Just months after unveiling its biggest speaker in the SoundLink series yet, dubbed the SoundLink Max, Bose has expanded the lineup once again with the SoundLink Home, an utterly sleek, classy, and design-forward speaker that takes aim at the likes of Bang & Olufsen and Tivoli.

New Speaker on the Block

While the SoundLink Max and Flex were designed around portability or adventure, the emphasis of the SoundLink Home is — you guessed it — the great indoors. This is far from the brand’s first speakers for your home. In fact, Bose centered its entire platform in the early ‘00s on the home theater market — super small surround-sound units designed to be heard but not seen. However, since dabbling in Bluetooth speakers for the past 13 years, they’ve yet to put out something like the design-heavy speaker you see before you today.

Bose SoundLink Home Basics

When looking at the SoundLink Home, the first thing you’ll notice is the fabric grill on the front — a first from the brand — embedded within the rushed anodized aluminum housing around it. The pass-through base doubles as a carrying handle of sorts, while the controls are up top.

Delivering mono sound, thanks to its full-range transducer and a pair of passive radiators, the speaker is designed to be paired with a secondary unit for stereo. If the units are close enough, they will each self-assign to either the left or right channel. And you can bet that the audio quality is superb, considering Bose’s reputation. 

Some Drawbacks

Measuring 4.33” x 8.5” x 2.34” and weighing about 2lbs, the SoundLink Home has 9 hours of playback but takes about 4 hours to charge back up again, which is less than ideal. Unlike its other SoundLink models, you won’t get an IP water-resistance rating this time around, so don’t bring this thing out to the pool or even to the bathroom. And while it isn’t that big of a deal, I would like to see some sort of app compatibility for mixing remotely. 

Nevertheless, the speaker is still Bluetooth compatible and features a two-way USB cable for plugging into your computer or phone directly for playback. Also, a built-in microphone lets you use this to make phone calls, which feels random considering the overall emphasis on simplicity.

Spec Sheet

Pricing & Availability

Priced at $219, the SoundLink Home comes in Light Silver or Cool Gray colorways and is now available from Bose’s website.

Bose SoundLink Home

Bose has a new design-forward SoundLink speaker that features a fabric grill for the first time but no water resistance, which is weird.