Bose has three new speakers to spice up your home listening. The company’s new “Lifestyle Collection,” designed with a sleek fabric-wrapped grille and smooth curves, includes the Lifestyle Ultra speaker, Lifestyle Ultra subwoofer and Lifestyle Ultra soundbar. All can be connected to multiple third-party units and speakers via AirPlay and Google Cast for a better multi-room audio experience.
These audio products mark a “re-entry” into the home speaker space for the company, bringing back the iconic Lifestyle line that debuted in 1990 – known for its simplicity and ease of use – which Bose later discontinued in 2022.
Unsurprisingly, Bose claims that the Ultra Soundbar is “the best soundbar we’ve ever made” and that the Ultra Speaker might even be one of the company’s best in its storied history. The wireless speaker starts at $299, with a limited edition model going for $349 in Driftwood Sand; the soundbar costs $1,099 and the subwoofer costs $899. They are available for pre-order now and go on sale May 15.
Bose Luxury Ultra speaker in driftwood sand.
Courtesy of Bose
These Wi-Fi enabled speakers support AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect and, uniquely, are the first to integrate with Alexa+ (US only), allowing you to ask Amazon’s chatbot to play music through the speakers via voice commands. There’s also Bluetooth support and even an auxiliary input for connecting the Ultra Speaker to a turntable.
You can group two Lifestyle Ultra speakers together into a stereo system in the Bose app, or group them all together for a home theater system. Unfortunately, if you were hoping to use it as a surround system with your existing Bose soundbar, the company says it’s only backwards compatible with the Bass module 700. And with the new Lifestyle Ultra soundbar, it can only be used as a wired connection. For multi-room audio, the company has outsourced these grouping tasks to the Google Home app for Google Cast technology or Apple’s AirPlay for iOS users. Speaking of the app, there’s a redesigned onboarding process that makes setting up all those speakers a breeze.
On the audio front, the Ultra Speaker notably has an upward-facing driver for Dolby Atmos-type spatial sound, as well as two front-facing drivers. (It doesn’t seem to support Dolby Atmos music at present.) The company is also touting its CleanBass technology, which pairs Bose’s QuietPort acoustic aperture with the woofer for deep sound that works better than its size suggests, although we’ll have to hear it for ourselves to see if it lives up to Bose’s claims.
Bose Ultra Luxury Soundbar.
Courtesy of Bose
Bose Ultra Deluxe Subwoofer.
Courtesy of Bose
Bose says the Lifestyle Ultra soundbar is its first major redesign in over a decade. That’s not to say it hasn’t introduced new soundbars in recent years. We examined the Bose smart soundbar in 2024– but these have long been minor iterations. The new soundbar features two top-firing speakers, four front-firing speakers, a center tweeter and two PhaseGuide Drivers which focus sound to the sides to help fill the room. It also features the same CleanBass technology as the QuietPort, not to mention SpeechClarity technology which uses AI to improve dialogue.
Previously, if you wanted to adapt the sound to the acoustics of the room, you had to use Bose’s proprietary ADAPTiQ headphones during setup to get the most out of the system. Now, Bose says you can use an iOS or Android microphone through the Bose app as a reference point for optimizing audio. No need for a separate accessory that you would probably lose after six months.
Bose’s new concerted effort on the home comes after a high-profile misfire from Sonos in 2024, where a disabled and crashed app update many features and made Sonos customers angry. When asked if the new products are a way to capture Sonos customers who are considering jumping ship, Bose senior product manager Gregory Haungs says the company has been planning this for a long time.
“We’ve been working on this for about three years,” Haungs told WIRED. “Bose has been thinking about getting back into this space for a while and making sure we’re doing it right. Maybe that means we’ve gained some additional knowledge and learnings about the market along the way.”
