Soundsport Free Incompatability with Windows 10

[dsawyer811]

I have the Soundsport Free that I use to connect to my Android Note 8, which works fine. I Also use my Surface Pro 4 with Windows 10 Professional to listen to media sources as well. I can pair the Bose headphones to my SP4 just fine the problem comes in with the services it try to use for functionality. The voice service which are identified as being part of the Bose Soundsport Free Headset, seems to work fine. However the Bose Soundsport Headphones which use the Music service will not stay connected and sometimes will not connect at all without uninstalling the headphones and reinstalling them. I have a current service call at Microsoft Support and they insist at this point that the Bose Soundsport Free headphones are not compatible with their Bluetooth drivers. I've worked with 3 of their technicians in the past two days as they shared onto my computer and poked and prodded, trying all kinds of things and there latest answer was an incompatibility. I have an email out to Bose support, but wanted to also put something within this community to see if maybe someone else had experienced the same issue or if someone is using the soundsport Free headphones with a surface pro 4 running windows 10 professional. I've literally been working with this is since I purchased them a month ago. Tried all kinds of things but to no avail. Willing to listen to maybe something I may have missed. Before I return them to the store for a refund. Thanks In Advance Dsawyer811

[dr.kazi]

I am having very big trouble with this product. It only connects with "voice" but not with "sound" when I connect it with my laptop bluetooth. I tried to update my driver several times then while it's connected to "voice", I can hear sound only on my right side.

When I connected it with my mobile phone, the bluetooth connection gets interrupted. Althought this is the first product I've bought of such kind & I'm very much disapointed with it.

[mendres]

I had the same problem - my new SoundSport Free won't play audio from my computer (Microsoft Surface Pro 4, Win10)

They initially connect to both the "Audio" and "Music" bluetooth profiles as long as there's no audio sound output - but as soon as any audio is sent to the earphones the "Music" profile disconnects. This happens with ANY audio (system tones, music app, video streaming app ...) and it happens immediately as soon as a sound is played.

I've spent a few hours yesterday and today trying to troubleshoot and spent over an hour on the phone with Bose support who says they've not heard of any such problems. I've tried all the obvious things like rebooting, checking for driver updates, deleting/reconnecting bluetooth, clearing the device memory in the headphones, and updating the firmware to version 1.2.0 but the problem remains.

A couple times I've been able to get it to play audio by disconnecting, removing, and reconnecting but as soon as I disconnect and reconnect it won't work again. Over about 3 hours of troubleshooting I've only gotten them to work twice for a total of about a minute. I connected other headphones and speakers with speakerphone capabilities with no problems. It appears that the A2DP BlueTooth profile is where the problem is. 

They successfully connected to my Samsung S8+, iPad, Apple TV but it just won't work with the PC.

I also just discovered that there is an inherent delay in the audio which isn't noticable with music but when watching video (from any source) the audio is delayed and out of sync with the video - very annoying.

I'm also learning that the bluetooth connection is a bit inconsistent. As I'm writing this, I've got an intermittent connection with my Apple TV which is about 9' away. If I turn my head the connection is often interrupted. This also happens if I cup a hand over the right earpiece.

Overall this has been a very disappointing experience. Within 4-5 feet the signal is consistent. Beyond that the connection becomes increasingly intermittent.

ALSO, the left earbud will occasionally drop out.

While writing this I've decided I'm going to have to return these. There are too many bugs and my intent was to be able to quietly watch tv/video with these earphones.

The design, fit and function are all great but the above problems are just too significant to live with. If resolved I'll probably buy them again.

[Shiloh_C]

Hi dr.kazi & mendres,

Thank you both for posting! 

@dr.kazi,

I have a troubleshooting step for you to try, I hope this helps.

Let's clear the pairing list and reestablish the connection.  To do this you'll press and hold the Bluetooth button for about 10 seconds, you should hear a voice prompt alerting you that the list is cleared.  At this point make sure to delete the headphones from your device's paired lists, then you can reestablish the connection.

Let me know if this helps?

@mendres,

Thank you very much for sharing your experience here and we are sorry to hear that you're disappointed with your SoundSport Free's.  We understand your frustration and hope that in the future you'd give Bose another chance with our products.  Please let us know if we can do anything for you.

Have a great day,

Shiloh_C 

[Serdar Kamaç]

Hi,

My SoundSport Free is connected to Windows 10 by bluetooth successfully. When it's first connected, it looks active both as microphone and headset at sound settings. But just when i try to listen something, it drops connection as an headset, and remains only connected as a mic. Is this a common problem, can anyone help me?

Thanks

[Serdar Kamaç]

And also, i have a SoundSport Wireless and it works perfectly on Windows.

[Shiloh_C]

Hi Serdar,

That's an interesting issue.  I'm inclined to say that it could be because of a setting somewhere in Windows 10, however, for troubleshooting purposes, could you try the headphones on another device?  This will help us isolate where the issue is coming from.

Let me know when you get a chance.

I hope you have a great weekend and thank you for posting,

Shiloh_C 

[Serdar Kamaç]

Thank you Shiloh for your answer.

I followed your instructions, and now i have some precise information.

I tried my headphones on another computer with Windows 10, and got the exact same result. It connects both for phone and media; but after the first attemp, the media gets disconnected. 

I tried with my friend's Soundsport Free (we've bought two together), and the same happened with Windows 10.

On the other hand, we connected successfully to MacOs. 

I should remind once again that my Soundsport Wireless and Quite Comfort 35 works perfectly at my Windows 10 computer.

After all this data, i think we can reach to the conclusion that Soundsport Free does not work at Windows 10 until a new update, and it's quite disappointing.  

[Shiloh_C]

Serdar,

Thank you for the new information.  A coworker of mine is testing his SoundSport Free's out with Windows 10 and I will get back to you in the next couple days with more information. Thank you for your patience and stay tuned!

Have a great day,

Shiloh_C

[Serdar Kamaç]

Thank you Shiloh, as soon as possible please.