Bose Frames, Soprano, Bluetooth Audio Sunglasses Review

Bose Frames, Soprano, Bluetooth Audio Sunglasses Review

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Buy it at Amazon: Bose Frames, Soprano, Bluetooth Audio Sunglasses [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Stylish, lightweight, decent battery, amazing sound.

You’ll receive the sunglasses in a carrying case, a microfiber cleaning cloth, USB charging cable, a set of instructions and a safety information booklet. The case has a hard plastic shell with leather backing and a magnetic hinge on the top with a felt padded interior. The Bluetooth sunglasses come in a few styles, and this one is called Soprano. The lenses have a classic cat’s eye shape and are wide and chunky. The bridge width is 17 mm, the lenses are 55mm wide, and the arm length is 145mm. The glasses only come in one size and are not customizable, however, you can get prescription lenses for them, and I’ll have that information in the description.

You’ll notice that the arms on these frames have an exaggerated width due to the embedded Bluetooth and audio components. On the inside of the right-hand arm, you have a charging status LED indicator and these gold contacts are the charging points for the magnetic charging cable. On the underside of the right arm is the power button for the frames, and just behind it on the corner of the rounded edge is the speaker, and you’ll find a matching speaker on the back edge of the left-hand arm as well.

To charge your frames, line up the pins on the charging cable’s connector to the gold contacts and touch them together. They should stick to each other magnetically. Then plug the cable into any powered USB port, adapter, or power pack and the status light next to the charger will start flashing.

The quick start guide has a QR code in it to download the Bose frames smartphone app, called Bose Music. After launching the app, you’ll need to sign into your Bose account or create one, then select and add your frames. Power on your frames by pressing and holding the power button. You’ll have the opportunity to rename them if you want to, I’ll pick one of the suggested names, Crescendo. After setup up you’ll be able to view the battery life of your frames, as a percent in the app and change settings like volume and Bluetooth source and voice prompts. And these frames will work like any other set of Bluetooth earphones. Whatever music you you play on your phone can be heard through the speakers on the frame.

The app basically has a digital instruction manual for the frames to help you use them for music, phone calls, learn the controls, or even purchase new lenses for them. So for example, if you want to start and stop music playback, after pairing with your phone, just short-press the power button. Or double click it to skip forward and triple click to skip back. There’s also a touch sensitive area on the right temple to allows you to change the volume by swiping forward or back; the volume change increments are 25% each from mute to max volume, though Ii the app you can use the volume slider for finer increment adjustment. You can also activate a digital voice assistant like Siri or Google by double tapping the touch area.

After powering on the sunglasses, it announces the remaining battery life and automatically connects to a previously paired device, if available. One a full charge, they can last for more than 5 hours of use, depending on your listening volume. There are three ways to shut the speakers in the sunglasses off: you can simply long press the power button, flip the glasses upside down for 2 seconds, or have it power off after 10 minutes if the motion sensors haven’t detected any movement. The latter two features can be toggled off in the settings. You can also perform hands-free calls and call quality using the glasses is actually really good. This is because Bose uses dual beamforming built-in mics that are able to focus just on your voice and remove background noise for clear, clean voice pickup.

As sunglasses, the lenses are polarized so be aware that it may cause a rainbowing effect when looking at digital screens at off angles. However, they are effective at cutting the amount of light that reaches your eyes.
Unlike traditional headphones, the speakers sit in front of your eyes rather than on or in them and sound is directed toward and into your ear from a distance of about an inch and a half. There’s surprisingly little noise bleed, from the listener’s perspective, and at low volumes, people around you won’t be able to hear what you’re listening to. However, if you turn the volume up fairly high, then folks around you will probably notice.

Audio quality from the speakers is very good, though I wouldn’t expect any less from Bose, but it’s impressive given how small the speakers actually are. It has a nice overall balance with bright mids and highs for amazing vocal clarity. At higher volumes though, the trebles can sound a bit thin and crunchy with harsher sibilance. In terms of bass reproduction, there’s not a whole lot, but still more than I was expecting from such tiny drivers. They also are great for watching video since the Bluetooth 5.1 protocol used means there’s virtually no lag between the video and audio for a perfectly synced viewing experience.

As for fit and comfort, at around 2 oz, the extra weight from the electronics inside make these heavier than traditional sunglasses, and it’s unfortunate that there is only one size, with a relative lack of outward spring in the arms. While balanced, this puts a lot of pressure on the sides of my head right where the speakers sit, and for me, it was tiring to wear them for more than a couple hours.

Overall, these frames make for a very nice listening experience wrapped up in a fashionable and functional pair of sunglasses. They’ve got a clean look without being overly bulky, and you don’t have to stick anything in your ears so you can retain a bit of situational awareness while using them.

Buy it at Amazon: Bose Frames, Soprano, Bluetooth Audio Sunglasses [Affiliate Link]

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