When you’re really having a problem with your Bose speaker, or you just want to build your smart system again from scratch, you’ll need to know how to reset it. 

If you have found yourself in a situation where you would like to reset your Bose smart speakers, you’re in luck. In the following sections we will break down both how to do a soft reset if you’re just trying to deal with a minor problem, and how to do a hard reset if you want to start from scratch with it. 

Hold Down the Power Button

A soft reset is basically just turning your speaker off, waiting a few seconds and then turning it back on. It’s the time honored way of fixing every problem because it works for most minor issues. 

Depending on whether or not you have a portable smart speaker or a home one like the Bose Home 500 or the Bose Home 300, the process will be slightly different. In the case of the home smart speakers you actually have two options, because you could always just unplug them for a few seconds and then plug them back in. 

Your other option for the home smart speakers is simply hold down the play button until the speaker finally shuts off. Then just turn it back on again and hopefully your issue will be resolved. If it’s not you could always try rebooting it in setup mode as well by holding one finger over the aux and the other on the play button until you see a countdown finish. 

When it comes to the portable smart speakers you simply hold down the power button for two seconds, wait a handful more seconds, then hold it down again to turn them back on. 

Hard Reset from the App

Hard resetting is where things get a little bit more complicated, but you shouldn’t sweat because it’s still quite an easy process. As with a soft reset there is a difference between how you reset a Bose home smart speaker and a portable one. We’ll start with the home speaker.

Below we’ve outlined each step you need to take to hard reset home Bose Smart speakers like the 500 models: 

  • Get in your Bose Account: In order to hard reset your home Bose smart speaker, you’re going to have to first remove it from your Bose Music account. Just open the app and go to “My Account.” Hit “Manage Products” and tap “Edit”: This is where you will be able to find all your Bose Smart speakers. Delete the speaker from the app: From here you can tap on the speaker you want to reset and then hit delete. Now your Bose Smart Speaker is not connected. Press down on the minus volume button and the aux: You want to hold these down for approximately 10 seconds. The device should shut off, flash lights and begin rebooting.

It’s important to keep in mind that while a hard reset can be useful, it does delete any kinds of settings or connections you had established for your speaker. So know that if you plan on using it again you’re going to have to establish all of those yourself.  

How Do You Hard Reset a Portable Smart Speaker?

Portable Bose smart speakers can also be reset to their factory settings. In the case of these speakers the process is far less complicated than that of the home ones. 

With the portable smart speakers you don’t have to go into the app or anything. Just hold down the increase volume button and the bluetooth button for about ten seconds. You should notice that the ring of light on top of the speaker will slowly spread with white light. Once it is all lit up you can let go. 

From there just give the speaker a minute or two to restart and you’ll be all set. If you did everything correctly the ring of light should come on in an amber color, indicating it is ready for setup. 

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re doing a soft reset or a hard reset, resetting a Bose smart speaker is quite a simple process. Still, the exact process you follow varies based on the type of reset you’re doing and the type of speaker you have. This is because Bose home smart speakers and their portable ones have slightly different mechanisms for resetting. 

With the portable smart speaker you can simply do a hard reset by holding down both the volume up button and the bluetooth button to reset it. Compare that to the home version where you have to first delete the speaker from the app, and then hold down the down volume and aux button to initiate reset. Either way it’s just a few seconds that might make a big difference.