Bose’s Dolby Atmos Soundbar Has an Awesome Surround Sound Feature

There’s only one catch: you must also have Bose’s fancy open-ear earbuds.

Bose Smart Soundbar Personal Surround Sound

Published September 18, 2024

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Updated September 18, 2024

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It’s funny. Just earlier this week, one of my Gear Patrol colleagues asked what I thought of the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, the company’s open-ear workout earbuds that grip the outside of your ears like earrings.

I told him that I think they’re awesome — I’ve been running with them for the past several months — but at $300, they are damn expensive. And it’s hard to justify spending that much on earbuds that you’d probably only wear while working out.

He agreed.

Well, speak of the devil. Bose just announced a new Dolby Atmos soundbar, the Bose Smart Soundbar, that has a unique feature that exclusively works in tandem with the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. It might be the extra kick you need to spend $300 on wireless earbuds (and $500 on a new soundbar).

Bose is calling the feature “Personal Surround Sound.”

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

$229 at Bose

$299 (23% off)
$229 at Amazon

$299 (23% off)

A new kind of personal surround sound experience

If you have the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds and the Bose’s new soundbar, you can pair the two — via Bose’s companion app — and the left and right earbuds will be designated as rear channel speakers.

This works exclusively with the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds because of their open-ear design. You’ll still be able to hear the soundbar’s entire sound, but the earbuds will play the surround sound noise. The idea is that this delivers the full effect of a surround system without needing extra physical speakers placed around your room.

Obviously, most modern TVs and streaming devices have built-in Bluetooth, so you can connect any pair of wireless headphones and have a private watching experience. But whereas AirPods when paired with an Apple TV, or the Sonos Ray when paired with a Sonos soundbar, will play the full TV audio, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds can just act as the rear surround sound speakers.

It’s a neat trick that I’ve never heard any other soundbar-and-headphone pairing be able to do before.

According to Bose, it’s “an unparalleled sonic experience of sound all around you. The resulting effect is a deep, rich, personal sound, bringing an entirely new meaning to immersive audio.”

Meet the new Dolby Atmos soundbar

Bose Smart Soundbar

$499 at Bose

The Bose Smart Soundbar isn’t the company’s new flagship Dolby Atmos soundbar — that title still belongs to the $899 Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. Instead, it replaces the 2022-released Bose Smart Soundbar 600 as the company’s midrange Dolby Atmos soundbar. It’s priced at the exact same $499.

At launch, the Bose Smart Soundbar is the only soundbar that will work in tandem with the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds and support Personal Surround Sound. But Bose says it will roll out the feature to to higher-end soundbar “later this fall.”

The soundbar has a total of five speakers — two side-firing speakers, two up-firing speakers and one center-channel speaker — that promise to do a good job convincing your ears of immersive sound.

Like Bose’s flagship soundbar, this soundbar can work with Bose’s other wireless speakers and subwoofers, allowing you to create a larger multi-room or surround sound system.

As its name gives away, the Bose Smart Soundbar is a smart soundbar that can be configured with either Alexa and Google Assistant voice assistants. It supports AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Chromecast built-in as well as Bluetooth, for easy streaming.

Price and availability

The Bose Smart Soundbar is available for purchase now. As are the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which were released earlier this year. Together, the personal surround sound experience is going to run you just shy of $800.

If you’re looking to match the soundbar with the earbuds, you’ll have to get the latter in black — that’s the only color the Bose Smart Soundbar comes in.