What are the best earbuds for productivity at work?

People in a meeting at a café wearing Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

Music has been proven to help boost concentration, and that can make earbuds an invaluable tool to improve your focus and productivity at work. When the goal is to shut out all competing noise, such as when you’re studying or trying to watch a movie, noise cancelling headphones are your best friend. At work, however, you need a perfect balance of privacy and awareness to maintain optimal productivity. Open-ear headphones find that happy medium — providing the media that helps you focus on work while maintaining your awareness of surroundings.

What are the best earbuds for productivity at work, and how can headphones help with focus and concentration at work? Those are the questions Bose Ultra Open Earbuds answer, with a range of features that enhance focus, efficiency, and productivity in the workplace. Here’s how Bose makes it so.

Bose OpenAudio technology for superior sound quality

As the name implies, open-ear headphones do not insert into your ear canal as traditional earbuds do, but rather wrap around the edge of your ear and direct sound into your ear. Because this distance between the ear and speaker of the earbud usually uses bone conduction technology, which doesn’t promise excellent sound quality, open-ear models have lagged in popularity over the years.

However, the Bose OpenAudio technology — the star of the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds — has solved the problem using air conduction. Combining a powerful transducer with a tightly controlled acoustic structure, these earbuds deliver rich, nuanced sound into your ear, while also keeping your ears open to what’s going on around you. The integration of Snapdragon Sound and Qualcomm® aptX™ adaptive codec enhances it further, adding lossless and low latency capabilities. Perhaps even more impressive is that it’s surprisingly private. Colleagues around you won’t hear a note, thanks to how well the Bose OpenAudio technology eliminates leakage.

Another great feature of the technology is the automatic volume adjustment, which intelligently adjusts the audio volume according to the sound level of your surroundings. This means the media and music that supports your productivity stays at the right level, even if you’re talking to coworkers, moving around the office, or heading out for lunch.

Comfortable design for all-day use

How can headphones help with focus and concentration at work? A lot depends on their design. With traditional in-ear models of earbuds and headphones, a day’s usage at the workplace may come with constant removal and reinsertion — often with each ring of the phone. That’s not just annoying but grows increasingly uncomfortable with each chafe, tug, and rub of ear tissue. In fact, you may simply decide it’s not worth the effort, depriving yourself of the focus and productivity you might achieve with easier use.

Here’s where the Ultra Open Earbuds excel. With a design that lightly clips to your ear and hardware coated in super-soft silicone, they stay in place all day long — even during vigorous movement — without discomfort. Plus, because they attach to the edge of your ear, they won’t get in the way of glasses and hats. In fact, the design is so stylish that many colleagues might mistake your open-ear headphones for jewelry. And so might you, as they sit light enough on your ear that you may forget you’re wearing them at all. This is a boon for both office and remote workers who want the productivity benefits of earbuds at work, but not the hassle of constant removal or the discomfort associated with wearing earbuds and headphones all day.

Versatility for multiple functions

When looking for the best headphones for work, versatility is key. Thanks to the open-ear technology and all-day design, Bose Ultra Open Earbuds add exceptional versatility to your workday. They keep your ears open to ambient sound so you can maintain situational awareness of what’s happening around you while focusing on tasks in front of you.

It also means you can more easily switch between audio functions, you can seamlessly pivot from music to a video call and back again — all without missing a literal beat. The same goes for speaking with colleagues in person, as the open-ear configuration feels more natural for conversation, you don’t have to pause or raise your voice to hear yourself. That goes both ways, too, as open-ear models make you appear more available for engagement than in-ear models, especially as your colleagues may not even notice you’re wearing earbuds at all.

That versatility goes with you, too, as you move around the office or step outside for a breath of fresh air. In fact, the open-ear earbuds also include a “motion” setting that’s specifically designed for maintaining immersive audio while in action. With up to 7 hours of battery life in a full charge, and 19.5 more in the charging case to power your focus all day long, you truly need to pause for nothing while using Bose Ultra Open Earbuds.

Hear the world

Whereas most earbuds and headphones make you choose which audio source to focus your attention on, Bose Ultra Open Earbuds let you hear the whole world at the same time. That’s ideal for the workplace — be it the home office or your office building — where clear communication and fast response can mean the difference between failure and success.

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