I actually miss their Bose lifestyle surround speakers. I know they value soundbar because of today’s trend but man. Their lifestyle was so good and I haven’t heard a soundbar that can fully immerse a big room like a lifestyle. More on reddit.com

The SB500 has been discontinued for about 5 years now . The direct replacement for the SB300 is the Smart Soundbar . More on reddit.com

Also the presets are a big win for me over Sonos. If I want to listen to my favorite radio station, playlist or podcast, it is just one push on the preset without having to go via my smartphone. It is not that having to go in your smartphone to start the music is that much work, I had a sonos system before and I did not see it as a negative feature. But now that I have the Bose setup, I listen to music a lot more then when I had the sonos set up. The convenience of the presets make all the difference. I agree the sound of the 500 and 300 are amazing. If yours does not stay online I would try to get a replacement unit from Bose. More on reddit.com

I can’t comment on how to get Spotify to work better with the speakers. I can tell you that Bose’s software teams are an absolute mess. Their modern connected speakers are their 3rd reboot of their platform and they stopped supporting big music services (like Apple Music). They aren’t pulling in the support that they should, their app is terrible, and they’re a good 8 years behind the competition. I made the mistake of buying Bose’s first and second generation speakers. I ended up selling them and switching to Sonos. I still think Bose has the better hardware but their software, app, and firmware aren’t helping them. Same with their headphones and earbuds. It seems like each new generation comes with even more bugs. I can tell you that I haven’t had any issues with SpotifyConnect on my inexpensive Echo speakers and all of my Sonos speakers. I have an Arc with subwoofer and two rear Play:1 speakers in my living room, a Sonos One in my bedroom, a Play:5 in my basement, and a Sonos One SL in my office. SpotifyConnect works every time with them and I can create whatever grouping I want in the Sonos app. There was a big fuss when Sonos moved to their 2nd generation app, mainly because it didn’t support speakers that were a decade old, but it had bugs as well. Sonos has updated their app and service so that most of the bugs are gone. I really don’t know what Bose is doing with their connected speakers. They have the hardware to make good sounding speakers. They’re masters of the v-shaped curve that people like (but isn’t accurate so audiophiles hate) with their speakers. But damn, their software ruins things. Not only that but they always seem behind. Sonos releases a soundbar and Bose releases one 4 years later. Sonos releases a soundbar with real Atmos (as in up firing speakers and not just a DSP) and Bose has yet to respond. Sonos integrated Alexa and Bose did the same thing 3 years later (with a better looking speaker but buggy performance). More on reddit.com