Bose Ultra Open Earbuds review: Style and sound champs

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

MSRP $299.00

Score Details

“The Ultra Open Earbuds popularized the clip-style shape and they're still one of the best.”

Pros

• Comfy, glasses-friendly shape
• Open, airy sound
• Excellent controls
• Impressive spatial audio

Cons

• Expensive
• No wireless charging

Tired of your wireless earbuds blocking your ears and keeping you from hearing sounds around you? You’re not alone, and you’re not without options. Open-ear earbuds are an excellent choice for those who want to enjoy music and calls without sacrificing their situational awareness.

But if you’re someone who also wears glasses — either prescription or sunglasses (or both) — you may find that most open-ear earbuds seem to have one thing in common. They hook around the tops of your ears, right where your glasses sit.

Not so with Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds, which clip to the sides of your ears instead. It’s a bold design choice that’s as much fashion accessory as it is technology. They come with an equally bold price of $299, making them the most expensive open-ear earbuds you can buy. But to sweeten the deal, Bose has added head-tracked spatial audio and Snapdragon Sound, which it introduced with the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones and QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. There’s also a cool extra feature for folks who own one of Bose’s newer soundbars.

Are they worth it? I think the answer is yes. But keep reading for my thoughts on who should buy them.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: specs

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: design

If you’re sick of the standard white golf tee look of the Apple AirPods and their legion of knockoffs, you’ve come to the right place. The Ultra Open Earbuds (which are available in rainbow of 10 different colors) couldn’t be more different.

They look like a comma (or perhaps an apostrophe), with a barrel on one end and a hook-like shape on the other. They’re such a departure from traditional earbuds that it’s far from obvious how to wear them. When I initially pulled them from their charging case, I confidently shoved the barrel portion in my ear, using the hook to secure them. It fit, but I can assure you this is incorrect.

It’s actually the hook that goes inside your concha first (it contains the speaker), then, while gripping the barrel, you wrap the barrel portion (battery and controls) around and behind the part of your ear called the helix.

Thanks to the flexible rubberized connection between the barrel and hook, it’s less awkward than it sounds. You get faster at it the more you do it.

If getting them on and off your ears takes practice, the opposite is true of getting the Ultra Open Earbuds in and out of their charging case. Unlike most earbuds that need to be plucked (sometimes with difficulty) from their charging crevices, the Ultra Open sit fully exposed — held in place only by their powerful magnets.

The buds are super easy to access. Putting them back might be even easier — simply bring them within a few millimeters of their assigned charging spots and those magnets grab them from your fingers and snap them in place.

Another benefit to the Ultra Open’s unusual shape is the size of their case. Most open-ear models use earhooks. This requires bigger, bulkier cases. The Ultra’s case is actually smaller than the one that accompanies the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

Unfortunately, the case doesn’t have wireless charging. You’ll have to use the included USB-A to USB-C cable. If you want wireless charging, you’ll need to cough up an additional $49 for a wireless charging silicone cover — the same ridiculous solution it designed for its QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. It’s 2025 and there’s simply no acceptable reason for a set of nearly $300 wireless earbuds to omit this handy feature.

I’m also a little concerned about the case’s lid. Even when closed, it can twist out of shape a bit, leading me to think that either the hinge isn’t wide enough, or the lid’s plastic isn’t rigid enough.

Despite the fact that Bose intends the Ultra Open Earbuds to be worn all day, in a variety of situations, they only have IPX4 protection from water and no dust protection at all. In other words, a bit of sweat or rain should be fine, but they are not going to stand up to rougher use.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: comfort, controls, and connections

With their unusual design, few folks will forget you’re wearing a set of Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, but you just might. Once I had them on my ears, I was barely aware of them. I’ve found this to be true of most open-ear earbuds I’ve tried, but the Ultra Open Earbuds are especially comfortable for long sessions.

They’re not perfect — I eventually noticed some pressure where the barrel sits against the back of my helix — but they can also be adjusted. I was able to slide them higher or lower to change that pressure point.

When Bose released the Ultra Open Earbuds, it was one of the first to use a clip-style shape. Since then, the concept has been adopted by lots of manufacturers, with prices well below what Bose charges. Shokz’s recent $200 OpenDots One, is a great example.

In general, the design offers two big advantages over the classic earhook shape of most open-ears: It doesn’t interfere with glasses, and it places the speaker closer to your ear canal.

Not that the whole glasses thing is a major problem with earhook-style buds, but with the Ultra Open Earbuds, you don’t think about it at all.

Another big benefit to Bose’s design is the controls. A single physical button occupies the top of each barrel, which is easily clicked by putting your thumb on the barrel bottom while pressing the button with your index finger (like the OK hand sign). This turns out to be one of the easiest, most intuitive earbud controls I’ve ever used, and it works just as well with gloved hands.

By default, you get playback/call control and track control via single, double, and triple clicks. A long-press handles a preselected shortcut (more on this in a moment), and the left and right buds have volume down/up gestures, respectively. Of these, only the shortcut gesture can be customized in the Bose app (iOS, Android.)

There are no wear sensors, but there’s no need to remove an earbud for conversations — simply pressing the pause button is enough.

With Bluetooth 5.3, the Ultra Open Earbuds are easy to connect, especially on Android devices where Google Fast Pair makes it a one-click process. Plus, they’re future-proofed for the eventual support of features like LE Audio and Auracast. Unfortunately, neither is available out of the box, though Bose says both are on its radar.

Though they launched without support for Bluetooth Multipoint, this omission was corrected with a mid-2024 software update and now you can use the Bose app to manage all of your paired devices. You can see the devices that have been previously paired, and then connect to up to two of them simultaneously.

It might have taken Bose a while to make Multipoint happen, but now that it has caught up, it’s implementation of the feature is one of the best I’ve seen.

If you decide not to enable Multipoint for some bizarre reason, you can program the long-press shortcut gesture to hop the Ultra Open Earbuds from their existing wireless connection to the next device in your list. It’s not as seamless or as convenient as Multipoint, but it’s far better than having to reach for your phone or pull up the Bluetooth menu on your computer.

Each bud can have different shortcut functions, and your other choices are voice assistant access, immersive audio switching, or mode cycling. On Bose QuietComfort products, modes make sense — they let you assign different combinations of ANC and immersive audio into a single setting.

But on the Ultra Open, it’s somewhat superfluous. The only thing you can add to a mode is an immersive audio setting, and these are already accessible via the immersive audio switching shortcut. The one benefit appears to be the ability to eliminate one of the three immersive audio options, letting you toggle between two.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: sound quality

For open-ear earbuds to provide situational awareness, they have to let a lot of outside sound in. That’s kryptonite for audio fidelity, and there’s no getting around it — the louder your environment, the harder it will be to enjoy your music.

I can’t stress this enough: you will hear your music, but you will hear everything else, too. Nonetheless, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds manage to do a better job at this balancing act than any other open-ear earbuds.

Bose knows how to extract great sound quality from small drivers. When you pair that with a clip-style shape, which as I noted above, puts the earbuds’ drivers inside the concha, where they’re closer to your ear canals, the overall result is impressive, especially in quiet locations.

Instead of pushing audio into your ears like normal earbuds — which can be intense, particularly when listening to lower frequencies — the Ultra Open Earbuds create an airy, natural listening experience that does a better job of simulating a set of stereo speakers. They’re the earbud equivalent of open-back headphones.

Bass, which is usually the first victim of open designs, remains potent. It doesn’t thump, but it still carries plenty of weight and resonance. Midrange details are another strength. In quiet locations, they let me hear many subtleties. Higher frequencies can be a tad on the strident side, but are always clear and focused.

Bose includes a set of four EQ presets to help fine-tune the sound to your liking, but these are subtle tweaks at best. You won’t be able to massively alter the factory tuning.

I was especially impressed with Bose’s Immersive Audio setting, which gives any stereo sound the spatial audio treatment. The effect is very convincing — it puts two virtual stereo speakers a few feet in front and above your listening position.

Though still not a must-have feature, I think Bose’s spatial tech works better than that of Apple, Jabra, and Soundcore. Add the open architecture of the Ultra Open Earbuds, and you’ve got an ideal platform for getting the most out of the 3D-like effect.

Like the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (and Headphones), you can choose between “still” — the head-tracked version — and “motion,” which maintains spatial audio, but disables head tracking. The key difference is that still mode creates the illusion that the two virtual speakers are in the same room as you, but fixed in place, directly in front of your listening position. With motion mode, those speakers move in sync with your head movements, which is how traditional headphones work.

Speaking of spatial audio, if you happen to own a Bose Smart Soundbar or a Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar, the Ultra Open Earbuds let you experience what Bose calls “Personal Surround Sound.”

It effectively sends surround-channel audio to the Ultra Open Earbuds, which provides a remarkable replacement for actual surround speakers. It’s limited to just one set of Ultra Open Earbuds, so when Bose says “personal” it’s not exaggerating. Still, if you have a small space for watching TV and you tend to watch alone, it’s an amazing option for going without dedicated surround speakers.

There’s also an auto-volume feature that can be enabled in the Bose app. When it’s on, the earbuds try to increase the volume based on your surroundings, to keep the same relative volume you had set when in a quieter location — and it’s a good idea in theory. Unfortunately I found it didn’t kick in when I wanted it to, and when it did, it often took me by surprise.  Its ability to do this depends on your chosen volume level — if you start at 90%, there’s not much it can do to make things louder.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound tech, the Ultra Open Earbuds give you the full range of aptX codecs, including aptX Lossless, for CD-quality wireless sound (assuming you have a compatible Android phone). You may notice a difference in controlled, quiet settings — I found my Motorola ThinkPhone delivered a smoother, more nuanced sound than my iPhone 14 — but these benefits will be instantly lost the moment you step outside.

Before you rush to hit the buy button, there are two things you need to know, especially if you’ve never used open-ear earbuds before.

First, when you’re in noisy environments, listening to spoken-word content like podcasts or phone calls can be challenging. You will miss things and you’ll likely have to ask people to repeat themselves. Keep that in mind if you’re going to be using these while at a gym or walking on busy streets.

Second, sound quality and volume levels will be affected by fit. This is true of any set of earbuds, but it’s particularly noticeable on a product like the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which have a variety of possible positions on your ear. Be prepared to experiment.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: call quality

I love using open-ear earbuds for phone calls and video chats. Few people discuss it, but I think it’s a highly underrated aspect of these devices. Because you can hear your own voice as clearly as if you weren’t using headphones at all, it’s a natural way to talk and far less fatiguing than with regular earbuds — even those with a transparency mode.

On the other side of the equation, your callers should hear you clearly most of the time. Outdoors, the Ultra Open Earbuds occasionally struggle with loud competing sounds. Your voice may sound distant or thin. The fidelity gets better indoors.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: battery life

Bose claims the Ultra Open Earbuds get up to 7 hours of battery life on a single charge, and the charging case can boost that to 27 hours. However, Bose’s Immersive Audio mode appears to be very power-hungry. If you leave it turned on, battery life drops to 4 and 16 hours respectively.

And most power estimates are based on listening at a 50% volume level. That may be loud enough when inside, but you will likely want it higher when outside.

While that’s not brilliant for wireless earbuds, the Ultra Open Earbuds should still be able to get you through a full day. You likely won’t be listening to music continuously, and even if you do, a quick charge of 10 minutes gets you an extra two hours of use.

Conclusion

Open-ear earbuds aren’t for everyone. They can’t deliver thumping bass, and the very thing that makes them appealing (being able to hear your surroundings) is also the thing that limits their audio quality. And yet, if you’re tired of jamming hard plastic objects into your ears and then having to yank them out just to order a coffee, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds are a fantastic alternative.

The lack of wireless charging is tough to swallow, especially when the Shokz OpenDots One offer it and cost $100 less. However, the Ultra Open Earbuds sound better than any other open-ear model I’ve tried so far, and their already open and airy sound is the perfect platform for their spatial audio tech.

Like the idea of open-ear earbuds (whether clip- or earhook-styles), but you’re not ready to make a $300 investment? Our roundup of the best open-ear earbuds has several great options at varying prices. Here are a few models I think are worth a closer look: The Shokz OpenFit 2 ($180) are incredibly comfortable for an earhook shape, but you can also get most of their benefits from the $100 Soundcore AeroFit 2. For non-earhook designs, Sony’s LinkBuds Open ($180) fit more like traditional earbuds, the Shokz OpenDots One ($199) have immense bass and battery life, and once again, Soundcore manages to provide most of the clip-style benefits for a lower price than most, with the AeroClip ($130).