You've Never Seen Wireless Earbuds Like These (And I Kind of Love Them) | Gear Patrol (2024)

Photo by Tucker Bowe

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You’ve Never Seen Wireless Earbuds Like These (And I Kind of Love Them)

Bose’s new open-ear wireless earbuds clip to the outside of your ears, kind of like earrings.

You’ve never seen wireless earbuds like the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. I certainly hadn’t before a few weeks ago. They feature an open-ear design with a flexible, soft silicone shape that clips to the bottom of your ears, sort of like a pair of earrings. To the best of my knowledge, there have never been wireless earbuds like them.

Now, let’s get something out of the way: the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds aren’t for everyone. The open-ear approach is niche to begin with; they don’t block your ears, so runners and cyclists can better hear their surroundings. And the clip style makes for a different fit than more traditional designs. Throw in the fact that they’re basically $300 and, well, they’ve got a lot going against them.

But after almost two weeks of exercising (mostly outdoor runs and indoor cycling) and wearing them around town, I can’t help but kind of love the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. It’s irrational, I know, but they really are quite good.

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Bose

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

As their name gives away, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are open-ear wireless earbuds, meant to allow you to listen to music while also hearing the world around you. Their standout feature is a unique approach to fit: Rather than going in your ears, they clip to the outside of them, sort of like earrings.

Specs

Water & Sweat Resistance	IPX4
Charging	USB-C
Battery Life	Up to 7.5 hours (per earbud)

Pros

• Truly unique design
• Excellent at eliminating sound leakage
• Lightweight and comfortable for runs and bike rides

Cons

• Open-ear wireless earbuds aren't for everybody
• Lack quite a few premium features for the price

• $299 at Bose

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: What We Think

Photo by Tucker Bowe

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds aren’t mainstream wireless earbuds, but no open-ear wireless earbuds really are. They’re designed for specific people, particularly cyclists and runners, who want to listen to music while hearing the world around them — and they definitely check those boxes.

The design and fit of the Ultra Open Earbuds definitely takes some getting used to. But once you realize that they fit securely, they’re actually quite comfortable and sound pretty good. They are expensive, however, and lack some features that you’d probably expect for nearly $300.

Bottom line: You have to really want open-ear wireless earbuds. But if you do and you’re willing to dish out flagship-level dough, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are equal parts unique and excellent.

These wireless earbuds look wild but fit oddly well

Photo by Tucker Bowe

Photo by Tucker Bowe

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are strange to describe. Each earbud consists of two hard parts — one that houses the speakers and mics and one that houses the battery and controls — that are connected by what Bose calls a “super-soft silicone-coated flex arm.” One of the hard parts (the speaker part) goes in your ear, then you stretch the silicone arm around your ear lobe (or side of your ear), and then the other hard part (the battery part) coils around the back of your ear to hold everything in place.

At first, it feels strange, like something is hanging from your ear and it might fall out at any second — but it doesn’t. In fact, in my nearly two weeks of wearing the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, they’ve never detached or fallen out of my ears. And once I got used to how they felt in my ears, I actually liked them. A lot.

They’re better than expected at containing sound leakage

Photo by Tucker Bowe

Photo by Tucker Bowe

The fundamental problem with open-ear wireless earbuds is that they naturally leak sound. So, if you’re around other people and blasting music or a podcast, they can hear what you’re listening to. While Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds don’t completely solve this problem — if you’re in a quiet room and listening to music at around 75 percent volume, people will definitely hear some of it — they do a surprisingly good job at suppressing sound.

The earbuds are integrated with the company’s proprietary OpenAudio technology, which utilizes a dipole transducer to direct sound into your ears while also passively preventing it from leaking too far out of your ears. It’s the same tech that was in Bose’s previous open-ear wireless earbuds, the Sport Open Earbuds (no longer available), and its audio sunglasses, the Frames (also no longer available), both which did an excellent job at preventing too much sound leakage.

All this is to say that I only became self conscious about other people hearing my music when I was in a very public place (like commuting to NYC on the ferry) and absolutely blasting my music. When I was outside running, I didn’t give it a second thought.

The sound quality is good, but it won’t blow you away

Photo by Tucker Bowe

The other big problem with open-ear wireless earbuds is they don’t get as loud or sound as good as traditional earbuds placed directly in your ears. It’s natural. You lose something in the distance between.

While they sound excellent when I listen to them in a controlled environment, like my home office, they definitely lose some of their vigor when I’m running outside with them. Specifically, the midrange (vocals) seemed to become more faint. And as somebody who loves to blast music when exercising, this was a bit annoying … especially on runs that were extra windy.

For $300, they lack some premium features

Photo by Tucker Bowe

When you’re spending nearly $300 on a pair of wireless earbuds — more than most flagship pairs, like Apple’s AirPods Pro and Sony’s WF-1000XM5 — it’s fair to expect some pretty premium features. However, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are distinctly lacking in this department.

There’s no active noise-cancellation. There’s no wireless charging for the case. There’s no wear detection, so music doesn’t automatically play and pause when you put on or take off the earbuds. And despite being workout-focused, they only have an IPX4 rating, meaning they’re splash resistant, which is kind of the bare minimum for workout buds.

Immersive listening modes can be optimized for when you are “on the move”

Photo by Tucker Bowe

That isn’t to say that the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds aren’t completely without some neat tricks. Like the company’s existing wireless headphones and earbuds, Ultra Open Earbuds are compatible with the Bose Music app and, from there, you can add EQ settings and create customized listening modes. Most interesting, however, is that there are different immersive listening modes specifically designed for runners and cyclists.

Like Bose’s flagship noise-canceling wireless earbuds, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, the Ultra Open Earbuds also support Bose’s Immersive Audio. This lets you toggle between stereo and immersion modes, the latter of which plays a more three-dimensional sound that, unlike stereo, resembles how you’d hear music in real life (like at a show).

If I’m being honest, however, I still think old-school stereo sounds best.

Within this Immersive Audio, there are two additional modes that are specific to Ultra Open Earbuds. There’s a “Still” mode where the music stays fixed in front of you no matter how you move your head; this is best when you’re chilling in a stationary position. Then there’s a “Motion” mode where your music always plays equally in both earbuds no matter how you move your head; this is best when running or cycling, as your music stays consistent no matter where you’re looking.

I can’t say that it’s an amazing feature, but it definitely works. When running specifically, having the Motion mode on is definitely preferable.

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are available now for $299. The come in two finishes: black or white.

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