Bose fans, the days of your company's smart speakers supporting only one voice assistant are officially over. Following the footsteps of Sonos, select Bose speakers now offer a choice between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Bose has announced that its Home Speaker 500, Soundbar 500 and 700 and the forthcoming Home Speaker 300 will offer Google Assistant. All are also compatible with Amazon's Alexa system.
The Home Speaker 300 will be available for preorder from June 4 and while it lacks the screen of the 500 it also features 360 degree sound.
The Bose Home Speaker 300 offers both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and will be available for pre-order on June 4
BoseThe company is rolling out a software update starting today that introduces Google Assistant as a voice assistant option. You can add it by going to "Voice Settings" in the Bose Music app, selecting the Google Assistant and following the guided setup process.
Competitor Sonos was the first to announce support for both assistants back in 2017 but it only enabled dual-voice capability last week.
Both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa allow you to request songs, control smart home appliances and perform web searches using your voice and a wake word, such as "Alexa" or "Hey Google."
We have yet to test Google Assistant on Bose speakers but we expect that, like Sonos, both assistants are unlikely to be usable at the same time. You'll probably have to choose one or the other using a toggle in the app.