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Bose Home 300 smart speaker promises Alexa and Google Assistant

Bose is taking on the Sonos One with its own dual-voice-assistant speaker, the Home Speaker 300, which will be available this month.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
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Bose

Preorders for the new  Bose  dual-assistant smart speaker, the $260 Home Speaker 300, will begin on June 20, the company has announced.

The Home Speaker 300 is a six-inch tall, 360-degree speaker with a six microphone array which will "still hear you when the music is playing loud". Like the previous SoundTouch series the Home 300 offers six shortcut buttons for access to your favorite music or podcasts.

Bose is the second company, after Sonos with its Beam and One speakers, to allow both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on one device, though not at one time.

Like other smart speakers users can use voice commands to request music, ask about the weather or control their smart home . The Bose also offers control via the Bose Music app, Apple AirPlay 2 or Bluetooth .

While the $399 Home Speaker 500 offers "stereo" sound the Home Speaker 300 is a mono design and lacks the larger model's LCD screen. Like the other devices in Bose's Home range an update for both  Google and Alexa will be available when the product goes on sale.

The smart speaker market is already fairly saturated with Google and Amazon devices leading the pack, and even at the Home 300's price level it faces competition from the well-established $199 Sonos One and the $299 Apple HomePod .