On a Mac: USB Link switches the Bose 700 headphones to "call mode", resulting in poor audio fidelity

[theirongiant]

I have just received my USB Link and just as the post says, when the dongle is plugged in and I have an app playing music, the headphones switch to "call mode" within a few seconds. 

This has four effects:

1) opens the microphone to the computer;

2) drops the audio fidelity to 16kHz Mono;

3) Passes microphone audio into the headset;

4) Lowers battery life signficantly.

#3 is a comfort thing designed to help people hear themselves talk.

It's behaving as if the microphone is being used as an active input, when in fact it is not.  I've checked all apps that might have telephony (Teams, Jabber, Skype, Slack) and they're all cleared.  The MacOS audio input is 'Internal microphone' but it makes no difference if I switch to the USB Link or vice-versa.

I've used other UC systems like the Plantronics BT600 with UC 8200 headset, and also used these Bose 700's in Bluetooth mode.  When there is no active call or that headset / dongle's microphone is not active, the system switches back to stereo ultra-wideband (44kHz).

[theirongiant]

Couple of details:

• The 700's are running firmware 1.7.0 (just installed the update tonight).
• The Bose USB Link says "Version 0.71" in System Information.
• The Bose USB Link Updater app package failed to install.
• Even if I extract the app manually, it hangs on launch.
• My primary Mac is running 10.14.6.

I am a professional Mac sysadmin.  If I can't get this working, your users are going to have a bad time.

[theirongiant]

@Charlotte_G please respond to the following: 

1. When I type "quotations" in the subject line and try to post a reply, Bose forum thinks this is "invalid HTML" and tries to correct it to:

"text goes here"

.

2. When replying to a post with a long subject line, the reply's subject line is truncated as seen here.

[theirongiant]

Other details:

1. The "bug fixes" and "release notes" section of the firmware v0074 is blank in the updater app.

2. The Bose Link keeps disconnecting from the Mac (through a powered Thunderbolt 3 certified hub)

3. The Link's blue light goes out when the 700 headphones disconnect, suggesting it is powered down.

4. This unexpected powered down state impedes firmware update process.

[depadre]

Perhaps I can jump in here, I basically experienced the same on Windows but someway after 10 or so tried, 0074 got flashed. Now the device is not booting anymore, either the firmware is faulty or something went wrong, so for now I would advise against updating.

[theirongiant]

Thanks for the heads-up.  I think I saw one other post about the 0074 firmware update essentially bricking the device.  

I was really looking forward to using this UC device and ordered it way back in July from B&H.  Bose really needs to step up their QA and software development game.