Bose’s ANC earbuds are getting a big free upgrade

Bose's QuietComfort Ultra and Ultra Open earbuds both shipped without multipoint pairing for easy device switching. That feature is now rolling out in a free software update.

Bose's QuietComfort Ultra and Ultra Open earbuds are getting an important new update that brings them up to spec with many of the best earbuds . The update is rolling out to customers over the next few weeks, and delivers a feature Bose promised would be coming soon after the latter earbuds launched.

We're impressed by both sets of buds – we gave the Ultra five out of five stars and the Ultra Open got a still-excellent four stars – but one key feature was missing from both products when they launched: multipoint pairing. That's now coming to both sets of earbuds.

What is multipoint and why does it matter?

Multipoint pairing is when you can effortlessly switch between two devices – for example your phone and your laptop – without having to disconnect and re-pair each time, and once you've experienced it it's a real pain to go back to connections that don't offer it.

Most manufacturers now offer some form of multipoint, so for example it's in Sony's WF-1000XM4 as well as in budget buds from JLab . However, while most firms use the multipoint technology that's built into the most recent versions of Bluetooth, some prefer to use their own proprietary alternatives. The latest Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro have Samsung's own flavour of multipoint while Apple, as ever, has its own Apple-only take: its easy switching is only available with Apple devices and Apple's various earbuds and headphones.

This isn't the only update that'll be coming to Bose earbuds in the not too distant future. According to The Verge , Bose "has some interesting features in the pipeline" for the Ultra Open earbuds including a "very novel" approach to integrating the earbuds with Bose home theatre hardware. Details of that will apparently be released in the coming months.