The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) are the best clip-on earbuds I wouldn't buy

Wireless clip-on earbuds have become surprisingly common in 2026, but two years ago, Bose was one of the first brands to embrace the open-ear concept with the Ultra Open Earbuds. These cuff-like earbuds almost looked like jewelry, clipping onto the edge of your ear and playing music without blocking anything out. While they kept me aware of traffic and conversations, the bass was almost absent, calls sounded rough, and the $299 price was hard to justify. Now Bose is back with a 2nd Gen model that keeps the same price and shape, and the company says it fixes the rest with a new driver for deeper bass and higher volume, better microphones, and longer battery life. So, are these the best clip-on earbuds for the money, or has the market become too competitive, with better-value alternatives?

What’s it like to use the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen)?

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) are the most refined take yet on the cuff design Bose helped popularize, and that polish is most of what the $299 price gets you.

Design

At first glance, it’s hard to tell the new Bose Ultra Open Earbuds from the first-gen pair. They use the same cuff design, with a small speaker piece that rests just outside the ear canal, a flexible silicone joint wraps around the edge of the ear, and a battery barrel with the controls sits behind it. Holding the two side by side, I found the silicone joint on the 2nd Gen is looser and less stiff, so it’s a little easier to pull open and wrap around my ear. The outer cap also gets a shiny, metallic-looking finish with a beveled edge, though it’s still just plastic.

The earbuds themselves are lightweight and comfortable to wear, and remain fairly stable in place even while running or exercising. They are designed to hang lower on the ear, so I found I could easily wear sunglasses with them. I could wear them for a few hours at a time before needing a break. They carry an IPX4 rating, so I wouldn’t worry about sweat or light rain, though I wouldn’t rinse them under a tap. The onboard buttons handle playback, calls, volume, and a programmable shortcut, and are easy to find by feel while moving.

The charging case now stands upright on a silicone base, and the lid opens and closes a little more smoothly. It supports wireless charging alongside USB-C, but because of that new base, the USB-C port is now on one side of the case instead of the bottom, and the pairing button is on the opposite side instead of the back. It’s a small change, but it means I can plug the case in or pair a new device while it’s standing up on a table.

Features

You can manage most things through the Bose app. For sound,  it has the same simple EQ Bose has offered for years: three sliders for bass, mids, and treble, plus a handful of presets like Bass Boost and Treble Reducer. It’s fine for a quick nudge in one direction, but it’s far more limited than the 8- and 10-band EQs in apps from brands like Soundcore and Sony.

The listening modes carry over from the 1st gen, with one addition. Alongside regular stereo, there’s still Immersive Audio, Bose’s take on spatial audio, with a Still setting and a Motion setting that uses head tracking so the music seems to stay in place when I turn my head. New this time is Cinema Mode, designed for videos and podcasts. I found that it increases the spatial width of sounds while keeping voices and dialogue centered, which can help when watching content. However, these modes use more battery life, with just five hours of listening time, down from nine.

Auto Volume also returns from the 1st gen. It’s supposed to keep music at the same perceived loudness as surrounding noise changes, which makes sense in theory. In practice, I found it often overcorrects. When I switched it on at my desk while listening to music at around 30% volume, the volume immediately jumped to an uncomfortably loud level. The likely culprit was the air conditioning unit overhead, but I’d never noticed it over my music before, so the boost wasn’t needed in the first place, and I frantically reached for my phone to turn it down.

Lastly, you can set a shortcut to launch Spotify Tap, call up your phone’s voice assistant, or cycle through the Immersive Audio settings. Bose has also promised a firmware update that will add Google Find Hub for locating lost earbuds, built-in Alexa+, and an Apple Music shortcut at a later date.

How does the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) connect?

The earbuds use Bluetooth 5.4 and support the SBC, AAC, and aptX Adaptive codecs. AAC is the one iPhone users get, while compatible Android phones with Snapdragon Sound can use aptX Adaptive for higher-quality audio and lower latency. Overall, I never experienced any connection lags or pairing problems during my testing.

Bluetooth multipoint is supported out of the box this time, so I can stay connected to two devices at once, like my phone and laptop. On Android, Google Fast Pair also makes pairing a one-tap job. What they don’t support is Auracast, the newer Bluetooth feature that lets you tune into audio broadcasts, like a TV at the gym or announcements at an airport, or share audio from one phone with several pairs of earbuds.

How long does the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen)’s battery last?

Bose rates the earbuds for up to nine hours of playback, but in our standardized battery test, they actually lasted 13 hours and 1 minute. That’s plenty for a full days use before needing to recharge, and it’s over four hours longer than the 1st gen managed in the same test. Just keep in mind that that number will drop when using Immersive Audio or Auto Volume features.

The case holds an extra 19.5 hours, for a total of 28.5 hours. If you’re running low, a 10-minute quick charge gets you about two hours of playback, and a full charge takes about an hour. The case now also supports wireless charging out of the box, which previously required a $49 case cover on the original.

How well do the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) block out noise?

They don’t, and that’s the point. Open earbuds sit outside the ear canal instead of sealing it, so I hear everything around me just as I would with nothing in. There’s no active noise canceling, and barely any isolation for us to measure. That’s great for hearing things like cars, bike bells, and announcements around me, but it also means my music has to compete with my surroundings.

In loud places, I was tempted to turn the volume up to drown out the world, but that’s how you end up risking noise-induced hearing loss. As I mentioned earlier, Auto Volume does some of this on its own, but it also increases the risk of hearing damage as it can crank things up much louder than necessary. There’s no volume limiter in the Bose app either, so if you plan to use Auto Volume, I’d set a volume limit on your phone first.

How do the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) sound?

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) sound much better than the originals, with more bass strength and treble that never gets shrill, as long as you keep the volume at a comfortable level.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Can you use the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) for phone calls?

Calls were the 1st gen’s weak spot, and Bose has made efforts to improve them. Each earbud now pairs a microphone with a voice pickup unit, a sensor that picks up the vibrations of your voice. Bose’s SpeechClarity processing uses both to separate your voice from surrounding noise.

Because we record them on an artificial test head, which doesn’t vibrate like a real head does when someone talks, the voice pickup units can’t work the way they would with a real person. That may also be why they seemed to struggle with female voices in our testing. Keep in mind that real calls may sound different from what you hear in the samples below.

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen)?

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen) fix most of the issues that held back the original. The bass has more strength, the treble no longer stings, and the upright, wireless charging case is a nice touch. I enjoyed wearing them, but I wouldn’t spend $299 on them. Calls still fall apart in noisy places, Auto Volume overcorrects, and they sound their best at low volumes, which is where cheaper clip-on earbuds come close enough for most people. If you have the cash, love the cuff design, and want Bose’s polish, you won’t be disappointed. Everyone else can get most of this experience for a lot less.

If you are looking for alternatives to the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), Bose’s own Sport Open Earbuds ($199 at Amazon) share the same call tech and Auto Volume in a sweat- and dust-resistant silicone design, though without Immersive Audio or Cinema Mode. The Sony LinkBuds Clip ($229.99 at Amazon) are a feature-packed clip-on pair for a bit less, while the CMF Clip Pro ($79 at Amazon) are comfortable, easy to control, and cost less than a third as much.