Bose’s smart speakers and soundbars are about to get a fairly hefty IQ bump, thanks to newly announced integration with Google Assistant.
An automatic update will hit the Bose Home Speaker 500, Soundbar 500 and 700 starting Tuesday, May 21, unlocking the full potential of Google’s smart helper for all those who currently own a Bose smart speaker or soundbar.
The update will also ship with Bose’s upcoming compact smart speaker, the Bose Home Speaker 300, when it is released later this summer.
Google Assistant integration will allow you a huge amount of voice-based control over Bose-made speakers or soundbars. You can find and play your favorite tunes, search for answers to questions on Google, create to-do lists, and even control various smart devices around your home, provided they are part of Google’s Home ecosystem.
If you already own a Bose smart speaker or soundbar, getting the update should be an absolute breeze. As long as it’s connected to the internet, it should automatically download the update and install it without your input. All you need to do, should you not yet have a preferred smart assistant selected, is open up the Bose Music app, select Google Assistant, and follow a brief guided setup process to get it going.
Buying a new Bose device? It should already have the update installed, so just grab the Bose Music app and follow the setup instructions — as you normally would when the device is new.
It’s great to see companies like Bose offering such massive software improvements to their products after they have already been on the market for a while, especially considering they have probably not had a huge issue selling the devices without the integration built-in.
We hope to see more manufacturers considering software additions of voice assistants like Google Assistant to their own speakers and soundbars, provided the hardware can handle them. In a world that’s filled with tech waste, it’s nice to see improvements to any tech products on the market, rather than the release of new models with single, software-based, upgrades.
It’s a nice gesture from Bose and one that indicates the company believes in the longevity of its products and cares about how full they might make landfills long-term.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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