The $299 Ultra Speaker is the most interesting and most distinctive-looking of the bunch. It has a front-firing woofer and tweeter, an up-firing driver \u2014 unlike the Era 100 \u2014 and a bass port on the back. (For music, Bose uses its own processing for the upward-firing sound, rather than Dolby Atmos.) On the top of the speaker, behind the up-firing driver, are capacitive controls for power, Bluetooth pairing, microphone mute, volume control, and a play\/pause button. The volume and play\/pause are in a circular depression, which you can trace with your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to also control the volume. The Ultra Speaker and soundbar support Alexa Plus.<\/p>\n
The Lifestyle series uses capacitive controls on the top of the speakers.<\/p>\n The Ultra comes in beige, black, and white.<\/p>\n The speaker sounds impressively big with great vocal clarity, and without the harsh highs present on speakers like the SoundLink Plus<\/a>. In fact, when listening to the first sample \u2014 \u201cMan I Need\u201d by Olivia Dean \u2014 I thought there must be additional speakers playing from behind the curved white screens.<\/p>\n I was partly right: The screens were hiding two more Lifestyle Ultra speakers, but they weren\u2019t playing during that track. Instead, they were there for a later demo of a stereo pair. Playing Leon Bridges\u2019 \u201cPeaceful Place\u201d and Steely Dan\u2019s \u201cHey Nineteen,\u201d they demonstrated good stereo sound separation.<\/p>\n I did find that the Ultra speaker can sound overly punchy when it comes to things like snare hits (I noticed this most during Chris Stapleton\u2019s \u201cBad As I Used To Be\u201d), at least at the volumes we listened to. This might be down to the lack of room correction, a surprising omission from the Ultra Speaker at launch. Especially when being used in a stereo pair, I expected there would be some way to tune the speakers to the room and compensate for any placement issues. I was told that Bose is looking into the possibility of adding room correction at a later date for both single-speaker and stereo setups.<\/p>\n Instead of forcing you to stay within a Bose ecosystem, the Ultra Speaker can be grouped with non-Bose speakers over Google Cast and AirPlay. Photo: John Higgins \/ The Verge<\/p>\n Instead of putting all streaming app playback control in the Bose app like Sonos does with its app, Bose instead relies upon the grouping and playback functionality within apps people are already using regularly, such as Apple Music and Spotify. The Ultra speaker can stream music over Wi-Fi through Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect, and it can be added to AirPlay and Google Cast speaker groups, including those with non-Bose speakers. When Wi-Fi is unavailable, you can stream to the Ultra via Bluetooth. The speaker is Auracast capable, but will not be Auracast enabled when it\u2019s launched on May 15. Raza Haider, Bose president of premium consumer audio, told me Auracast will be turned on once that ecosystem is more mature.<\/p>\n I was expecting Bose to unveil its own Sonos app competitor, but this more open option \u2014 allowing you to expand what you currently have whether it\u2019s Bose or not \u2014 is intriguing. It also bypasses the difficulty of housing all of those individual streaming apps within the Bose app, and getting it to work properly. \u201cWe deliberately are trying to be more open and app-less in our experience,\u201d said Haider. In addition to Spotify Connect, I\u2019m hoping Bose will include services like Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect in the future.<\/p>\n Upstairs from the Ultra Speaker was a demo for the $1,099 Ultra Soundbar, which is Bose\u2019s first major soundbar redesign in years. It has two up-firing drivers, two wide-set drivers for left and right channels, two Bose PhaseGuide drivers \u2014 proprietary designs that direct the sound out to the sides \u2014 and two additional drivers flanking a center tweeter. The capacitive controls are similar to those found on the Ultra Speaker.<\/p>\n The Ultra Soundbar has a new design with a glass top.<\/p>\n We began the soundbar demo with the spice harvester evacuation scene from Dune, and it was a bit underwhelming. That\u2019s one of my go-to scenes for testing movie sound, so I\u2019m very familiar with it. While the soundscape had great width to it and I could feel rumble through the floor, there was a hole where the bass frequencies should meet the midrange, causing the sound to feel hollow. Vocal clarity was crisp, and the soundbar did a decent job with the Atmos channels, but I couldn\u2019t get past the absent upper bass frequencies.<\/p>\n Fortunately, along with the Ultra Speaker and Ultra Soundbar, Bose is releasing the Ultra Subwoofer, and it\u2019s what the soundbar needs to fill the frequency hole I heard. Instead of just feeling some vibrations from the low end, on Jacob Collier\u2019s \u201cMi Coraz\u00f3n\u201d the bass sounded full and supportive. It was a significant difference, but at $899, it also turns the soundbar\/sub combo into a $2,000 system (the same price as the Sonos Arc Ultra paired with a Sonos 4 sub).<\/p>\n For a full Atmos system, two Ultra Speakers can be used as rear channels, creating a 7.1.4 configuration. Wembley Stadium, from the Live Aid concert portion of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, surrounded and filled the room well. The Atmos height was good, although a little indistinct at times in its placement. That could have been due to the room design and my sitting position \u2014 though interestingly, unlike the smart speaker by itself or in a pair, the full system has room calibration.<\/p>\n Based particularly on my experience with the Ultra Speaker, there\u2019s great potential for the new Bose Lifestyle Collection. \u201cThere\u2019s lots more to come. This is the start of the new platform of the Lifestyle series,\u201d said Haider when I asked him about the possibility of a battery-powered version or a larger speaker. \u201cThe next one won\u2019t be smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n Photography by John Higgins \/ The Verge<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.John HigginsClose John Higgins<\/p>\n Senior Reviewer, TVs & Audio<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by John Higgins<\/a><\/p>\n BoseClose<\/p>\n Bose<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Bose<\/a><\/p>\n Hands-onClose<\/p>\n Hands-on<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Hands-on<\/a><\/p>\n NewsClose<\/p>\n News<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All News<\/a><\/p>\n ReviewsClose<\/p>\n Reviews<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n SpeakersClose<\/p>\n Speakers<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/268507_Bose_Lifestyle_Collection_JHiggins_0003.jpg\"\/)
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