Bose Ultra Open Earbuds - Bluetooth Open Ear Earbuds with OpenAudio for Awareness, Clip-On Design for Comfort, Water Resistant, Up to 48 Hrs of Playtime, Moonstone Blue - Limited Edition Color

Usually I say they are good for what it’s worth. In this case, for what I paid for them, they are not worth it. Pro’s: the ear clip/cuff design is different and good, the fit is pretty secure and won’t fall off, comfortable, immersive sound is a plus, turning off the immersive sound and they last longer between charges. When running I hardly noticed I had them on my ears. The sound was good when I was running. I noticed as I was running that the music got louder. I think it was because they settled onto my ear lobes and also I turned the automatic volume control. Cons: too expensive, can’t adjust to being closer to ear canal, left me wanting and expecting more from the ear cuff buds. They seem limited when turning them up to 7 or 8 on the flat setting. Should be priced around the sound core and shokz open fit buds price, maybe even pricing them lower like $125-$150 on the high end. For $300 they should have wireless charging, multi point connectivity. Most of all a larger and louder volume level. I’m returning them. My aftershockz aeropex bone conduction headphones do a better job and lasts my whole 10 hour workday without needing to be charged. Maybe another software update with automatic multipoint switching, adjust the eq curve to have more low end and not cap the bass when playing at a higher volume, and drop the price and they would an awesome product. Update 3/12/2024 So I returned my first pair of ultra earbuds, and got a set of Shokz open fit earbuds. I tried those on for some time and really like how they performed overall. But somehow I started to miss the bose earbuds, and wanted to compare how they went up against the Shokz offering. The price is still steep, but I had an amazon gift card balance of $157 so I went ahead and bought the Bose to do the comparison. The fit was excellent as before, the sound is excellent, I registered them to get the two year nose warranty as I can see these being replaced sometime in September the future. The Shokz are really good and probably rank them as one of the best hook buds in the market. For me and my ears, the Bose and the Shokz are an excellent buy. They both are light and fitment is excellent, the sound is superb, the call quality I give to Shokz, the update happened to both and somehow the call quality on the bose really improved. I still prefer the physical button over the touch sensitive approach that Shokz went with. I still like the Bose ear cuff design vs the earhook. So which do I prefer. Running and exercising-Bose without a doubt, mountain biking and any sport with a lot of wind noise-Shokz hands down. 3/19/2024 I started noticing the Bose ultra open buds starting to lose connection when putting them on. The right ear would get the connected prompts, but the left would not connect and when it does connect, it loses drops connection a couple of time more than connects and syncs up with the right ear. I’m going to request for a replacement pair. Overall, these are excellent buys if you have a gift card balance to buy down these buds. The Shokz were on sale so I returned my black pair and got the white pair. I had some Amazon credits and used those credits to buy the Shokz at much lower price. 3/29/2024 Bose pushed an update to the open ultras (version 1.10.4). The audio sounded clearer, the connection issue seems to have been resolved, I noticed while doing yard work that my Bose lasted approximately 5 hours on the immersion setting. No multipoint connectivity like the Shokz open fits have. Also, I saw that Bose released a wireless charging case on their website for $50. I decided to not get the wireless charging case because I was already used to the usb-c plug approach.

I received the Bose Open Earbuds a week ago after ordering from Amazon, delivery was quick and the next morning I was opening my new buds and preparing to put them through their paces, I own many other brands of earbuds from all over the world, even open earbuds from other brands. Unboxing was pretty straightforward. The only things in the box were the earbuds, the case, and a USB-A to USB-C cable. The case feels premium, along the line of other cases I have from other premium earbuds. The case feels comfortable to hold, easy to carry in my pocket. What stands out to me with the case is the lights, I’m not exactly sure why, but when you place the buds in the case and the lights are lit up I really like how that looks. I also like there were no ear tips included, there were none of those here. No fitting the different ear tips then unsure if I have the right ones selected. I was not used to just setting something into my ear and not worrying trying to completely seal up my ear canal. Once I got used to setting these in my ears, it was well worth it. I really didn’t even feel them on my ear. No feeling the pressure that builds up with a sealed ear canal, no popping them out to hear someone talking to me, no uncomfortable feelings at all. According to the website it shows most people wearing them high up on their ears, but for me they fit, feel and sound better down lower on my ears. You just set the earbud into your ear, wrap the elastic part around the bottom of my ear and away you go. I enjoy the best of both worlds, I have my music or my audio books with me wherever I want to go without worrying about the what I cannot hear while crossing the parking lot. I wear these in the park for my morning walk, and don’t get that paranoid feeling that someone is walking up behind me like I do with noise cancelling ear sealing headphones. I can still hear the important things going on around me. The sound is fantastic! I really like music on these. The charge lasts a good portion of the day, I haven’t had any problems yet with them running out of battery. They’re IPX4 rated, so I’m not worried about wearing them while I work out. And I’m surely not worried about having them fall out, I tried my best and couldn’t shake them out. They’re not multi-point capable yet, supposed to come as a software update. But I’m happy with that, I have had enough run ins where I’m listening to a book on my phone then start playing a game on my tablet and having to fight to make sure the sound is coming from the device I want it to come from. Overall these are great earbuds, flew right to the top of my list and are my favorite now. And I have the top of the line earbuds from several different manufacturers. The let me have music and stay connected to the world, something I have come to really appreciate.

I would like to start this off by saying that I love the fit of these earbuds and think they sound great, I've tried most of the open wireless earbuds on the market and these are by far the most comfortable and convenient to use. That said the quality control and functionality of these 300 DOLLAR wireless earbuds is an absolute embarrassment. They are plagued with connectivity issues and manufacturing defects. I got lucky with my first pair and was able to use them daily for nearly a year and put up with the connectivity issues because when they worked I really enjoyed them, but after about 6 months the batteries started failing sooner and sooner until the right side started dying after 2-3 hours while the left was at 50% charge. Thankfully I had the forethought to buy a 2 year protection plan and was able to replace them, but this new pair I just received was defective straight from the factory. Now as for the features the multipoint connectivity seems to work well enough, though both sources cannot play simultaneously and there is 5-10 seconds of dead air while it switches sources. The spatial audio is neat and works well but it is a pointless gimmick that doesn't add any value. The microphone sounds horrible and is offensive to anyone on the receiving end of your call. The charging case is a nice size and shape and the earbuds snap in nicely but you have to be very careful to make sure the pins are making solid contact or one or both sides might be dead when you go to use them again, and it doesn't support wireless charging unless you buy a separate poorly fitting TPU sleeve that fits over the original case and adds bulk for $30-50. I will be replacing this defective pair and plan to use it until it fails again and I can make an insurance claim but any perspective buyers need to realize these are one of if not the most expensive wireless earbuds on the market and the value you are getting for your money is pathetic. Bose has had this product on the market for over a year and they have released some minor firmware updates that improved the connectivity a decent amount compared to the launch (it was unusably bad) but their quality control has not improved whatsoever. Knowing that Bose is shamelessly selling this poorly manufactured and feature incomplete product for double the price of any of their competition has really soured my view of the company and I won't be using any Bose products going forward. I wish I could recommend these because they are so comfortable and sound so good what you are getting for $300+ is just unacceptable, Bose would have to issue a recall of all existing units and half the price before I could recommend these to anyone.

I really prefer in-earbuds to headphones, but even after I got some foam tips for better comfort - my ears still get "swamp ear" and get irritated after long use. I finally decided to see if there was a better solution and stumbled upon these Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which seemed like they could be the answer. After about a week or so of using them, I have been pleasantly surprised at how well they perform. They are by far the weirdest pair of earbuds I have ever owned, and I was considering buying the Sony LinkBuds but I was really hoping for something different like bone conduction rather than in the ear (which seem to be my main problem). I also was hoping that I'd be able to wear them for longer than my in-ear pair, which definitely is the case. Comparatively I'd have to take my in-ears out every so often to clean my ears as with these the only issue is my ear tends to get a tad irritated after long-use but it also could just be my ears getting used to something being there, hard to say right now until I've had them for longer but I just adjust them slightly up or down when I feel discomfort. I actually got these as my "gaming" earbuds, which after turning off "Immersion Mode" and using "Stereo Mode" I feel it's best unless you're listening to music it's just too bassy for regular stuff in my humble opinion (still sounds great, YMMV). Battery life has been a lot better than my other pair of earbuds which would die after ~4-6 hours, so far the lowest I've gotten these have been around 40%. I'm also not too sure how fast they charge, since they live on my desk and I charge them overnight but when I first charged them it took about half hour to fully charge from ~60%. It's a bit difficult to figure out what the optimal spot is for these earbuds to perform their best, I believe for me at least when they're at their lowest on/in your ear it seems to be the best. I'll randomly check that they're evenly pushed into my ears and not falling out from time to time, but generally they're pretty snug fit that don't move much once on. As far as "noise cancellation" or "passive hearing" goes, they do a pretty good job at blocking out sound when turned up I generally have mine around 60% at that's loud enough for me - I can still hear around me, if need be which I like not having to take off my earbuds in between sessions to multitask. There was a recent firmware update that adds auto-volume, which increases the volume in louder environments which is kind of "noise cancellation" in its simplest form. You're also able to control the earbuds pretty well with just the button on either earbud, play, pause, skip track, reverse track, toggle immersive mode or you can customize the shortcut which is nice. I have left as cycle thru still/motion/off immersion, and right as toggle immersion but there's also "switch devices" and "access your voice assistant" as options. I look forward to future updates and possibly v2 of this product if it performs well, a great niche product for an oversaturated market. I would recommend trying these out if you're at all interested, the price is a bit hard to swallow but they may become your favorite pair of earbuds 🫠

I have about 16 over ear headphones and 7 earphones. Among them I have the Shokz OpenComm2 which are bone conduction. I like them because I can hear my surroundings while I'm on a Zoom or Teams call. They sound great but with the boom mic it wasn't a practical choice for using while out and about. I wanted open ear earphones because I like to be aware of my surroundings when I'm out of the house. I prefer to use noise canceling or isolating headphones/earphones in the safety of my home. Most reviews claim these are the top of the line open ear earphones. Plus my Infiniti QX80 has a Bose system and I like the audio quality so I figured I'd give them a try. So I bought two of them. I've had them two days now. I love the sound quality (after EQ). It's great with more than enough volume. I love that at moderate volume I can listen to music and talk to people at the same time. The immersive audio sounds awesome but I didn't notice any difference between the motion and still version of it. What I love most of these earphones is the fit. You forget you have them on. They weigh nothing. Are super comfortable and most importantly they don't fall off no matter how much you move your head. The battery life is great. The one downside is connectivity issues. Multipoint isn't effective all the time. I have them paired to my phone and my laptop. Sometimes the change isn't seamless and they refuse to connect to Teams or Zoom automatically in the transition. At times they disconnect from my phone for no reason. Then I have to go to my phone settings and reconnect them. Also sometimes while I'm watching a video one earphone momentarily goes silent and then it alternates with the other causing a panning effect. Also during calls the sound crackles at times, especially if I cover the phone with my hand or put it in my pocket. I have the latest firmware which was supposed to correct connectivity issues but apparently it didn't. For this I'm taking a star away. Fix this Bose or you're going to have many product returns!!! It's a great product if you have the patience to tolerate the connectivity issues.

Updated. I dropped these from 5 stars to 3 based on my experience using the Bose App. As soon as I added it to the audio ecosystem, the earbuds had bluetooth issues, multi point connection issues, and audio glitching on my iPhone 15 with current iOS. I performed the steps to do a factory reset (multiple times) but it doesn't really reset them as though they'd never been connected to the app. How do I know? They keep holding their custom earbuds name I gave them through the app despite the "factory reset." Solution: Don't install the Bose App! Ever ever ever ever! Just don't do it. You don't need the customization because it won't make up for all the glitching audio and connection problems. I had similar issues with the Sony WF-1000XM5 app which caused audio glitching and connection problems with multi point connect. To put this another way: without the app these are a legitimate 5 stars. With the app they are mediocre frustrating 3 stars at best. Review from 2 days before the app was introduced _________________ I wear bifocals now and contacts are out for me, so my AirPods Max hurt too much because they press on the bows of the frames. Over the ear and on ear headphones are out. I also have a smaller size for ears and the ear to ear measurement across my skull which added a lot of challenges to the search. Here's what I tried: Beats Fit Pro - very good audio, horrible fit. The wings hurt. Apple AirPods Pro - OK audio, delicate, and they fall out of my ears Tozo Active Noise Cancelling Earbuds - amazing price but very mid. Keeping them as a backup. Shokz Open Run Pro 2 Mini - even the Mini size is far too big which catches on my clothes and causes pain on the front of my ears over time. Calls sound horrible. Audio is mid at best. Sony WF-1000XM5 Earbuds - best audio of the lineup by far, fit is fair. I'm betwen XS and S eartips. I really really dislike the proprietary app with requirement to let a 3rd party continually siphon data off my phone so they can build a profile on me. I can use them without the app but can't customize the audio, bringing these back to about the quality of the Beats Fit Pro audio. I was so frustrated and thought nothing would work for my high audio expectations, glasses wearing issue, and high end audio expectations. Bose Ultra Open (product on this page) Finally found what I was looking for!!! I didn't install any app, just paired to my iPhone and let the audio rip. They sound really good and they are light and comfortable. They stay in place during activities. I'm so pleased and wish I knew to start here with Bose. #GOLDILOCKS #HIGHLY RECOMMENDED I absolutely recommend these if you meet the following criteria: * you have the budget for it. Seriously do not overspend on audio. * you wear glasses or sunglasses often while wearing earbuds * if fit is a challenge with other earbuds

Update, April 3, 2026 - if you plan on using these while on the phone, I would recommend finding different earbuds. Since owning these I have received calls from both my father and a good friend while wearing them. My dad I could tell was having a very hard time hearing me, and my friend said I was cutting in & out so after half an hour I took them off and put him on speaker and then he commented he must have been driving in a bad area cuz suddenly he could hear me so much more clearly. (He didn't know I'd removed my earbuds and was speaking directly into the phone.) No one has ever accused me of being soft-spoken, so it wasn't that I was in an echo-y spot or speaking quietly. Both conversations I was just sitting in my bedroom. I know a lot of people still talk on the phone and use earbuds while doing so; so if you do, I cannot recommend these for you. I see below other reviewers have mentioned this as well. Luckily I rarely talk on the phone so this does not affect me much. I've been using these for four days now, and without having read other reviews which could influence mine, can give my unbiased opinion. Will of course update if I experience issues. Who I am and how I use them: *I wanted earbuds for work and weightlifting at the gym. As people frequently talk to me both places, I was intrigued by the open-ear concept. *I walk outside in nice weather too, and as a female want to be very aware of what's around me. Yes, other earbuds have a transparency/passthrough mode but I've never found that to work well myself. *Earbuds that will not fall out/off are a must. Delivery: Despite the 5-star rating, I was instantly disappointed in the shipping time. I ordered them with a delivery date of the 13th. On that day the package never showed as Out For Delivery and I knew I was in trouble. Sure enough, on the 14th when I checked I then had a delivery date of February 18. I was pretty incensed... what if these would've been a Valentine's Day gift? (It was an Amazon seller, not Amazon as the seller for this Midnight Indigo color...) Surprisingly, they delivered the 16th so it was a good thing I happened to be home. Not sure they'd have been left for me as the UPS driver rang the bell twice before I got to the door, so they seemed determined to physically give them to the recipient. But I did have to go a couple workouts without these due to the unexplainedly-delayed delivery. Unboxing & Setup: *The earbuds had a full charge when I got them; the case had some charge. Could use them immediately. *I felt dubious actually handling them at first. Once I actually figured out how to put them on properly, I downloaded the Bose app and did all the sound selections etc. which I do recommend doing! *The earbuds connected to my iPhone 15 Pro without me having to go through the process of pushing the button on the case to be discoverable-- very nice. *I love that there's a Shortcut to switch between devices and it announces which device you've switched to so you know. I like to preserve my iPhone battery sometimes by connecting my headphones to my work PC, but there are times I need to switch audio between the two and I like that it's quick and easy. Style, Sound & Comfort: *They are very comfortable, and I am absolutely blown away by how good they sound. *They have fabulous battery life too. *They look really cool (immediately told to me by my coworker.) Seeing them on me in the gym mirror this morning I confirmed that to be true when I really looked. *Once you have them on and take a lil time to get used to them, you don't even feel them on your ears. *I will mention that if you wear earrings, especially dangly ones, the magnetic battery-charging part on the back of the barrel WILL magnetize your earring or earring back to it. I was SO seriously disappointed by that. The first day I wore them to work I had to take off my hoop earrings because the magnetizing couldn't be stopped, and it was pulling my earrings (and thus my earlobes) backwards. That was really uncomfortable. Very sad about that!!! *As a 45yo with lifelong tinnitus, I worry about being a deaf old person so I have protected my hearing as best I can for many years, and it makes me feel better that these are open-ear and thus not plugging my ear canal with sound being directed into the enclosed space. I understand you can still damage your hearing if it's too loud, but 99% of the time I listen to things on the absolute lowest level I can hear anyway. *I genetically have very small ear canals and being open-ear, these solved that problem! Even with the smallest ear tips that most earbuds come with, they're too big and don't fit and hurt being crammed into my ear canal (not to mention then the noise cancellation doesn't really work AND the ear tips are constantly squeezing themselves out of my ear canals.) *Also I asked my other half if he could hear the song I was listening to, and he said no from two feet away, so there doesn't appear to be sound leakage to those around you. I'd turned it up significantly before asking, too. Other Thoughts: *When at the gym, when people talk to me it I hear it as clearly as if I wasn't wearing earbuds. That is SO nice. Same at work... I don't have to pull off headphones or pull out an earbud and ask, "Sorry, what??" It's been a game-changer in that respect. I have worn these outside on a walk and could clearly hear people approaching behind me. If you are looking to listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks but want/need to be able to hear your surroundings clearly, these are for you. They also did not budge whatsoever when I laid flat for bench presses, did floor crunches, or walked; yet they do not pinch the ear or cause discomfort. *I suggest getting an earbuds case for easy portability, to prevent losing them, and to protect the Bose case from scratches. *You can download the Bose app and use it without making an account, which was a relief. We all have too damn many needless accounts. Kudos to Bose for that. *In the back of my mind I worry about the uncurling you have to do in order to put the earbuds on your ears. I previously had Beats Fit Pros and LOVED them, but even though I was overly gentle with them, both my wingtips eventually cracked after a couple of years. They still looked & sounded perfect and had amazing battery life too, so I was heartbroken to have to stop using them, but the rubber was flaking around the cracks and falling off into my ear canals. I hope that with these being thicker and less flexible than the wingtips, that these earbuds wouldn't crack or degrade.

Pros: I actually really like the open ear experience. I always get irritations when using in ear earphones and its bothering. but these sit so they are not inside your ear, but on the edge of your ear, while still playing the music. However, this means these DO NOT have noise cancellation because of this, so it would not be good if thats what you are looking for. Overall, I think the sound quality is pretty nice with all that said. I do like the lightness that the open ear thing brings. I also think these look really cute aesthetically. They are like a second ear accessory. I havent had issues wearing moderately large sized diamond studs with these either. I also like that these are not very prone to falling out as far as I've experienced, as is an issue with in ear earphones I have. Cons: There's a lot of things in this sections. My main grievance with these earphones is the connectivity is really finicky and difficult, especially switching between devices. Usually initial putting on of the earphones is fine connection wise. But when you take them off and put it back on, that's where issues start happening. I have both a Macbook and Iphone for reference. Sometimes when you try to connect to a device, the earphones seem to connect, but there is absolutely no sound coming out. Its genuinely very frustrating when this happens, because the sometimes the only way to get it to work again is by putting them in the case and holding the button on the case for twenty seconds to reset. There have been times that I have had to mess with the connectivity for way too long, and its extremely annoying to deal with. On top of this, the bose app makes the connection problems even worse for some reason. The multi-point connectivity the app tries to facilitate is not good at all, and I find the app causes even more problems with connection, sometimes having to even forget the device from all your devices. Another thing to mention that is pretty frustrating, is that when rewinding a video or things like that, the earphones seem to get a blip on connection loss, and then pops back in. I've rarely have this experience with a pair of wireless headphones before, although I usually stick to apple headphone products. Its genuinely so annoying to deal with and makes the user experience unsatisfying. I deleted the bose app and it seemed to help, but it still happens Lastly, something that really bothers me is that these earphones do NOT have wireless charging with the case. I think for a $300 pair of headphones, that is extremely ridiculous to not come with. I had to buy a separate $50 charging case off the bose website to get the ability for wireless charging with the case, which covers up the cool color of the original case. and I dont think the charging case looks very nice either, it looks like a cheap sillicon case, but I suppose it get the job done.......This whole thing was kind of shocking as it feels standard now adays. Overall, I'm pretty disappointed with these headphones. It sucks because I really enjoy the look of the headphones, the sound and the open ear listening experience......when it actually works. I suppose I will try to make them work for what its worth because of this, but I would probably would try to look for another option in retrospect