A Firmware Update Removed the Noise-Cancelling Function From Bose's Noise-Cancelling Headphones. No Word From Bose if It Plans To Fix It (theregister.co.uk) 138
Owners of Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones are still trying to get the company to either fix or roll back a firmware update that removed noise-cancelling functions from their over-ear gear. From a report: The problems date back to July and some owners seem to have managed to get Bose to exchange their cans for the company's shiny new 700 headphones. We were contacted by a reader who was first given a set of version II headphones when his V1 set were borked. When the updated firmware borked them as well, he declined the offer of a replacement set and was given a pair of 700s. Firmware version 4.5.2 was fingered as the main culprit. Like all Bose gear, the cans don't come cheap -- they'll set you back $335 to be precise, or $450 for a pair of limited edition white 700s. Pissed-off punters have filled a deafening 182 pages of Bose's support forums with complaints. One has even set up a Change.org petition to beg for a pause on firmware updates until a fix is found.
Meta cancel (Score:5, Funny)
We canceled the noise cancelling.
We have released a fix - the fix is buy our new model headphones.
Re:Meta cancel (Score:5, Insightful)
Different Noise Cancelling (Score:5, Funny)
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What the hell is a 'punter'?
I'm trying to figure the similarities between a football kicker and headphones and I'm lost.
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What the hell is a 'punter'?
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/punter. noun. 1 informal, chiefly British a person who gambles, places a bet, or makes a risky investment. a customer or client, especially a member of an audience.
Obligatory Dead Parrot reference (Score:3)
I wish to complain about these headphones I purchased not a half hour ago from this very boutique.
Oh yes, the, uh, Quiet Comfort 35, what's wrong with them?
They're dead, that's what's wrong with them!
No, no, they're not dead, just gettin' a firmware update. Beautiful styling those Bose headphones!
Styling don't enter into it. They're stone dead.
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The broader question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The broader question... (Score:4, Funny)
Why the fuck do headphones need a firmware update?
They should just be designed to work from the beginning.
To add new features.
Re:The broader question... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The broader question... (Score:5, Insightful)
And we eliminated the 3.5mm jack why?
Re:The broader question... (Score:5, Funny)
"And we eliminated the 3.5mm jack why?"
So we don't snap our neck back as we walk away from the audio source we're plugged in to.
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If only we could make portable music playing devices you can fit in your pocket, and maybe make some kind of plug/socket system where you can just pull the plug to release it.
Sounds archaic. Why would I want to do that? To solve a problem that doesn't exist on wireless headphones?
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Instead you get firmware updates that ruin your $400 headphones.
Go Technology!
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There are no headphones on the market where they would disconnect at a wide range of angles. If you're truly lucky you get to snap the often fragile 2.5mm plugs off in the headphone sockets.
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Such as the optional cable on the Bose headphones and other high end noise cancelling Bluetooth headphones, to allow use in aircraft which ban transmitting devices during flight.
Jack present (Score:2)
The Bose happen to actually have jacks (though these are 2.5 mm, and you can't use the headphone's mic, but need a separate mic-on-cable).
Said jack can even play sound when the the amp is off or the battery is flat.
(i.e.: they can fall back to glorified over-expensive wired headphones)
But more seriously, yes, switching from simpler wired headphones to more complex bluetooth wireless one brought more points of failure and additional mandatory procedure to fix bugs.
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But more seriously, yes, switching from simpler wired headphones to more complex bluetooth wireless one brought more points of failure and additional mandatory procedure to fix bugs.
And it reduced the sound quality at the same time, so it was a win-win.
State of the phone (Score:2)
And it reduced the sound quality at the same time, so it was a win-win.
Well *that* depends on the global state of the smartphone. Or the care its owner takes.
Most of us /.ers who look at our electronic gizmo like precious delicate pieces of electronic art:
Yup definitely.
Joe Random 6-pack who has dropped his phone on floor while smashed so often that the screen look like a spider web ?
Nope, that wobbly thing where the jack used to be is going to constantly give pops and scratches due to bad contacts.
(At least luckily, in most modern phone it's just swaping a module-board and pl
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And we eliminated the 3.5mm jack why?
We didn't. In fact one of the bug fixes introduced in the firmware ensures that the switch from bluetooth to 3.5mm and back to bluetooth can be done without a power cycle.
Re: The broader question... (Score:2)
The only feature headphones need (reproducing the source audio) should be included out of the box. If your headphones need a firmware update, you bought some shitty headphones.
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My headphones don't need a firmware update, certainly not for basic playback. But they have had two firmware updates since I bought them - one added Alexa support to match the Google Assistant support they came with out of the box, the other improved the adaptive noise cancelling mode so that the voice of people talking to you can be heard more clearly while cancelling more of the random noise.
Re:The broader question... (Score:5, Insightful)
my coffee cup and light bulbs need firmware updates. Sad but true. The real issue is this overwhelming complacency with not being able to roll anything back. It's nuts that most updates for devices are not reversible, you just wait for another update and hope it fixes what the last one broke. This needs to stop.
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Most updates are reversible but you might need a JTAG and the old firmware to do it. If the unit has a JTAG.
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my coffee cup and light bulbs need firmware updates.
Well... you might not be too far off: Amazon Quietly Reveals Plan to Put Alexa in Almost Everything [gizmodo.com]
Just when you thought Alexa wasn’t integrated into enough stuff, Amazon has casually announced a new way to add the artificially intelligent voice assistant to even the cheapest, dumbest things. The new technology is capable of running Alexa with the most basic processors and less than 1MB of memory. That means you might soon mean your light switches, your toaster, and even your toothbrush might start listening to you.
As for your coffee cup, no word yet on if Alexa is "dishwasher safe".
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Not if I don't buy them.
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my coffee cup and light bulbs need firmware updates. Sad but true. The real issue is this overwhelming complacency with not being able to roll anything back. It's nuts that most updates for devices are not reversible, you just wait for another update and hope it fixes what the last one broke. This needs to stop.
Problem is, If an update patches a security flaw you'd like to exploit , you could just roll back to previous version.
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Not sure about the Coffee cup. I can see value with firmware for light bulbs, especially with LED lights. If you want it dimming you can control which LED go on or off, and amount of power applied to them, or to better clean the home power output for longer lasting bulbs. They can also detect failure in an LED and redirect power or lower voltages so the other LED will still work well.
No we don't need firmware for all this... But it is probably cheaper then making you own custom chip.
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It's nuts that most updates for devices are not reversible, you just wait for another update and hope it fixes what the last one broke.
It's not nuts, it's good security practice.
If the update was made -- as most of them are -- to fix a security vulnerability, the last thing you want is for it to be possible to roll back to the known-vulnerable firmware. After the update has been released, the vulnerability is public and easy to exploit. The whole point of patching is to get the fixes out before the bad guys know about the problem.
If the update was purely to fix some functional issue, then, sure, rolling back is fine. Just exchanging
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Probably for the android/iOS app.. because that's what you need with something as simple as headphones, an entire app dedicated to your user experience.
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To remove features from existing products. Didn't you read the summary?
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Multi-purpose chips are rather affordable now. And it is cheaper to create code and apply it to firmware vs. designing and fab you own specialty chip.
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Because these headphones are Bluetooth connected. Unless you can have a Bluetooth stack which is free of security vulnerabilities at you some point in time you might want to perform a security update so I can't send random (or not so random) sound to your earphones as you sit on the train.
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Because these things are complex devices - Bluetooth being a big one, especially with all the codecs you want in it (AAC, AptX, etc). Bluetooth is handy, but as a standard, it completely sucks due to extreme complexity.
Add in complexity due to alternative pairing (e.g., NFC) and the Bluetooth stack is now extremely complex and highly vulnerable.
Noise cancellation isn't easy either. You can do it the du
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Why the fuck do headphones need a firmware update? They should just be designed to work from the beginning.
I've had these headphones from TFA for 3 years now. Today I learnt that Bose does firmware updates. They do work from the beginning ... with compatible devices. But you may not realise: Bluetooth is controlled via firmware. Bugs in implementations exist. New devices come to the market with new features, and the changelog on firmware for a set of headphones can be quite significant:
4.5.2 (paraphrased):
- Amazon Alexa Support.
- Security fix for Android connecting to headphones without user interaction
- Improve
Questions (Score:3)
1) Why would a pair of noise cancelling headphones need a firmware update?
2) Are these updates forced upon the consumer by the company, ala Microsoft, or does the user have to manually perform the update?
3) Is everyone who had this particular type of headset and received this update affected, or is it a subset of the group? Are any other Bose headsets affected by this or a similar update?
Re:Questions (Score:4, Insightful)
1) They contain a DSP or processor
2) Probably not
3) Seems like a small subset
Also its hilarious when people create online petitions. You'll get more satisfaction if you print it out and use it for toilet paper.
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I don't use the bluetooth in mine. I plug them in with the audio cable.
I have seen no evidence of attempts to upload firmware and there isn't any Bose software on the PCs I connect it to.
So I suspect you need to do something to update the firmware, like install some Bose bloatware on your PC.
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If it only affects people stupid enough to install the company's app, then it starts to seem almost like a feature.
Re: Questions (Score:2)
On the other hand, they were caught collecting information about user listening habits, because we live in a dystopian hellworld. The app for their latest model (Bose 700) requires you to set up a Bose Music account and presumably opt in to this collection.
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I don't know about Bose, but In the case of Sony, you have to run an app on a smartphone, connected via Bluetooth to update the firmware. And even then, the firmware is only updated if the user presses a button in the app when the headphone is fully charged.
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1) They contain a DSP or processor
I've got a bookshelf full of devices that contain DSPs. Reverb pedals, digital distortion pedals, noise-reduction units, etc. Not a single one requires (or is capable of receiving) a "firmware update". Firmware updates only make sense for DSPs that need to interface with other computers, and a simple noise-cancellation DSP certainly does *not* need to interface with other computers to do its job. You feed it the relevant audio signals, it processes the digits and creates a new audio signal, end of story
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The joke I always hear... is that Bose stands for "Buy Other Audio Equipment"...
The S might actually stand for Stereo. Or Sound.
Also, the pro audio people say the same thing.
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Bose = Better Off Somewhere Else
Upgrades (Score:2)
Regarding 2:
No, they aren't forced, you just get a pop-up advertising the availability of an update inside the app used to control the headset.
Starting the update still requires interraction by the user.
Regarding 3:
Only some people. Didn't affect my SO.
Big update (Score:2)
So was anything actually updated?
Well, in her case, she had a big version jump between the archeologically old version from back at the factory that was still on the earphones when she unboxed them.
So she got _bluetooth sharing_ available as part of the firmware upgrade. (Though again I don't know if this missing feature was specifically introduced in the latest version, or if it's a feature provided by any other along the long gap anbd the latest firmware flash was just a version bug fixes.
(Note: most modern CSR Bluetooth chip used in dum
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Because they are Bluetooth headphones would be the obvious answer. As such they are likely to require security updates just as much as any other "connected" device.
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1) Why would a pair of noise cancelling headphones need a firmware update?
2) Are these updates forced upon the consumer by the company, ala Microsoft, or does the user have to manually perform the update?
3) Is everyone who had this particular type of headset and received this update affected, or is it a subset of the group? Are any other Bose headsets affected by this or a similar update?
1) Bluetooth, both standard feature sets, bug fixes, security fixes, and advanced features such as multi-point sharing that isn't a standard part of the spec but possible if you have 2 Bose headphones.
2) No, it's a manual update, one that comes with a decent set of feature improvements and bug fixes and are quite enticing to users.
3) It appears not.
One good update deserves another (Score:2)
Sounds like time to update Bose's bank account and remove the cost of the headphones from it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
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Sidebar on fraud (Score:2)
I'm ex-forces and used to teach the frauds section in "civil and military law", which we called the "dealing with dishonest merchants" course (;-))
According to Gold's Practitioner's Criminal Code (Lexis Nexis, 2010) SS 429(3)(b), under the description of destruction of property, says "the fact that the person has a total interest in what is destroyed or damaged does not prevent him from being guilty of the offence if he caused the destruction or damage with intent to defraud". Seek legal advice on whether
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It doesn't seem to be deliberate though, just a cock up. They are replacing broken devices (they have to, legally, in the UK) so they are accepting it's a fault, not the intended behaviour.
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Imagine spending $400 on a set of high-end headphone only to have the manufacturer quietly remove their main feature without your consent.
Imagine a bug free world where everything happened 100% perfectly and consistently. Keep imagining it. It's the only make believe world where your nefarious scenario makes any sense considering only a small subset are affected and Bose are replacing affected devices.
A bug was introduced on a firmware update that needed to be manually applied. I bet that has *never* happened before. *Overly dramatic eyeroll*.
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What was actually removed? (Score:3)
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I find it hard to believe what the article implies, which is that the noise cancelling headphones simply stopped cancelling noise. Is that the case?
It's a setting you can turn on and off using the app which talkes to the headphones using bluetooth. There is a button on the headphones themselves which can turn noise cancelling on and off, but that button's function is configurable, via the app, to do other things instead, like invoke Alexa. So the firmware was all manner of borkedness.
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The midsized companies like Garmin and Bose and GoPro make nice hardware but they sure seem to struggle when they try to attempt to keep up with what people expect all the features they see in the smartphone market.
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The Sony headphones can connect to separate devices for Audio and Telephony as well. I think the Bose feature that is missing from the Sonys is multipoint using the same Bluetooth profile, but as I don't have the headphones, I'm not sure which way around it is - connecting to two phones on HFP (telephony) so calls can be received from either one is one possibility, but doesn't really make sense for A2DP (audio) as mixed audio from two sources doesn't really have any common use cases. The other possibility
Re: What was actually removed? (Score:5, Informative)
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Considering the firmware update doesn't talk about nor promise any change what so ever in ANC functionality it doesn't even make any kind of placebo style usual audiophile non-sense sense.
More likely there is a bug. Scary right?
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I find it hard to believe what the article implies, which is that the noise cancelling headphones simply stopped cancelling noise. Is that the case?
You can see the thread that is now 5 months old without resolution for yourself. From what I've read the feature isn't gone entirely it just now sucks ass.
https://community.bose.com/t5/... [bose.com]
It very much seems like Bose has been jerking its users around for nearly half a year and counting asking for them to participate in their study... Which is of course inexcusable bullshit. If the previous version was working you either fix it or offer downgrade until you can figure out exactly what it is you broke.
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I noticed. (Score:2)
Firmware Update Removed the Noise-Cancelling Function From Bose's Noise-Cancelling Headphones
After the update my iTunes account started working again. :-)
Mass hysteria? (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, despite the headline's hyperbole, all actual non-subjective research into the matter, both by Bose and independent third parties (tech reviewers), has shown that the problems are imagined.
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Given that audiophiles are extremely suggestible
And what has suggested it? The firmware update certainly makes no mention at all of any change to the DSP. Even strange audiophiles require some suggestive trigger, and a change log detailing only fixes for pairing, support for Alexa, and a bug that causes the headphones to need a power cycle when unplugging the cable doesn't suggest anything of the sort.
Incidentally I haven't found any evidence that Bose nor third-party reviewers have a device that someone claims was affected. Kind of points to a bug.
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Let me get this straight... the company sold a snake oil feature, and now the community has concocted a snake oil complaint?
Can't tell the difference between truth, lies, and irony these days.
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Active Noise Canceling is a snake oil feature??
It's based on good science and I can absolutely confirm that with the amount I fly (several times a month) I find it FAR more comfortable with my ANC headphones (Sony, not Bose) than without. The only thing that comes close in effectiveness is noise isolating earbuds but they become uncomfortable quite quickly and have this lovely habit of making me susceptible to ear infections.
I obviously can't speak to the complaints because I don't use Bose, but I have used
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I have a set, have done updates, and all this is news to me - works fine and the noise cancel is the same. That article seems like a load. Possibly there was a firmware fail at some point for some unfortunate users and Bose doesn't offer a good way out of that?
Re: Mass hysteria? (Score:3)
Personally, I choose to believe that the firmware made the noise-cancelling a little bit better.
a 4.5.x update? (Score:2)
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Don't the headphones have two input channels, one for the ambient background and one for the desired signal. If that's true, then just mix in the ambient background out of phase.
If they're trying to figure out what's noise and what's signal, and they don't know what the signal is, then even a strong AI would have a difficult job. (Consider the "cocktail party factor".)
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That's an oversimplification of the problem. Simply mixing a 180degree phase shifted copy of the ambient noise will create peaks where noise in some frequency bands sounds twice as loud, and some is cancelled to varying degrees. For perfect cancellation, the waveforms need to be phase inverted at your eardrum, not at the headphone speaker, which makes good noise cancelling significantly harder than a simple phase inversion. In cheap noise cancelling headphones, it is basically a phase inversion and a low p
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O, dear. I've considered noise cancelling headphones a couple of times, but the noise I was principally interested in cancelling was human voices.
Type to update the Bose acronym? (Score:2)
From:
Buy
Other
Set
Earphones
To:
Breaks
Our
Sound
Equipment
Actually looks like both are accurate.
Dusting off the Bose meme. (Score:3)
It's got no highs,
It's got no lows.
It sounds like crap?
It must be Bose!
Bose Will Not Replace Battery (Score:2)
Class Action Suit (Score:2)
Clickbait BS Headline... fixed. (Score:2)
"99.9999% of users can't tell any difference, but 5 people think they can. Scientific tests show no change in performance."
Been thinking about (Score:2)
trying to get ahold of a brand new QC25 (or two) to put it in storage when my current QC25 stops working.
iPhone Xr has completely removed the need to charge the phone during the day (I only use it lightly) and as such, the whole "...but I can't charge and listen!" BS totally escapes me.
It was a problem on my old iPhone 4S - but that still had the 3.5mm audio jack.
Old school for me (Score:2)
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My headphones don't have firmware and I like it that way.
*clap* *clap*. My headphones have firmware (at least this set I have on now does), and it provides far more useful features than my wired ones. I like these when I need them. I like the other ones when I need those. I'm not some romantic anti-firmware hero.
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Because that is a clickbait headline pattern, not proper journalistic headline writing, which generally is in the present tense.
The only thing missing here to make it 100% garbage is a leading "They".
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hey look just because some people need silly meaningless rules in their lives to hold it together doesn't mean they're idiots; they might just be neurotic.
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If you're too stupid to see clickbait for what it is, that is your problem, not mine.
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Or the old standby, "No high, no lows? Must be Bose!"
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I would agree. They make quite rubbish sound systems. However... in terms of actual noise cancelling they are unparalleled. Not the best sounding headphones I've ever worn, but definitely the ones I would recommend you wear on a flight.
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Why let some QA jerk test all possible operations and configurations and listen to them b*tch when you can let the users miss all the tiny bugs and only work the big ones which cause an uproar.
Re: A petition (Score:2)