Bose wants you to ditch your uncomfortable earbuds and over-ear headphones that cut you off from your surroundings for their SoundWear Companion Speaker. The SoundWear wearable speaker features a unique hands-free and ears-free design that allows it to fit comfortably on your shoulders for all day music enjoyment.
The speaker is water and sweat resistant and provides up to 12 hours of playback time on a full charge. A quick 15-minute charging session will add 3 hours of playback time so you’ll always be able to enjoy your tunes.
You can also use the SoundWear Companion Speaker for calls, or to talk to Siri and Google.
What do you think of this design? Would you use a wearable speaker? I’d love to try this.
The Bose SoundWear Companion Speaker is available now for $299. You can read all the details at bose.com and order from Amazon.
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Now that’s interesting. I travel and use their QC headphones (remarkable noise canceling but still good audio). I’d need to hear these on my shoulder to assess the real audio quality. Naturally, this would not likely be a welcome addition to anyone else around you, but for private listening, may work.
That’s a question I also have about the SoundWear… how audible is the music to those around you?
I’d love to try these out. I don’t like to wear earbuds or headphones because they hurt far too much too quickly. I could see these as an alternative that would suit my needs very well (except maybe on an airplane). Walking the dog and still being aware of surroundings – check. At work on low volume, check. I wonder how they’d handle an exercise session on the treadmill or elliptical?
What’s the point of this? It makes no sense to me. The purpose of headphones is to listen to music without disturbing others. Otherwise, I use a regular speaker I have zero need to wear at all. This seems completely ridiculous.
The value proposition is really quite simple (I don’t think it’s ‘completely ridiculous’). Like others, I’ve never found a set of in-ear ‘ear-buds’ to be comfortable much longer than an hour or so. And while the over-the-ear headphones work very well, they completely block any ambient sound elsewhere, which is fine if you’re on a plane or want complete solitude. However, there are many instances where I’d welcome hearing quality audio that doesn’t hurt my ears or completely block everything else out (walking pets is a great example, or riding a bicycle, or hiking or…even my office). The other value proposition is a battery life 12 hours (not the lousy 6 hours I get with my current Bluetooth headset)
In NONE of these situations is the choice of ‘use a regular speaker’ a real option (as I’d rather not drag along an extension cord and my stereo)
I live alone, so this might be ideal for me. I don’t like headphones because I feel they might cause me to not hear a knock at the door. I wait its arrival in the UK with interest.
This looks absurd… but I think I MUST try this. I don’t like headphones that seal me out from the world. This might be an exercise solution.