Bose is almost ready to challenge Apple’s AirPods Pro with new noise-canceling earbuds
Bose hasn’t released a pair of true wireless earbuds since the SoundSport Free in 2017, but it seems the company is about to make up for lost time. Last year, Bose said it was readying two sets of new earbuds — the Noise Canceling Earbuds 500 and 700, still listed on this website — and a new video suggests the launch of at least one of those could be imminent. Bose has apparently reconsidered its branding choices and is reverting back to its signature “QuietComfort” series: the Noise Canceling Headphones 700 are now simply called the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. Seems like the right decision to me.
This is according to a marketing video that was prematurely discovered by Redditors on retailer Harvey Norman’s website. (CNET reported on the leak.) The clip has since been taken down, but not before it was reuploaded to YouTube.
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The QuietComfort Earbuds will offer “the world’s most effective noise cancelling” backed by crisp audio with deep bass, thanks to “breakthrough acoustic innovations.” This is the sort of language that Bose always uses for new products, but there’s no company more closely tied to noise cancellation technology than Bose. The QuietComfort Earbuds will include the company’s StayHear Max tips (with an integrated stability arc) and are confirmed to be sweat and water resistant.
Bose’s video says you can expect six hours of battery life and that the QuietComfort Earbuds deliver clear calls due to their “custom-designed microphone array.” And yep, those are a lot of mic holes! Bose did make big strides in voice quality with the Noise Canceling Headphones 700, so I’m looking forward to seeing how those have carried over to earbuds.
Bose’s video tells us a lot about the QuietComfort Earbuds and shows both black-and-white and silver color options, but it stops short of revealing how much they’ll cost or when they’ll be available. The Noise Canceling Earbuds 500 have also apparently been renamed to the much simpler “Bose Sports Earbuds,” according to CNET.
Bose hasn’t been out of the game entirely since releasing the SoundSport Free; the company collaborated with Amazon on the Echo Buds, which feature Bose’s active noise reduction technology. But Bose has always maintained that it was saving its best noise cancellation capabilities for its own products. Last year, a spokesperson told me that the Noise Canceling Earbuds 700 “will use proprietary Bose active noise-cancellation, and will have better performance than the Echo Buds.”
Of course, Bose’s bigger competition right now is Apple and the AirPods Pro, plus other rivals like Sony’s WF1000XM3 earbuds. The company has a lot riding on the QuietComfort Earbuds if it wants to reestablish itself as the leader in this space. I’ve reached out to Bose for more details on what’s ahead.
Bose hasn’t released a pair of true wireless earbuds since the SoundSport Free in 2017, but it seems the company is about to make up for lost time. Last year, Bose said it was readying two sets of new earbuds — the Noise Canceling Earbuds 500 and 700, still listed…
