Bose Brings Back Its ‘Life’ Brand With New Home Speakers

All have three new speakers to enhance your listening experience at home. The company’s new “Lifestyle Collection” – made of shiny fabric wrapped in gentle curves, includes the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker, the Lifestyle Ultra Subwoofer, and the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar. All of these can be connected to multiple units and third-party speakers via AirPlay and Google Cast for a rich audio experience.

These headphones mark the “re-entry” of the company’s home speakers, bringing back the series of live speakers that began in 1990 – known for their simplicity and ease of use – which Bose later abandoned in 2022.

Unsurprisingly, Bose says the Ultra Soundbar is “the best soundbar we’ve ever made,” and that the Ultra speaker may be one of the company’s best in its storied history. The wireless speaker starts at $299, with a $349 limited model in Driftwood Sand; The soundbar costs $1,099, and the subwoofer is $899. It is available to order now and goes on sale May 15th.

Bose Luxury Ultra speaker in Driftwood Sand.

Courtesy of Bose

These Wi-Fi-connected speakers support AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, and, uniquely, are the first to integrate with them. Alexa+ (US only), allowing you to ask Amazon’s chatbots to play music through the speakers. There’s also Bluetooth support, as well as a built-in support for connecting the Ultra speaker to a turntable.

You can create two sets of Lifestyle Ultra speakers in stereo in the Bose app, or combine them all to create a home theater. Unfortunately, if you’re hoping to use it as a surround system with your existing Bose soundbar, the company says it’s backwards compatible with Bass Module 700. And with the new Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar, it can be used as a wireless connection. For multi-room audio, the company has dedicated the services to Google Home’s Google Cast technology, or Apple’s AirPlay for iOS users. Speaking of the app, there is a redesigned system that makes using all these speakers a breeze.

On the audio front, the Ultra speaker features a top-firing driver for Dolby Atmos-like spatial audio, along with two front-facing drivers. (It doesn’t seem to help Dolby Atmos music at this time.) The company also shows its CleanBass technology, which combines Bose’s QuietPort acoustic opening with a woofer for a deep sound that works better than its size suggests, although we will listen to ourselves to see if it matches what Bose said.