Bose Unveils New Smart Soundbar and Innovative Earbuds: A Leap in Home Audio Technology

Bose Earbuds Offer ANC at a Discount, New Soundbar Adds AI Smarts

Bose is targeting its two primary competitors, Apple and Sonos, with a pair of new products. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds bring active noise cancellation (ANC) to a much lower price point, while the Smart Soundbar lowers the cost of entry into Bose's AI-assisted living room. Taking Aim at Apple With Affordable ANC The QuietComfort Earbuds from Bose keep things simple. These in-ear buds include Bose-tuned audio, good ANC, user-adjustable controls, support for voice commands, and long battery life in a compact form. They cost significantly less than the company's premiere earphones, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, which are among the best at cancelling out noise. Bose says a total of six microphones, three on each bud, measure sound to more effectively negate the surrounding din, while still prioritizing your voice during calls. Three listening modes are available, including ANC, transparency, and off. An IPX4 rating means the buds can handle light slashing, which makes them usable in light rain or at the gym. The earbuds have three eartips and three stability bands to ensure a snug fit. The batteries provide up to 8.5 hours of playback, and the case holds another 21 hours of charge. Recharging the QuietComfort Earbuds takes 1.5 hours, and a 20-minute charge provides about 3 hours of listening time. The associated Bose QC Earbuds app adds some functionality. It allows you to customize the touch controls, including single-, double-, and triple-press gestures. A five-band EQ is built into the app to enable customized sound profiles. The Voice ID tool lets you answer calls, play media, and access your preferred voice assistant with a "Hey headphones" command. Advanced features include a Remote Selfie feature, as well as a battery life predictor. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are compatible with Bluetooth 5.3 and support the AAC and SBC codes. They come in Black, Chilled Lilac, or White Smoke for $179. They are available for order starting today. Apple recently debuted the AirPods 4 with ANC. Though Apple's earphones sport an open design (as opposed to Bose's in-ear design), they provide surprisingly effective ANC at the same $179 price. Setting Sights on Sonos With a Smart Soundbar Bose introduced its Smart Ultra Soundbar last year, which is the company's flagship soundbar. Now, Bose is bringing the high-end features of its $899 Smart Ultra Soundbar down to its $499 product. The Bose Smart Soundbar is a replacement for the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 in Bose's lineup and features AI Dialogue Mode and the company's new Personal Surround technology. With AI Dialogue Mode, the Bose Smart Soundbar relies on machine learning algorithms to listen to the soundbar and your room to optimize speech within the audio stream. This ensures that sound effects and background music don't overpower the dialogue of your favorite movies and TV shows. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the Bose Personal Surround Sound feature. If you have both the Bose Smart Soundbar and Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, you can pair the two for an improved surround sound experience. Bose Personal Surround Sound takes advantage of the open nature of the Ultra Open Earbuds, which act as the rear surround channels when watching TV. Bose says you'll still be able to hear the soundbar's full sound while the earbuds present an enveloping surround effect that's subtle but effective. The idea, explains Bose, is to give those who don't have the space for a full surround system in their home the opportunity to enjoy a surround experience without a 5.1 speaker setup. The Bose Smart Soundbar has five transducers, including two side-firing racetrack transducers, a center tweeter for dialogue, and two upfiring transducers for height effects. It supports Dolby Atmos and will upmix stereo and 5.1 signals to provide a better sense of spaciousness. It measures 27 by 4.1 by 2.2 inches (WDH) and requires a single HDMI eARC cable. It is Wi-Fi enabled and sports Chromecast, Spotify Connect, and Apple AirPlay 2, as well as Bluetooth for direct connections to phones and tablets. The Smart Soundbar is available for order starting today for $499. This combination of products takes a different approach from the Sonos Ace Headphones, which instead replace all the audio from a Sonos soundbar in favor of personal listening via the headphones. The Smart Soundbar competes with the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) on price and features.

Bose's new Smart Soundbar features AI Dialogue Mode and Personal Surround Sound

Bose is introducing new products that upgrade existing lines with new features and sleek designs. The first is the new Bose Smart Soundbar, replacing the SmartSoundbar 600 in the company's lineup. The compact soundbar comes with a few new features that sound intriguing. The first is A.I. Dialogue Mode, which debuted on the Smart Ultra Soundbar and was launched in the fall of 2023. The feature boosts dialogue and makes it clearer, especially in sounds with overpowering background effects. The AI portion comes in that the soundbar uses it to automatically adjust "tonal balance in real-time when it detects speech." In our review of the Smart Ultra soundbar, we found the feature to be a mixed bag. "It seemed to over compensate voices on studio news broadcasts making them sound hard and forced. However, it really did improve voice clarity and intelligibility where dialogue was truly hard to decipher. For example, while watching "God's Creatures," the mode managed to cut through the heavily accented and hushed voices of the intense movie, making them sound clearer and far easier to follow." Hopefully, Bose will improve this feature in the meantime. The other big feature is Bose Personal Surround Sound. This enables the soundbar to be paired with Bose's Ultra Open Earbuds for an "added dimension." Basically, it allows the earbuds to act as a set of rear surround speakers for an individual while "still being able to hear the powerful audio" from the soundbar. It should give you the experience of sound all around. The Smart soundbar does feature Dolby Atmos tuned to Bose digital signal processing and Atmos encoding combined with the soundbar's five transducers. Bose says it comes to Roku TV ready but can be accessed via Wi_Fi for streaming music services like Spotify and should work with most TVs. It also can be connected to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant for voice controls. The new Bose Smart Soundbar is available now on the Bose website for $499. The Bose QuietComfort earbuds are some of the best noise-canceling earbuds we've tried, and the Ultra versions are even better. Today, Bose is announcing a redesigned version of the QuietComfort earbuds. The new version features three microphones in each earbud meant for "optimal cancellation and voice pickup." Bose says they can be used for workouts with an IPX4 water and sweat-resistant rating. It will have a trio of ear tips and stability band sizes to customize the fit. Bose claims the buds will offer up to 8.5 hours of playtime on a single charge. They will come with a wireless charging case that is supposed to have 2.5 charges with a claimed 1.5 hours to reach full charge and 20 minutes to get an extra 3 hours. As for ANC, you can switch between Quiet and Aware or toggle it off for a "passive listening experience." This can be controlled via the Bose QC earbuds app, which includes EQ controls or controls on the earbuds themselves. The newest version of the QC Earbuds is available now for $179 in black, white smoke or chilled lilac.

Bose Turns Its Ultra Open Earbuds Into Rear Speakers With New Smart Soundbar

Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer Well, this is kind of wild. Bose's new Smart Soundbar, a refresh of its $499 Smart Soundbar 600, has a couple of intriguing new features. Not only is there a new A.I. Dialogue Mode that Bose says uses a machine learning algorithm to adjust tonal balance in real time when it detects speech in an audio stream for clarity, but you can pair the company's Ultra Open Earbuds with the speaker and turn them into rear surround speakers when watching movies. Bose calls the feature Personal Surround Sound. Read more: Best Soundbars of 2024 For those who aren't familiar with Bose's Ultra Open Earbuds, they're unique looking clip-on earbuds with an open design, which means they're not equipped with ear tips that seal off your ear canal. Bose says that since the buds don't block your ear canal, "you're still able to hear the powerful audio emanating from the soundbar itself. The resulting effect is a deep, rich personal sound -- all achieved without having to invest in the physical space a pair of speakers would take up in a living space." That sounds pretty cool, but the $299 Ultra Open Earbuds certainly aren't cheap. That said, Bose's wireless surround speakers for the Smart Soundbar cost $399, so you are saving $100. However, only you get the surround experience, not others who might be watching with you. Aside from those new features, the Bose Smart Soundbar appears to be the same speaker as the Smart Soundbar 600, which we did think had excellent sound for a single speaker (read our full review). As soon as we get our hands on a review sample of the new Smart Soundbar, I'll have a full report on how the A.I. Dialogue Mode impacts speech clarity when watching movies, and how well those Ultra Open Earbuds work as surround speakers. Note that the Smart Soundbar wasn't the only product Bose announced today. It also introduced new $179 QuietComfort Earbuds that are more affordable than its flagship QuietComfort Ultra noise-canceling earbuds.

Bose debuts its new QuietComfort earbuds and Smart Soundbar

This year, we've been tracking changes in Bose's lineup of headphones. The brand retired beloved models including the Bose QuietComfort 45 and Bose 700 headphones, in favor of the newly upgraded QuietComfort line. Bose is building on its tech that emphasizes superior comfort and audio quality with Wednesday's product drops. Bose just launched its new QuietComfort earbuds and Smart Soundbar, available for purchase now. We've watched the last several months as Bose has been rebuilding its line of earbuds and headphones. Bose's QuietComfort collection of headphones includes the QuietComfort and QuietComfort Ultra. The former is the entry-level over-the-ear model, while the latter brings increased comfort and personalized sound. Currently, the earbud sector of this collection only includes the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds, which Mashable's Timothy Werth Beck noted were "impressive in every way." Like the brand's done with its headphones, Bose is adding a starter model with the Bose QuietComfort earbuds. These new earbuds retail for $179, far more affordable than the Ultras' $299 price tag. Plus, they supposedly provide eight-and-a-half hours of battery life, two more hours than the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds. The QuietComfort earbuds come in black, white smoke, and chilled lilac and are available for purchase now. Replacing the Bose Smart Soundbar 600, is the Bose Smart Soundbar (dropping the 600 from its name.) Still in its signature small and sleek design, this upgraded soundbar delivers big audio. This revamped version is also adding AI Dialogue Mode, previously seen on the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. The AI Dialogue Mode feature uses machine-learning to detect speech in audio streams and make it clearer and more crisp -- maybe you'll finally be able to turn of subtitles. Plus, users with the Bose Ultra Open earbuds can take advantage Personal Surround Sound, where the rear speaker on the soundbar is replaced by the earbuds to create an up close and personal sound.

Bose soundbars can now send surround sound to your earbuds | Digital Trends

Bose has rebranded its midrange Smart Soundbar 600 as simply the "Bose Smart Soundbar." The size, the sound, and even price ($499) remain the same, but the new model offers an improved AI-powered dialogue mode, plus a wild new option for those who own the company's Bose Open Ultra Earbuds: surround sound without surround speakers. It's available starting September 18 from bose.com. Bose's AI Dialogue Mode debuted on the Bose Smart Soundbar Ultra, and its machine learning-based algorithm lets the soundbar automatically adjust tonal balance in real time when it detects speech in an audio stream for clarity. This creates more separation between voices and background sound effects. But from an innovation point of view, Bose Personal Surround Sound is the most interesting aspect of the new Bose Smart Soundbar. That's the name Bose has given to the ability to pair a set of Bose Open Ultra Earbuds to the soundbar, which lets the earbuds receive the same left/right surround channels that would otherwise be processed by the bar itself, or sent wirelessly to a set of Bose Surround Speakers. Recommended Videos Because the Open Ultra Earbuds use an open-ear design, the wearer can hear both the soundbar and the earbuds at the same time. Bose Personal Surround Sound will eventually be offered as an update to the Bose Smart Soundbar Ultra. Digital Trends asked a Bose spokesperson if the company planned to enable Personal Surround Sound on the existing Smart Soundbar 600. "We're always looking at ways we can expand product functionality for our existing customers," we were told via email, but Bose didn't have any specific info to share regarding the 600. While it might not make sense to buy the $299 Open Ultra Earbuds just for this purpose, if you already own them -- or have been considering them -- you may be able to save yourself $100 (the Bose Surround Speakers cost $399). The rebranding continues Bose's move away from number-oriented model names. The company has already discontinued its smallest smart soundbar -- the Smart Soundbar 300 -- and rebranded the Smart Soundbar 900 as the Bose Smart Soundbar Ultra, leaving just two Wi-Fi connected soundbars in the company's home theater portfolio. The Bose TV Speaker is the company's non-Wi-Fi option. The Bose Smart Soundbar maintains Dolby Atmos compatibility, helped by its built-in up-firing drivers, and it enjoys excellent wireless streaming support thanks to AirPlay 2, Google Cast (formerly Chromecast built-in), Alexa Cast, and Bluetooth. You can use it as an Amazon Alexa smart speaker, and it's compatible with Google Assistant.

Bose's latest soundbar can use the Ultra Open Earbuds as rear speakers

Bose has a new soundbar for the fall shopping season, and it includes a few neat tricks for owners of the company's clip-on earbuds. The Bose Smart Soundbar is a "small, sleek" model with AI Dialogue Mode and a Personal Surround feature for owners of the Ultra Open Earbuds. The Bose Smart Soundbar has five transducers, including two side-firing (racetrack-shaped) ones, a center tweeter and two up-firing transducers. This arrangement helps with Dolby Atmos content, with the side-facing ones focused on horizontally positioned audio and the upward-facing ones bouncing sound off the ceiling for an overhead illusion. The center tweeter handles dialog. If your content doesn't support Dolby Atmos for a spatial surround experience, the soundbar's TrueSpace feature can mix them in real time to create a faux surround effect. Bose claims the process produces sound "just as effectively" as Dolby Atmos "with similar spaciousness." Owners of Bose's Ultra Open Earbuds -- the $299 clip-on doodads that leave your ears uncovered -- the soundbar can deliver a more personalized surround experience for one person. Designed to add dimension to content, the feature uses the earbuds as rear surround speakers. Unlike most earbuds, the Ultra Open model doesn't obstruct your ears, allowing you to still hear the soundbar's audio. Bose describes the combined effect as a "sonic experience of sound all around you." The Personal Surround Sound feature launches with this model but will arrive on the (more expensive) Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar later this fall. The soundbar also supports the AI Dialogue Mode from the company's Smart Ultra Soundbar. The feature uses AI to automatically adjust the audio mix in real time when it detects speech, making voices easier to hear "without losing any impact of immersive sound effects." The Smart Soundbar is 27 inches long, 2.2 inches high and 4.1 inches deep. It has a black matte body with a wraparound metal grille. On the connection front, it supports HDMI eARC (required for Dolby Atmos) and standard optical cables. You can set it up to work with Google Assistant and Alexa, and it works with other Bose smart speakers (including bass modules) for enhanced living room or multi-room setups. The Bose Smart Soundbar is available on Wednesday for $499. You can order it on Bose's website.

Bose's soundbars and Ultra Open Earbuds can now work together in mindblowing ways

Bose Personal Surround Sound will be available first on the brand new Smart Soundbar that the company is announcing today for $499. The Dolby Atmos soundbar comes equipped with five drivers, features an AI dialogue mode, and has a variety of music playback options including Wi-Fi, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, and Apple's AirPlay 2. Personal Surround Sound will come to the company's flagship Smart Ultra Soundbar later this fall. If nothing else, the Ultra Open Earbuds now have a unique selling point within Bose's lineup as the only earbuds capable of Personal Surround Sound; you can't use it with any of the company's over-ear headphones or the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds since they've got a closed design and would make it harder to hear audio emanating from the soundbar. The Ultra Open Earbuds are also comfortable enough to wear for long stretches of the day, so they won't cause any discomfort or get distracting while you're watching something.

Your Bose Ultra Open Earbuds Can Now Double as Surround Sound Speakers

Spoiler alert: this setup only works with the $499 Bose Smart Soundbar. Bose released the Ultra Open Earbuds earlier this year which looked more like jewelry from the future than earbuds. We liked them for their innovative design, great battery life, and excellent sound with minimal leakage. They're also immensely comfortableâ€"to the point where you could forget that you're wearing them. The company just gave one of our favorite open-ear buds a functionality that, if works exactly as promised, is pretty impressive, but there's a slight caveat to it, too. When you pair the Ultra Open with the Bose Smart Soundbar, the buds will double as the rear surround speakers in a traditional surround sound set-up. And since they sport an open-ear design, you'll still be able to listen to the audio emanating from the soundbar. So, the soundbar is still your primary speaker in this setup, and the buds will complement the experience by adding another directional audio output. The good thing about this is you won't have to invest in extra speakers or worry about the physical space they would take in your lounge. The downside is that they're unlikely to sound better than a standalone set of rear speakers. Also, 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, and not even with its higher-end offering, the $899 Smart Ultra Soundbar. This means you need a minimum investment of $800 (Ultra Open plus the Smart Soundbar) to enjoy the feature. The Smart Soundbar is Bose's refresh of its already existent Smart Soundbar 600 with a new feature, the AI Dialogue Mode. Debuted on the Smart Ultra Soundbar last fall, the mode tweaks the speaker's audio stream in real time as soon as it detects speech in the content it's playing. This guarantees improved clarity and promises to make sure the dialogue in your content isn't taken over by the loud, overpowering background music. The caveat on Bose's new surround sound feature reminded me of Sonos limiting its latest Ace headphone's audio swap feature to its high-end $899 Arc soundbar which defeats half the purpose of touting the feature on a $450 pair of headphones. Bose's new Gen 2 QuietComfort Earbuds join the soundbar refresh and surround sound upgrades. Priced at $179, these come with a lot of the same features the Gen 1s offered such as ANC and customizable gestures, but add one new functionality. With their new Remote Selfie feature, you can turn them into a remote camera trigger by telling them "Hey headphones" as soon as you're done striking a pose. Your buds will instantly take a photo in your camera app.