Bose released its Ultra Open earbuds earlier this year, which look more like jewelry from the future than earbuds. We love their innovative design, great battery life, and great sound quality with minimal leakage. They’re also so comfortable that you’ll even forget you’re wearing them.
The company just gave one of our favorite open-back earbuds a feature that’s pretty impressive if it works exactly as promised, but there’s a small caveat.
When you pair the Ultra Open with a Bose Smart Soundbar, the headphones double as surround back speakers in a traditional surround sound setup. Since they have an open design, you can still hear the audio from the soundbar. So, in this setup, the soundbar remains your primary speaker, while the headphones will complement the experience by adding another directional audio output.
The benefit of this is that you don’t have to invest in additional speakers or worry about the physical space they take up in your lounge. The downside is that they’re unlikely to sound any better than a separate set of rear speakers.
Additionally, this setup only works if you use the Ultra Open with the $499 Bose Smart Soundbar, not the company’s entry-level $279 Bose TV speaker soundbar, or even its high-end $899 Smart Ultra Soundbar . This means you need to invest at least $800 (Ultra Open plus Smart Soundbar) to enjoy this feature.
The Smart Soundbar is Bose’s update to its existing Smart Soundbar 600, with a new feature: AI Conversation Mode. The mode, which debuted on the Smart Ultra Soundbar last fall, instantly adjusts the audio stream to the speaker once it detects speech in the content being played. This ensures improved clarity and ensures that dialogue within the content is not dominated by loud, overwhelming background music.
The warning about Bose’s new surround-sound feature reminds me that Sonos limits the audio-swapping capabilities of its latest Ace headphones to its $899 high-end Arc soundbar, which is half the purpose of advertising the feature on $450 headphones.
Bose’s new Gen 2 QuietComfort earbuds join the soundbar refresh and surround sound upgrades. Priced at $179, these products have many of the same features as the first generation, such as ANC and customizable gestures, but with one new addition. With its new far-end selfie feature, you can turn them into far-end camera triggers by telling them “Hey headphones” as soon as you’ve posed. Your headset will immediately take a photo in the camera app.
