Bose just released its latest Ultra Open Earbuds, which look exactly like ear cuffs on your cartilage. I checked them out at a briefing a few weeks ago and was impressed by the design.
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They offer a lightweight build and a unique mechanism that clasps onto your ear cartilage instead of going inside your ear canal. I had them on for quite a bit during the briefing while we were going over its controls and modes and found them extremely inconspicuous in terms of both size and weight.
The $300 pair of buds doesn’t feature ANC. Instead of an ANC and Ambient Mode, the two modes on the Ultra Open are Stereo and Immersion. Stereo is the regular setting you might generally want to be on, and Immersion is for spatial audio. Under Immersion, you get Still and Motion modes. Still, Mode centers your audio in one place so it’s not affected by the movement of your head, while the Motion mode adjusts the direction of audio in real time based on how you move your head.
As the name of the buds suggests, the concept is to keep you in touch with your surroundings as much as possible, which they do a pretty good job at. We did a quick test for that, and at around 25% volume, we could hear both our music and the presenter’s voice perfectly fine. Raising the volume did block out the presenter, but I’m not sure how well it will block out a busy street or the Subway’s rumble.
The Bluetooth Carousel feature lets you quickly switch between your devices with a button if that helps. Wireless charging is also not supported at the moment. There are two microphones on each earbud, but the mics don’t feature noise-canceling technology, so ambient sound or wind could likely be an issue.
The absence of sound leakage on these is impressive and helps with privacy. Even with the buds plugged out and lying on my lap blasting music, I couldn’t hear a thing. The buds’ volume control is smart because it automatically adjusts based on the loudness of your surroundings. You can also decide to turn this feature off in the companion app.
The buds are rated IPX5 for water resistance and feature a seven-hour battery life. With the case, the buds promise to give you 43 extra hours of charge. I liked that the earbud hosts one big multi-function button that manages everything from playback and volume to calls. I have always found physical controls more convenient anyway, but the large size and intuitive placement of the buttons on these buds make things even easier.
Stay tuned for an in-depth review of the Bose Ultra Open earbuds soon.
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