A YouTuber posted a video of what could be one of the first units of Bose’s new true wireless noise-canceling headphones.
YouTube / Screenshot by David Carnoy / CNET
In March I wrote about how Bose is highly anticipated. new true wireless headphones delayed, with a Bose spokesperson telling me “product development has taken longer than anticipated” and has been compounded by coronavirus issues. the Headphones 500, which I previewed in a post and video last June, didn’t launch in 2019 and ended up being pushed until 2020. The Noise-Canceling 700 Earbuds, the company’s response to Apple AirPods ProThey were always scheduled for this year, but have not materialized yet either. However, what appears to be an early version of the latest headphones has mysteriously appeared on YouTube.
A Bose spokesman declined to comment on the post. She said she would share information about new products as soon as she could.
The box in the video, which was released last week, is stamped with the letters FPO. In the world of printing and graphics, that generally indicates that packaging graphics is a placeholder and not a final (for position only). In fact, the words “Noise-Canceling 700 Headphones” don’t appear on the box, just “Bose QuietComfort Headphones”, which may or may not mean that Bose is planning to use their QuietComfort brand. The inside of the box also has shiny plastic, which doesn’t look final (Bose usually goes with matte finishes) and the manual pages were blank. Read all you want.
read more: The best noise canceling headphones of 2020
The back of the box has some specs, but it’s not clear if they’re totally accurate. The battery life is six hours and you get two additional charges from the charging case, which can be charged wirelessly or via USB-C. There is both noise cancellation and a transparency mode.
Six hours of battery life is one hour more than the AirPods Pro with noise cancellation enabled.
YouTube / Screenshot by David Carnoy / CNET
Josh Quill, the YouTube poster, didn’t seem to have much information on the headphones. Responding to the commenters, he said he thought they would be out in December and did not know how much they would cost. He didn’t answer how he got the unit, but like I said, it looks a lot like the representations Bose has in place (scroll down the page). His only other videos posted are from a museum in Torrance, California, and a closed mall and movie theaters in Northern California, all of which were posted in 2016.
read more: Bose quietly replaces its CEO
I think both the Earbuds 500 and the Noise-Canceling 700 Earbuds, or whatever Bose ends up calling them, will arrive before the holiday shopping season. But if that’s in the next month or two or closer to Thanksgiving it’s hard to say. What is certain is that Bose has had a challenge in recent months: the company closed 119 stores in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan, replaced its CEO and apparently scrapped Bose AR, its nascent augmented reality audio platform. Suffice it to say, you can’t afford a misfire, especially when it comes to an important category like true wireless headphones.
