Bose Returns to Wired Earbuds After 11 Years
Original: Bose Launches New Wired Earbuds After More Than a Decade
Why This Matters
Wired audio's first sales growth in five years is pulling legacy brands back into a segment they'd abandoned.
Bose has announced the Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds at $99, its first wired headphone product since 2015. Shipping begins October 15, with preorders live at Bose and Best Buy. The launch was completed in roughly eight to nine months—unusually fast for an audio product—driven by surging wired earbud sales among younger consumers.
Bose is back in the wired game. The company's new Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds, priced at $99, mark its first wired headphone release since 2015—an 11-year gap. Bose president of consumer audio Raza Haider cited a clear cultural signal: dropping his teen off at college last year, he noticed wired earbuds everywhere. That observation aligned with hard data—wired headphone sales rose 10 percent in the second half of 2025 and 20 percent in early 2026, the first growth in five years, led by Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
From concept to finished product took eight to nine months, Haider said—significantly faster than typical audio release cycles. Bose has been building toward quicker production pipelines to speed up launches and collaborations.
Early impressions from a late-stage prototype are largely positive. Sound quality clears the bar set by budget wired options like Apple EarPods, with solid performance across frequency ranges and active noise canceling (ANC) that actually holds up on commutes. The no-battery, no-app, no-Bluetooth simplicity is a genuine selling point.
Not everything lands cleanly. The inline control module—housing volume buttons and a multifunction key—adds weight that pulls on the cable and drags at the earbuds. The thick cable also tangles easily inside the included soft pouch. The earbuds ship in black, white, and limited-edition mint, with swappable silicone wing-tip stabilizers and multiple ear tip sizes in the box.