Noise Cancelling 700 Firmware Update - 1.8.2 – November 19th 2020

[getitright]

Things related to update to 1.8.2:
Overall stuttering overall has improved. I still get it time to time but using it with the Bose USB Link on 1.7 the stuttering was the most horrendous thing ever that made them unusable unless I was playing music actively (EDIT: The really bad stuttering actually still happens UGH). However on 1.7 I did not get the battery life issue (on my latest replacement that is, my previous one did have it) and now on 1.8.2 I'm getting just over 18 hours max battery life.  The other thing to call out is that it only stays in "conversation mode" for a few seconds before going back to noise cancellation and if music is paused, changing the noise cancellation level with the button plays the sound again, these are definitely new issues with this update. I truly don't understand why with each new update, some things improve but it always comes at the cost of other things not working. These headphones are ~1.5 years old and not a single user has gotten a 100% functional pair of headphones as promised (and I am now on my 3rd replacement, even the physical mechanism on this pair to adjust earcup height scrapes but don't want to risk even worse firmware issues and 3 weeks without headphones because they don't send out a replacement until they receive the problem pair).

Another thing I am noticing is that when testing call quality with a shower running in the background the sound on the other end is no clearer vs. just the regular phone microphone. Not sure if this is tied to the update, but isn't it supposed to cancel out white noise significantly?

On another note, are people able to provide examples of how much level 10 noise cancellation actually helps? I don't find it to be any better than Airpod Pros noise cancellation (which honestly shouldn't be comparable given the size difference between the Airpods vs NC 700s) but I remembering it being really good when I first bought my original pair when it released - so has there been Noise cancellation degradation?

[Ixus]

Well, I tested the sound keep alive program:

https://veg.by/en/projects/soundkeeper/

And what I found - stuttering is away. In my case this stutter is definitely related to moments when sound is off and turns on.  I think that this confirms some kind of problems with buffering/power saving/ "hand-shaking".

[mechs85]

I was getting VERY bad stuttering on my Windows 10 laptop, then I went to my desktop and it was the same. I tried to reset using the instructions on this board and now they won't turn back on.

Since day 1 (bought day of release) I've had issues with these headphones, what is going on? They've always had some issue, something mess up after the update. We come on here, write paragraphs of information about the problem and then we get mods saying "engineering are looking into it". Then we get an update that doesn't fix it and breaks more things

I honestly don't know what to do now as I can't use these headphones at all and I'm just tired of it all.

Bose, please please honestly think of recalling these or the software update. as they just have never properly worked.

[Wayne_M]

@mechs85 Sorry to hear your headset won't turn on. Definitely reach out to your local support so they can look into it for you.

To everyone else- we have been reading your reports and are doing some investigation. As always, the more details you can provide when you post the easier it is for our engineers to try to reproduce your experience. In particular the information that is most helpful is:

• Bose product firmware version (screenshot if possible) 
• Bose app version (screenshot if possible) 
• Detailed description of the issue and steps to reproduce 
• Where do you run into the issue? Where and when did it first occur? 
• What services are you using that were affected and what version are they on? (E.g. iPad Pro on iOS 12.9) 

• When did you start to experience the issue? Did it work correctly previously? 
• Any troubleshooting steps you took and effects, if any. 

Thanks!

[mechs85]

I’ve got them to turn back on now

I have also figured something out when I went to try and change the noise cancellation level: every time I put my hand on the LEFT cup, it starts cracking. I take my had off and it works. I repeated this at least 10 times and it was the same outcome. This on Windows 10 19042.630 release with latest Intel BT drivers and software 

Can anyone else clarify this? 

[mechs85]

I have an audio recording of the stuttering. Can this be emailed to anyone?

[arden13]

Does this fix the microphone cutting out in VoIP applications?

[Lejonklou]

getitright wrote:

> On another note, are people able to provide examples of how much level 10 noise cancellation actually helps? I don't find it to be any better than Airpod Pros noise cancellation (which honestly shouldn't be comparable given the size difference between the Airpods vs NC 700s) but I remembering it being really good when I first bought my original pair when it released - so has there been Noise cancellation degradation?

I have been thinking the same. My impression is that it was clearly better before. As I pass the same noisy areas several times every day, I have noticed how it's no longer very quiet inside my NC700 on level 10 noise cancellation. At first I thought the level must have been reduced to 8 or 7 (my estimation of the reduction), so I deleted the app, removed the NC700 from the iphone 11 on iOS 14.2 and reinstalled it all. No change.

This is all very, very disappointing.

[peiman@khorramshahi.com]

My headphones started to disconnect and reconnect suddenly and randomly with the latest firmware. Plus that there are these weird cutoffs sometimes. 

Also, people that speak to me on the phone have started to complain about the sound quality. It's too bad this is one of the most expensive headphones underperforming this much. When I first got the headset, it didn't have this many problems.

Anyone else having the same issues?

[Flowman]

I would say no as with the latest firmware I cannot get the microphone to work anymore. 

Just got brand new headset shipped out as my old one got into a restart loop and worked once in every 5 time I tried to turn them on.