tl;dr

A love letter to the Bose Soundwear, and any other audio gadget that doesn’t block my ears.

Beginnings

Music is, and has always been, a big part of my life. It all started with an FM radio blasting Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” hit in elementary school, and a CD boombox. The only CD I had was the Shrek 2 soundtrack, but luckily enough, I discovered Spotify before going insane listening to Funkytown on repeat.

As I grew, so did the ways that I experienced music. However, one thing that stayed constant was the particular headphones and fashion in how I listened to the music - I’ve always had an affinity for open ears.

Various gadgets

Here is a list of the listening devices I’ve gone through over the years, why they were great, and what made me ultimately stop using them.

• Beanie headphones

  • Cheap and functional
  • Messed up my hair

• Ear warmer headphones

  • Didn't touch my hair
  • Only good outside in the cold

• Grado SR125e's

  • Super light, great sound quality
  • Uncomfortable headband.

• Sennheiser HD600s

  • Great for the computer
  • Only great for the computer

• Apple's wired earbuds

  • Iconic
  • Still going strong

• Smart glasses

  • Relatively sleek, it always felt like the future
  • I don't wear glasses

  Some notes on the glasses I've used.

  I bought the Razer Anzu, the Soundcore Frames, and the 1st gen Echo Frames (of course, years after release, for dirt cheap from Facebook Marketplace).

  By far, the Razer Anzu have been the best because of their sound quality, ability to switch between devices with a single press, and their no-fuss fold-to-turn-off design. I lost a pair, and immediately bought a new pair. The touch button could be better, and they could look better too, but they're so damn functional for a college student.

  The Soundcore Frames are impossible to find clear frames for, sound much worse than the Razers, and their controls are worse - the swiping is a little more responsive, but the on-off really should be fold-controlled. The good looking profile and gimmick of keyphrase-less audio commands didn't make up for how big they looked on my face.

  The 1st gen Echo Frames sound pitiful, but the achilles heel was Alexa. It can't call or text people, and the Razer Anzu with Siri being a long press away clears Alexa on it's best days.

  Ok, back to the list.

• Sonos, Airplay

  • Big speakers with rich sound stage
  • Big speakers disturb others in the house eg. parents, roommates

Endgame

Finally, we arrive to the latest listening gadget that has really been a long time coming, and that’s Bose’s neck speakers from 2018. MrMobile’s video of them is something that I’ve watched more than once, and I’d been pining for these things for over 6 years.

Formerly, it’s known as the Bose Soundwear Companion Speaker, but they’re neck speakers. I want to call them neckbuds, but that evokes the image of the headphones that LG has been selling since the beginning of time. Whatever Bose calls them, they’re amazing.

By no means are they perfect. They’re not really light on the shoulders, the charging port is recessed way too deep, and the port is MicroUSB. Disgusting. Additionally, these things were not cheap in 2018! They were $300!

The bass is definitely there, but I’m not sure they can live up to most of Bose’s other offerings. They’re not private speakers - people can hear what you listen to, and they can’t really be used for running or other physical activity - they wouldn’t stay on your shoulders.

But, for all the shortcomings, these speakers hit so many marks that really make them a joy to throw on around the house. The battery lasts for days. Pairing is flawless, and it connects to my phone and my laptop simultaneously; It doesn’t need an Apple H-whatever chip to switch quickly between my laptop and phone. The volume gets plenty loud indoors.

There are plenty of buttons, they’re clicky, and there’s no arcane double tap and hold trickery needed to do stuff like pull up Siri, turn them off, or get into pairing mode. Calls are absolutely wonderful. They can’t fall out of your ears like buds, and they don’t have cables to tangle. This stuff is killer for around-the-house chores, laying on a couch, or eating with. Especially for tasks like cooking, where you probably want to hear if something’s boiled or cooked, these don’t block your ears, so it’s all clear.

In a shared house where people are watching TV in the room in the next room, the neck speakers are magnitudes quieter than a regular speaker in the kitchen, especially when you turn on a fan hood, and start frying things on the stove.

But, I think the best part of wearing these - much like smart glasses, or just having a speaker in the room - is that you can just talk to people. Of course, you probably want to turn them down or pause the music, but the important part is that they’re not covering up your ears. They sit unoffensively on your shoulders, and they don’t make a peep unless you ask them to. I went out for a walk and forgot that they were on my shoulders until I was a half-mile away from the house, because I was talking to my roommate. Of course, when I tried to play music again, I was reminded that Bose didn’t build these things to compete with the noise of buses and cars driving on the road next to me.

I’m not saying that anyone should try and track down the remaining stock of Bose Soundwears left of Facebook Marketplace, but I do think that their experience is something that didn’t deserve to die in 2018.

With recent innovations in directional audio, I think that wearable speakers have a new opportunity to become a part of the ambient computing revolution in ways that simply haven’t been possible, and it makes me excited to see what comes next. Whatever happens, I know that I’ll take anything that keeps my ears open and connected to the world around me.

9/26/2024 Update

Another innovation in open audio and reducing sound leakage!

Nothing’s Ear (open) are hook-style headphones that use a directed speaker for music, and include a secondary, outward-facing speaker on each bud that plays an inverse sound wave - so any sound that leaks from the earbuds is cancelled out. It’s simple and seems pretty effective, though I’m sure it took months of tweaking. It’s explained well in this video. I imagine that lots of other wearables could consider using such a technique to reduce sound leakage (I’m looking at you, Oculus Quest).