Bose’s latest true wireless earbuds, the Sport Open Earplugs, are designed to keep you aware of your surroundings while you listen. While most other earplugs sit in the ear canal and at least block out ambient noise, the Sport Open Earplugs sit outside. Bose officially announced the earplugs a little over a month after they were leaked via a submission from the Federal Communications Commission.
A design that allows ambient noise may sound unintuitive, given how headphone manufacturers (Bose included) spend so much money to do the exact opposite with noise reduction technology. But there are many cases where a very good thing to be aware of is your surroundings, such as when riding a bike or running after dark.
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Different headphone manufacturers have used different approaches to achieve a similar effect. For example, bone-conducting headphones, such as those from Aftershokz, vibrate against the sides of the wearer’s head so that they can hear music without having earplugs in their ears. It’s also becoming common for earbuds like the AirPods Pro to include a kind of “surround” or “transparent” mode, where they use their microphones to hear ambient noise and mix it with music.
Evil’s approach is a little different. Instead of sitting inside the ear like most earplugs, the Sport Open Earplugs grab ‘gently on the outside of the ear’ and sit above the ear canal. Bose claims that it enables them to work with ‘no ear tip, virtually no skin contact and without pressure and vibration of bone conduction.’ It adds that only the wearer should hear what the earplugs are playing, even at high volumes.
In terms of specifications, Bose promises that the earbuds will deliver eight hours of battery life on a single charge, have a dust and water resistance rating of IPX4 and support Bluetooth 5.1. They can be controlled with a button on each earpiece (one for activating a paired phone’s voice assistant and one for controlling playback), and microphones are built-in to make calls. They have a carrying case and charging base and can be controlled with the Bose Music App.
Bose is releasing the Sport Open Earplugs for the first time in the US, where it is available in black and $ 199.95. Pre-orders are open today and the earplugs are available from mid-January.