Audio manufacturer Bose on Thursday announced the launch and availability of its new wireless smart speaker and two new smart soundbars in India. The Bose Home Speaker 500, Bose Soundbar 500, and Soundbar 700, first announced in August this year, will compete with products from brands like Apple and Sonos. With the new products, the company is joining the connected smart speaker race as they come with fully integrated Amazon Alexa voice assistant. Also, Bose has promised support for other voice assistants such as the Google Assistant as well. Additionally, AirPlay 2 support for streaming via Apple devices will be added by next year.
The Home Speaker 500 has been priced at Rs. 39,000 in India. The Soundbar 500 and Soundbar 700 cost Rs. 59,000 and Rs. 79,000, respectively. They will be available via offline channels such as Bose stores, Croma, Reliance, ezone, Lotus, Lulu, and Vijay sales, and via online channels such a Bose India site, Amazon, and Flipkart. Notably, these devices will so on sale starting Thursday, October 11 itself
Doug Cunningham, Category Manager in the Bose Consumer Electronics Division, said in a release, “Voice-controlled speakers aren’t new, and there are plenty of great options to choose from. But we had a different vision for ours, inspired by what we could uniquely do to make the experience better.” He added, “All of our new smart speakers double up on functionality. It takes just one Home Speaker 500 to deliver true stereo separation – there’s no need to pair two. Our Soundbar 700 and 500 are thin and discreet with jaw-dropping surround sound – whether you’re streaming Spotify or watching a movie. They combine Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for unbeatable ease of use, can be mixed and matched to play in sync or separately, and with new Alexa functionality and more VPAs on the way, they’ll only get better over time.”
Coming to the specifications, the new all the new Bose products use the company’s mic technology that is present in its headsets and headphones. Bose says it helps the devices to hear commands better over louder listening levels. Notably, the Bose Home Speaker 500, Soundbar 500, and Soundbar 700 come with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, and said to deliver “tens of thousands of skills for information, entertainment, smart home control, and more.”
Bose claims that the Home Speaker 500 has the “widest soundstage of any smart speaker available today.” In terms of dimensions, it measures 20x15x10cm and uses two custom drivers pointed in opposite directions. It comes with buttons for basic functionality located at the top.
Bose Soundbar 700
The Soundbar 500, on the other hand, measures 4x10x78cm and features a subtle matte finish. It’s said to be “smaller, thinner, and features a subtle matte finish to fit neatly under a television screen, virtually invisible.” Meanwhile, the Bose Soundbar 700 measures 5x10x96cm. It comes with a metal grille and a tempered glass top. It features a technology called Bose PhaseGuides that sends multiple channels of a soundtrack or song throughout a space, and place discrete sound in “places where there are no speakers.” Additionally, it is equipped with Bose DSP, custom low-profile transducers, and QuietPort technology. Also, to manage TV and other connected equipment, the Bose Soundbar 700 comes with an intelligent universal remote.
Bose Soundbar 500
Both the new soundbars use the company’s ADAPTiQ technology that helps the devices to “acoustically adjust to their surroundings”, and HDMI Audio Return Channel (ARC) for compatibility with future technology. Also, they can be wall-mounted or expanded with a wireless bass module and rear speakers “for a full 5.1 experience.”