Noise Cancelling 700 Firmware Update - Buzzing followed by Headphone Reboot

[SoCal Stephen]

Bose Team,

When are you going to fix this?  According to Samsung (last year!), they've sold over 2 BILLION Samsung Galaxy phones.  So, this is a major issue for loads of your customers.

I can't use my fancy and expensive headphones with my Samsung phone for calls or listening to music.  It's constantly rebooting.  I also noticed that some of the controls aren't working properly, like adjusting the level of noise cancellation from the headphones or phone sometimes.

At this point, and until this major issue is fixed, I can no longer recommend these headphones to anyone.  These aren't headphones anymore, they're just a very overpriced doorstop.

[stevedrummond1]

I noticed i had this problem when i was connected to both my samsung phone and another device (an Ipad Pro).  I didnt have the problem when connected to just the samsung, as long as i turned the headphones on with only the samsung bluetooth connection active.  If both devices had a bluetooth connection, the headphones would turn on, stutter through the device names and then reboot.  This would just repeat until I rebooted the headphones, the app, bluetooth etc.

I couldnt find any way to fix the problem until I did the following -

Deleted the headphones from the bose app

Then i deleted the app from all my devices.

Then i removed all paired devices from the headphones

After this i connected each device to the headphones WITHOUT reinstalling or using the bose app, I just used the bluetooth setting on my devices.  So far for a day I have had no issues. When the headphones turn on they list the devices without stuttering, I can switch devices without issue and all the noise cancelation functions and controls work absolutely fine.  The headphones also kept my custom settings for things like cancellation level so as far as im concerned the app is unnecessary and if needed i can reinstall once every few months to keep the headphones updated etc

[karld]

I had the same experience - at first.  It does seem to be more stable when the app isn't installed, but I was still having multiple reboots throughout the day.  Please update us if it continues to be stable for you.

[TH1813254617]

I have an HTC U12+ on Android 9 and I have the issue, too. My friend has a Huawei P20 and my headphones have problems with his device. My headphones were never paired with his phone before the update, and he has never had Bose Music installed. It's not just a Samsung problem. Resetting my device is too invasive a fix for me since I have too many apps without Google cloud support. 1.3.1 is rock solid, what is it about 1.7 that requires a factory reset of your phone for the headphones to work properly?

For me, a factory-new, never paired NC 700 at 1.7 will crash when (and after) pairing with my phone.

[TFNZ]

I have purchased new Bose 700  headphones yesterday, worked fine for a day - no issues.

Have updated the software as prompted by the Bose Music app yesterday and this morning they have this reboot/noise issue and will not connect to my Samsung Galaxy Note 10. However, they do connect with my Windows 10 PC.

I have connected them via USB to the computer, as instructed in this thread, and the software is version 1.7

Please let me know how to proceed.

[karld]

Since you're unlikely to get an official response I'll just throw out my opinion:

Option 1: Call support and get an exchange.  Hopefully it'll come with version 1.3.1.  Don't install the app, don't connect to Google Assistant.  Doing either will risk a firmware update which will just break the headphones again.

Option 2: return and get something else

We've been dealing with this issue for about a year now and Bose CS doesn't even really acknowledge there's an issue. So I wouldn't expect a fix anytime soon.

I've been running 1.3.1 with no issues for quite some time and I'm happy with the performance of the headphones.  I can use Alexa as the assistant since it doesn't push firmware updates.  So I'm just missing the EQ and management features of the app.  Not a big loss for me.

[Nasalhair]

This has happened three times to mine today while listening to music.  It's the 1.7.0 firmware, on my Pixel 5 phone running Android 11.  Tried resetting the headphones but it's only doing the buzz and reboot since I updated the firmware.  Wish I'd stayed on 1.3 😞 

[lunchman]

@bose , it's now  6 months since I reported the reboot defect that is the opening post in this thread. You have not replied or acknowledged that this defect is being investigated in quite some time. Your support and engineering teams owe your customers the courtesy of an update.

Like @karld  recommends, I've frozen my replacement headphones at 1.3 firmware and removed the Music app and Google Assistant to prevent unwanted firmware updates to the defective 1.7 version. I recommend others do the same to avoid much frustration. 

I find it difficult to believe that your corporation continues to sell these headphones with such a major defect. 

Please respond to this thread and let your customers know what's going on. 

[sygnus21]

Hi all,

I want to say that since updating to the 1.7 firmware update I've not had a single reboot/buzzing issue since updating over six weeks ago. No matter the device be it my Samsung Galaxy Note 9, my desktop PC, or laptop, all it good.

And for the record, I do have posts here detailing my issues with these reboots/buzzing issues, but for me, the 1.7 firmware update solved my issue so I owe it to this board to post that as well.

My suggestion... if you're not running the 1.7 update and have issues, get the 1.7 update.

Peace 😎

[colma]

NC700 almost killed me today.

I'd charged my headphones and plugged them in directly to my FiiO E10 DAC. I use a replacement cable and the moment I put the headphones on my head, the most deafening glitchy sound was emitted from the left speaker, and for a moment there I thought I'd go deaf. I didn't even realise you can go THAT loud, and I've been to a Sunn O))) gig. Anyway, I immidiately took them off and was able to reproduce the glitch by changing the noise cancelling levels, and it's awful. Note that other than the glitchy sound, the volume level was set to low, exactly how I like my headphone volume to be. Tbh I'm kind of scared of using the headphones now.

How can I make sure it won't happen again? Is my replacement cable/DAC to blame?

Also, whoever came up with the idea of the headphones spamming 'Battery low, please charge now' instead of giving just one warning at 5% should be charged and sentenced. This is some next level software gore that I've never seen before. Is there anyway to make it stop?

edit: just found out about the Bose Music app. Found a way to turn off voice prompts. Hopefully, I it turns off battery level prompts as well. Nice. Also downloding a new firmware for the first time ever, maybe that will prevent the glitch sound from hapenning again.

Sound quality and visual design are top notch, though, gotta admit.