The Bose Portable Smart Speaker Is Excellent
Before you buy more speakers, learn how to get the best quality out of the equipment you own. Even budget speakers sound better when used properly.
There are two kinds of portable Bluetooth speakers: some are so bulky that they don’t fit in your backpack, or they take up all the space, leaving none for other items. They’re meant to be portable in and around the house: you can take them from room to room, or into the garden. That’s about it. On the other hand, you have genuinely portable speakers like the Bose Portable Smart Speaker1. It fits in your backpack, leaving enough space for other things. It also has a handle to carry loose:
It can handle bumps, drops and light rain.
This speaker has excellent sound, not just excellent for a portable speaker. In fact, I was amazed to find this level of quality from a portable speaker. I was used to muddled, tinny, unsatisfying sound. The Portable Speaker’s sound is rich, full and detailed. I can hear each instrument clearly. You don’t feel like you’ve compromised by buying a portable speaker.
The bass is full. When placed 8 feet away, I can feel the bass through my feet. And a little through the sofa. I can feel it my stomach. Movies become emotional, bringing a tear to my eye at times. I thought that to get great bass, you need either a woofer or floorstanding speakers, but it’s amazing what this speaker can pull off, all on battery power. The rules of audio are being rewritten.
In fact, the speaker has too much bass, and I found these EQ settings to work well:
The speaker gets loud, in case you want to be overcome by music or dance to it. Beyond two-thirds volume, the quality decreases, so limit it to that. But that’s still loud. It fills the room. My friend used it for a party, and he said guests enjoyed the music.
I’ve never heard a speaker this small with such exceptional quality. I’ve listened to many portable speakers from Bose (SoundLink Max, SoundLink Flex 2, SoundLink Revolve+ II, SoundLink Micro), Sonos (Roam 1), JBL (Clip 4, Go 4, Flip 6, Charge 5 Wifi, Xtreme 3) and Sony (ULT 1, XB100) and Devaliet (Mania), and I’ve never heard a speaker with such exceptional quality as the Portable Speaker in its size.
If you have a budget speaker system or soundbar (let alone the built-in speakers of even the best TV like the Sony A95L or the best laptop like the Macbook Pro 16-inch), the Portable Speaker will blow it out of the water.
The Portable Speaker is a 360-degree speaker and it lives up to it: I can walk around the room and enjoy great music everywhere in the room, and even the next room. This is unlike my earlier computer speakers, where I had to be in front. With the Portable Speaker, the music fidelity from behind is 90% as good as from forward.
The only way I can make it sound bad is by comparing it to my floorstanding speakers powered by a receiver, which take up a lot of space in my hall, involve multiple cables, required me to get a rack made from a carpenter, required installation, and cost me 1.7 lakh. The end result is a user-unfriendly system in comparison to the Portable Speaker. If you don’t have the patience for this, get a Portable Speaker.
This speaker is bad for podcasts — it’s too bassy even at minimum bass, and voices are not clear.
It comes in white and black. Buy white — it looks beautiful.
Connection Types
The speaker has no wired inputs. It supports AirPlay 2, Google Cast and Bluetooth.
Among these, use AirPlay in preference to Google Cast in preference to Bluetooth.
Why? Bluetooth quality is noticeably worse than both AirPlay and Google Cast. In fact, I unpaired the speaker from my Mac, iPad and iPhone to ensure that I don’t accidentally select Bluetooth. Having said that, when I take the speaker out with me — after all, it’s a Portable Speaker — I’ll have to use Bluetooth, since both AirPlay and Bluetooth require the speaker to be on the same Wifi network2.
AirPlay seems to sound slightly better than Google Cast.
Further, Cast is slower to connect3. Even after the speaker chimes indicating it’s connected, it takes time for the audio to start playing through it. Cast glitches when you seek. The volume controls on the Mac don’t work with Cast, while they do with AirPlay. Cast is also supported by only some apps, while AirPlay is supported OS-wide.
Finally, Google Cast doesn’t work for video — it can’t send just the audio part of a video to the speaker, which you can with AirPlay. For example, Cast doesn’t work on Youtube, but it does on Youtube Music. AirPlay works on both.
Works well with My TV
I tried using this with my Sony A95L, which has excellent built-in speakers for a TV.
I connected using Bluetooth4.
Despite my reservations about wireless lag, lip sync works fine. This is because of something called Bluetooth A/V Sync, where the speaker tells the TV how much lag there is in the audio, and the TV delays the video by the same amount to sync with the audio. Cool!
An action scene like
comes to life on the Portable Speaker, thanks to its bass. I feel it in my stomach. It’s way more exciting, lively and emotional. It brought a tear to my eye.
A documentary like
is cinematic, immersive and profound on the Portable Speaker.
When playing a music video like
the music is much better on the Portable Speaker, while the TV has way less clarity, as if it was playing in the adjacent room. It was as if someone had turned the Music Quality dial down from 8 to 2. When the bass kicked in, the Portable Speaker made the floor and my slippers vibrate. I could also feel it through the sofa5.
Before I bought the Portable Speaker, I was using my TV’s speakers, and the Portable Speaker turned out to be a significant upgrade over them. They elevate my TV viewing experience. This is a pleasant surprise — I didn’t expect such a small, portable, mono speaker to be able to do this. It’s like a scooter towing a trailer. The Portable Speaker takes up little space in my hall, doesn’t create a rat’s nest of cables, and I can also take it with me to a different room or outside the house. I don’t know whether it will have lip sync issues with your TV, but it works great with mine.
Doesn’t Work as a Computer Speaker
The speaker doesn’t work well as a computer speaker. To begin with, it doesn’t fit below your monitor. Some speakers can support both a horizontal and a vertical orientation, but not this one. So the sound comes from one side, which is odd.
Besides, when you’re watching a video, the lip sync fails, which is unwatchable.
This would have been fixed if the speaker supported a wired connection, be it USB, HDMI or 3.5mm, but it doesn’t. Bose should release a software update enabling audio input via the USB-C port.
Doesn’t Work Well as a Smart Speaker
The speaker supports Alexa, but it doesn’t work as well as an Echo Dot with Clock 3rd gen — the Bose often doesn’t hear “Alexa”. Even when it recognises the wake word and lights up, or when I press the button, it often doesn’t respond and gives an error6:
Alexa sometimes takes two hours to start working after I power the speaker on. Sometimes it would respond after a long delay, to the extent that it didn’t make sense to use Alexa to set a timer when I could reach for my phone.
When I asked, “Alexa, what’s your battery level?” it responded that this device doesn’t have a battery, which is obviously wrong.
Sometimes, when I’m closer to my Echo and give a voice command, the Portable Speaker processes the request, and I hear a response from the other room, which is odd. If I’m closer to the Echo and say, “Alexa, set an alarm for 6 AM” and it happens to be set on the Portable Speaker, if the Portable Speaker is out of battery by 6 AM, the alarm won’t ring on the Echo Dot, either. It will ring in the evening when I plug in my Portable Speaker to charge. So, alarms worked more reliably before I purchased the Portable Speaker.
Sometimes, when an alarm rings on the Echo, and I stand next to it and say, “Alexa, stop”, the Portable Speaker responds from the other room, “Alarm stopped on Echo Dot”. It would be more natural for the device that’s ringing to respond.
When it works, Alexa’s voice sounds more natural on the Portable Speaker than on the Echo Dot.
I also like that the Echo Dot with Clock serves dual purpose as a clock. When a timer is running, I can glance at it to see how much time remains. I can’t do that on the Portable Speaker.
“Smart” and “portable” don’t go together in a speaker If you do intend to use it as a smart speaker, leave it plugged in to power all the time.
Is the Portable Speaker right for you?
The Portable Speaker is the best speaker that you can take with you in your backpack, on a hike. No other speaker delivers such wonderful sound quality for its size. But is it for you? To determine that, ask yourself the following questions7:
Do I want a home portable speaker? That is, a speaker you’ll take from room to room but not carry in a backpack when you hike. If so, there are bigger, battery-powered speakers that should sound better, though you should verify this rather than assuming bigger is better.
Do I want a smart speaker? If so, buy an AC- rather than battery-powered speaker.
Do I want a computer speaker? If so, buy the Bose SoundLink Max. It has a 3.5mm jack, so you can connect it to your computer, unlike the Portable Speaker. It also fits below your monitor, unlike the Portable Speaker. The Max has better quality than the Portable Speaker, but can’t get as loud and is too boomy. Still, it’s noticeably better in quality. It’s not a 360-degree speaker, so it sounds worse than the Portable Speaker unless you’re straight in front of it. It’s battery-powered8 and fits in your backpack, but is 50% bigger, so leaves less space for other items.
Do I want the absolute best sound quality? If so, buy floorstanding speakers powered by a receiver. I love the Q Acoustics 5040 powered by the Denon DRA-800H. This system takes up a lot of space in my hall, involves multiple cables, required me to get a rack made from a carpenter, required installation, and cost me 1.7 lakh. The end result is a system of exceptional quality but it’s less user-friendly than the Portable Speaker. If you’re not a geek and don’t have the patience for this, get a Portable Speaker.
Referred to as the Bose Portable Home Speaker in some places.
I wanted to check if I can create a hotspot on my phone and connect the speaker to that, so that they’re on the same Wifi network and so AirPlay works. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. So, when I’m on the go, I need to use Bluetooth.
Google Cast needs to be enabled in settings.
A glitch I encountered is that I have separate 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz networks, with the latter requiring Wifi 6, and the former the fallback for old devices. My phone is on the 5 Ghz network, but the Portable Speaker can’t connect to it, and so is on the 2.4 Ghz network. This caused Google Cast to not get enabled. To fix this problem, I temporarily connected my phone to the same network as the router, enabled it, and then switched back, after which it has been working well with no problems.
The speaker has no wired input, and the TV can receive AirPlay from an Apple device, not send AirPlay to a speaker. So Bluetooth is the only option.
The Portable Speaker is slightly worse than the TV when watching a scene focused on dialog like
When using the Portable Speaker, the sound comes from below the TV, while the TV’s speakers make the sound come from the character’s mouths, as if they’re talking, which makes it feel that they’re really here.
The TV speakers have an expansive soundstage — background music seems to come from the background, and dialog from the foreground. It feels open. By contrast, the Portable Speaker has a narrow soundstage, as if all the sounds are coming from one point. It feels closed.
Voices are also clearer on the TV’s speakers.
So, while the TV performs better for this scene, the Portable Speaker performs better for the remaining three scenes I tested. It’s not just the number of scenes where each outperforms the other but also the extent of the outperformance: when the Portable Speaker outperforms the TV, it does so significantly. It’s immediately apparent. On the other hand, when the TV outperforms the Portable Speaker, it does so subtly.
Specifically, it blinks amber at the top and bottom multiple times.
Thinking it’s going into low-power mode when it’s on battery where the Wifi connection is powered off till needed, I left it plugged in, but it didn’t help.
I wondered if it was a Wifi range problem, so I moved it closer to the router hoping it will work reliably (despite the Echo Dot handling the previous room just fine) but it didn’t help. Besides, AirPlay still works, so it’s not a Wifi problem.
Resetting the device by holding down ⏯ for 10 seconds didn’t improve anything.
What if you want an even smaller speaker than the Portable Speaker? Then, buy the Sonos Roam 1, which is the best speaker for its size that I’ve tested. You can toss it in your backpack without thinking. You can place it vertically (in which case the sound goes level) or horizontally (in which case the sound angles up). But there’s insufficient bass, so it lacks strength even when the bass is set to full. Its maximum volume is also low, so if you’re in a hyper mood, it doesn’t work. I wouldn’t buy it, because the music is unsatisfying to listen to.
If you want a tiny speaker, consider the JBL Go 4 — it’s smaller than my iPhone 15! It’s as wide and 70% as high, but much thicker. It has great quality and volume for its size. Buy this if the alternative is using your phone’s speaker. You can think of this as a phone++. You can adjust EQ in the app, and it has physical buttons for +, -, ⏯ and Auracast.
Speakers sold as “computer speakers” are typically bad.