Bose Frames Tempo Review: The Specs To Beat

It’s still fair to call audio sunglasses a niche category, but with Bose offering multiple models, Amazon in the game, and counting recent announcements from Razer and JLab, it’s certainly growing. There are some people who just don’t particularly like headphones – often because they don’t like the feeling that the silicone ear tips are blocking their ears. Open style products like standard AirPods and Galaxy Buds Live are an alternative, but you still risk losing them. If you are running on a trail or for an intense bike ride, this is not an insignificant risk.

For those people, I can absolutely see the appeal of Bose Frames Tempo, which have speakers built into their frames and will stay planted in their face no matter how intense the outdoor activities are. Tempo eyewear is the sportiest model in the Bose’s Frames family, clearly aimed at hikers, runners, cyclists and anyone else who spends a good deal of their time outdoors. Bose says they also have the best sonic performance of the bunch.

From the front, they look like your typical pair of Oakley, Nike, or Under Armor sunglasses. Bose is clearly targeting this same market with the $ 250 Tempos. If you’re more forward thinking or looking for a pair of audio sunglasses that don’t make it look like you’re in the middle of a triathlon, you’ll want to stick with the tenor or soprano frame styles. These come with black mirror lenses in the box, but Bose also sells a few other pairs of lenses for $ 40 that you can swap out to let in different amounts of light. The oversized temples are where it becomes more obvious that these are audio sunglasses.

But there is one advantage to this bulky design: unlike the Tenor and Soprano frames, which use a proprietary charger, the Tempo model has a regular USB-C connector on the left branch. Bose says the frame is made of “TR-90 nylon”. There’s not much to offer, but they feel sturdy to me and they have an IPX4 water and sweat resistance rating, so if you get caught running or biking under the rain, they will survive.

During the first few days of wearing the Tempos, I felt a slight pressure on the sides of my head which became uncomfortable. Now I have an extremely large dome – they used to put out a special size helmet in Little League, my friends – but luckily the fit has loosened a bit because that pressure went away at the end of the first week. . The sunglasses didn’t come loose enough where they started moving on my head or whatever; they still felt safe and secure. (My friend Theresa, who has a full-sized head, never mentioned a tight feeling that causes a headache.) Bose includes three sizes of nose tips in the box, and I found the large one to be the right match. Even though my face was covered in sweat after a long run, the tip of my nose helped keep the sunglasses from slipping.

The controls offered by Bose are perfectly foolproof, which is crucial when trying to stay focused on other things. You slide on the right temple to increase or decrease the volume, and on the underside of that temple is a small circular button that you can press to play / pause, double-tap to skip tracks, or triple-tap to go back. In no time at all, these controls felt so natural and easy. To turn off the Frames Tempo, simply hold the button down for a few seconds. Or you can flip them over and lay them with the top of the frame on a surface. After two seconds in this orientation, they turn off. (You can turn this off in the settings, but I’ve found it to be very convenient and, again, natural.) The battery life is eight hours, and that’s consistent with my experience so far. Sunglasses take about an hour to charge to 100%. Bose’s mobile app lets you update the sunglasses’ firmware, but there are no EQ controls or other options that tweak their performance.

Describing the sound quality of audio sunglasses can be tricky. They don’t look anything like headphones or earphones in any way, as they are basically speakers facing your ears. But Bose has stepped up its game over the first-gen Frames, which I’ve tried on occasion. These have more life across the entire EQ range.

There is a surprising separation between vocals and instrumentation, and the Frames Tempo have beautiful clarity and an even-handed balance. There’s more bass than before, but that’s where I think it’s most important to set reasonable expectations: the low end you get from a good pair of in-ear headphones. will make water come out. No competition. That said, Bose has at least reached a place where the bass no longer sounds anemic or flat, which is a legitimate improvement over first-gen Frames. It is there and noticeable.

The sound bleeding is easily canceled out by the daily noise of the street, but if you are indoors with the volume turned up, people nearby will be able to tell that you are listening to music. These are sunglasses, after all, so I imagine these situations will be rare. The Bluetooth connection has remained stable throughout the vast majority of my time with the Frames Tempo so far. There is nothing to add.

The voice calls while wearing the Tempos were also a joy. Callers say I sound almost as good as when I speak directly into my phone, and taking calls with my ears fully open sounds very cool to me.

Even after a relatively short time of using Frames Tempo, I get this audio glasses thing. I really You understand. It’s as Dieter recently wrote: “Not having to put on or take off headphones changes your relationship with audio – it’s just always available, always there when you want it.” Do I want to be able to put transparent lenses in and wear them everywhere? In theory, you are betting. But that style wouldn’t really work for that, and that’s also not what Tempos are meant to be at the end of the day. So I can’t knock Bose off for the disappointment I feel going back to my normal glasses, which now seem so primitive.

Bose Frames Tempo lets you hear the world around you without any obstruction – with soundtrack playing through everything, while giving your ears a bit of a break from normal headphones. At $ 250, they will be hard to sell for some. But I realized that audio sunglasses are exactly the kind of thing you will never realize you need. Until you put them on – and all of a sudden you do.

Photograph by Chris Welch / The Verge