Feature Requests

[emich]

A few suggestions. I recognize some of these are repeated from other suggestions, but I came up with these independently (for the most part), so I thought I would post them.

1. Per page 10 of the user manual, you can use the “World Volume” up and down buttons simultaneously to adjust the sound direction function, and the headphones use a different frequency tone to indicate which mode you have selected. The tones are not intuitive and are almost indistinguishable (at least to my hearing). I recommend instead that a simple voice prompt be announced, such as “Everywhere”, “Front”, or “Focused” as each mode is selected. Much more intuitive that way.
   • Even better would be: have pressing the “World Volume” up and down buttons simultaneously simply index through each mode configured in the app, reading the name of each mode out.
2. Per page 12 of the user manual, “Note: The headphones do not play while charging”. Nor will the headphones communicate to the Bose Hear app while charging. This is super annoying and make little sense to me. What if I want to listen to music while charging? Please allow the Hearphones to be used while charging.
3. The Bose Hear App should prominently show the battery charge level in percent. Yes, the iPhone shows a little Headphone battery indicator in the upper right hand corner, but something a little easier to read would be nice. It does show briefly when the Hearphones are turned off then back on, but we shouldn’t have to turn the Hearphones on and off to hear the actual percent battery charge remaining.
   • While I think this feedback item is still valid, there is a "widget" on the iPhone that is an alternative to showing the battery percent level in the app. User "thersites" gives these instructions in a later post in this thread, 'Unlock your phone, swipe left, scroll to the bottom, press "edit", and press the "+" sign next to "Batteries" under "More Widgets." '
4. The Hearphones shut off when they're in my ears and I'm not streaming audio. There are many situations (noise reduction, speech enhancement, directivity uses, etc) where auto-shutoff being invoked during use makes no sense, whereas it does make sense in other contexts. Since the Hearphones have in-ear detection, please add a setting "don't shut off automatically when in ears", or something like that? And with this, a shorter duration auto-off timer would be appropriate - say adding a 5 minute auto-off option?
   • If that solution is not possible, how about a voice prompt, "Auto-off pending" a minute or 2 before they shut down?
   • Resolved in Bose Hear app 1.3.0 Announcement and Discussion. Nice job, Bose!
5. Create an option in the app - when both earbuds are removed, pause playback of whatever device is connected.

Continued next post.

[emich]

A few more:

6. Each time I change a mode in the Hear app, I get a full screen prompt, "Everyone's hearing is Different!..." and goes on to tell me to adjust the sound mode to my liking. Ok, enough already. I get it. Please add a button to let me dismiss this prompt permanently, or at least until the next app upgrade. I don't need to see this every time I change modes. This is resolved adequately in lkingston's reply 2 posts below this post.

7. This one will probably drive the developers wild and tag me as a luddite, but hey, I fly a lot and sometime want to plug into the airplane's entertainment system - all of them are compatible with 3.5 mm headphone connections, but not compatible with Bluetooth. A method to connect the Hearphones to 3.5 mm would be cool. For now, I have to carry a second set of ear buds, compatible with 3.5 mm connections. This seems crazy considering I am already carrying a $500 set of headphones with me.

8. The 3 directivity modes are great. But a fourth directivity mode, perhaps called "Custom", where a user could select from which direction(s) they want to block sounds, would provide a ton more functionality.

a. An example on usefulness would be in a typical business setting, especially those with the open workstation plans. If there was a printer to the right of your workstation, you could select to noise cancel in that direction, but not in the remaining directions.

b. I'm picturing providing a large version of the directivity circles where a user could run their finger around to drag the gray pie shape in the direction and arc length they want to noise block.

c. A further enhancement to this suggestion would be to add multiple custom directivity selections so a user could block from multiple directions. But this is probaly too complicated to create and use, so probably not practical.

9. Add a cable clip (something like this <https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Clips-Organizer-Management-Adhesive/dp/B00NVKHLP8/> at each end of the neckband to hold the cables when the earpieces are not in your ears. That would be a lot better than them flopping around all the time.

[lkingston]

I really need a mono option.

I sat down to eat with my son and my wife today with my wife on my left and my son on my right.  Normally, what happens is that I can hear my son just fine out of my good ear but I have to struggle to hear my wife.  With the Hearphones I could hear my son even better but I still struggled to hear on my left side.  

Imagine the three focus modes.  Now cut each of them in half.  The everywhere mode becomes a half circle.  The front mode becomes a quarter circle .  The focused mode becomes a little sliver going off to one side.  That’s what those of us with one side hearing are getting with this product.

The Hearphones are really amazing compared to everything else, but the utility for those of us with single side hearing would double if we could route mics from both sides of our head to our good ear.  My left ear does hear a tiny bit, but it’s distorted and has no highs.  I don’t want that side muted.  I don’t want to even up the balance either because the little bit of hearing I have in that ear sounds pretty bad.  I just want to be able to choose mono audio as an option.

[lkingston]

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@emich wrote:

6. Each time I change a mode in the Hear app, I get a full screen prompt, "Everyone's hearing is Different!..." and goes on to tell me to adjust the sound mode to my liking. Ok, enough already. I get it. Please add a button to let me dismiss this prompt permanently, or at least until the next app upgrade. I don't need to see this every time I change modes.

This one is easy.  You just need to save the preset over the default one.  If you are happy with it as it is, just save it without making changes.

[stolar]

I'd like to add my voice to requesting that an option for unilateral hearing loss be added to the firmware and app.

I have total hearing loss in one ear and would LOVE to be able to have all microphones direct sound to one ear as well as a mono setting.  

Thanks!!!

[ST - Hearphones]

For all who have requested more control over the Noise Cancelling and World Volume please see this new discussion:

Bose Acoustic Noise Cancelling and World Volume

Thank you,

ST

[jmkubler]

Just noticed that a banner is now displaying the currently selected mode on top of the screen. Thanks for adding this feature so quickly.

[bhyde]

Suggestion - A button sequence to give an audio report of the remaining battery level - similar to when the HP are turned on.   Maybe something like two quick presses of the power button.  

[emich]

Please allow us to remove the large 4 default modes. I would much rather have a list so I can see all the modes at once, including all my personal modes.

[emich]

Please add noise cancelling on the voice microphone, so when we are on a call, the person on the other end is not bothered by background noise.