. But overall, the Bose Portable Smart Speaker reproduces an enjoyable sound profile.

Can you make phone calls with the Bose Portable Smart Speaker?

You can make phone calls with the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, but it’s not via your mobile carrier. According to Bose, as long as you use Amazon Alexa and the person you’re calling also does on a compatible product, you can place calls using the speaker. This only works over Wi-Fi, and it doesn’t work with Google Assistant. I could not test this feature, however, because I do not know anyone who also has Amazon Alexa.

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker lives up to its name and would likely work as a starter smart home speaker if you’re looking for something simple and easy to use. You get a good sounding speaker that functions both over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, plus it can even head outdoors to the patio or the park. You get your choice of Alexa or Google Assistant, which is handy, and if you use one of the compatible streaming services in a supported location, you can even control playback with your voice. Bose also offers other compatible smart speakers if you want to set up a whole-house system. Thankfully, it works much better out of the box than other smart speakers we’ve tested, too.

However, the Bose Portable Smart Speaker is quite a bit more expensive than other starter smart speakers. Your selection of streaming services is limited, and you’re buying into a walled garden. If you don’t mind spending the money and already use one of the streaming services it works with, you’ll likely have a good time.

The other big-name smart speaker ecosystem out there is Sonos, and the Sonos Move is a direct competitor at this price in the niche of “starter portable smart home speaker.” It too only supports AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs but boasts a more rugged IP56 rating. The decision would likely come down to other factors, like list of supported streaming services and the other devices each brand offers. Plus, the Move is not as portable, despite its name and design, thanks to being heavier and bulkier. Or you could opt for the Sonos One (Gen 2), which is not at all portable or able to head outdoors, but it is cheaper.

Sticking with Sonos, there’s the Roam. It’s cheaper and has an even more robust IP67 rating so it can definitely tough it outdoors. However, this smart speaker has far less battery life, clocking in with our test at around 5 hours, 23 minutes, well short of its claimed 10 hours. It can also be a hassle to get synced to Wi-Fi for the first time, which is necessary before you can use its Bluetooth connectivity.

If you’re deciding based on smart assistants, there’s the Amazon Echo (4th Gen) or the Google Nest Audio. Both are far cheaper than the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, but they don’t do bass quite as well and will make you stick with whatever smart assistant it has built-in. Fans of walled gardens might find the Apple HomePod mini with Siri to be similarly integrated into a likewise tight-knit world.