It’s been a big week for Bose. The company has released an update to the popular SoundLink Flex and an entirely new speaker to the SoundLink line. The SoundLink Home is their latest release and its unique design will turn heads. Unlike the Flex, which focuses on outdoor use, the SoundLink Home is better suited to the confines of your home.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t support Wi-Fi, a key feature in similar home speakers like the JBL Authentics series. Instead, the SoundLink Home is closer aligned to Soundcore’s Motion X500, focusing on sound quality above features.
A Unique Design, But Can Its Features Compete?
The speaker has a retro-style design reminiscent of home radios in the 70s and 80s but with a modern twist. While this design choice is bold and unique, its out-there approach is polarizing. Its broad swath of fabric that covers most of the speaker’s back and front is a large part of what gives it the classic throw-back look.
It doesn’t come with any water protection, meaning it’s best used in dry rooms of the house. This also means that it’s not well suited to outdoor use. Waterproofing is a feature that adds versatility and many seek it in even their home audio devices. Having the flexibility to take it outside is a powerful feature of any battery-powered speaker. With other Bose home speakers like the Revolve+ II and Portable Smart Speaker both having some form of water resistance, the SoundLink Home does feel a little limiting.
While the speaker lacks Wi-Fi, it does have a built-in microphone for calls and voice assistant use. But one has to ask the question of whether this is enough, especially with the SoundLink Home not being supported by the Bose mobile app.
USB-C Audio Feed
A unique feature of the SoundLink Home is its USB-C input. While it’s common for speakers to have a USB-C charging port, this speaker will also allow you to stream music from a PC or laptop with a wired connection using this USB-C input.
Pairing Two Together
Although it doesn’t support party mode where multiple Bose speakers can be connected in mono, it does have TWS support using Stereo Mode. This lets you pair two SoundLink Homes together and have each speaker become a dedicated right and left channel.
The SoundLink Home is available exclusively from the Bose online store and retails for $219, making it slightly more affordable than the Bose Revolve+ II.
