Audio company Bose has teamed up with fashion brand Kith to produce a pair of unique-looking earbuds known as the Ultra Open Earbuds.
Most open earbuds you see on Amazon or Google have some sort of arm that wraps around the back of your ear. However, these go directly to your outer ear via a clip. Despite the unconventional design, Bose product maintains the main purpose of open earbuds: to enable environmental awareness and let users hear the world around them. Kith’s name is printed in Bose’s signature font on the outside of the earbuds and charging case.
This isn’t the first time a company has made open earbuds with a unique twist. Sony’s LinkBuds, for example, have an extra ring connected to the main button, which lets in sound from outside.
Strangely enough, there is very little information about the specifications of Ultra Open Earbuds. It is not known what kind of speakers the pair houses in their small frame and whether there are any special features such as high water resistance. All Kith says about the latter is that there will be a “range of state-of-the-art technologies” on board.
Functions
What is known is that the devices will support Bose’s OpenAudio software to send audio output directly to the ear canal while minimizing sound leakage. Battery life is set at “7.5 hours of playtime” on a single charge. That’s without the charging case, mind you. The full timeline of the case remains unknown.
Kith’s announcement post then reveals that the Ultra Open Earbuds will have Bose Immersive Audio, the brand’s version of spatial audio. The inclusion of this feature is especially notable because the recently released QuietComfort Ultra headphones have the same capability. With that in mind, it’s possible we could see other similarities between the two models, such as Wind Block to reduce wind noise and support for Bluetooth 5.4. The message mentions “advanced Bluetooth” as one of the Ultra Open Earbuds features, so it could refer to the latest version.
Limited quantities
All will be revealed soon enough.
The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds launch on Monday, January 22 for $300 per pair. They are sold exclusively in physical Kith stores and beyond Kith’s website in the US, Canada and Europe. Pre-orders are not available, so curious buyers will have to wait a while. What’s interesting is that the devices will be available in “extremely limited quantities,” Bose said. It is unknown how many will be available at launch. So if you’re interested in getting your hands on them, it looks like you’ll have to act quickly.
We reached out to Bose with several questions asking for information on the exact number of earbuds at launch, whether there are plans to continue selling them beyond this release, and if they could spare any details on their specs. This story will be updated at a later date.
Until then, check out Ny Breaking’s list of the best earbuds for 2024.
Update1-18-2024: A company representative came back and told us that the limited number of Ultra Open earbuds are the only ones that will be sold. Once it sells out there won’t be any more. That said, they stated that the company has plans to launch a “Bose-only version” of the earbuds. No word on when that will be released.