Dear Bose, please consider recalling Soundsport Free

[kelvin.wolfbane]

Hi Bose,

While i acknowledge that you have a respectable reputation in the audio industry, but its apparent that there seems to be a batch manufacturing issue or product defect in the Soundsport Free. I bought my 2 weeks ago and one day its not charging and followed closely by it totally not working/no audio at all later. As what alot of other customers have already posted here, they all faced the same problem of the earbud not charging then the right side no audio and the product eventually died out.

Another problem that seems to be bugging most of the customers is the audio/video lag. No one can understand why is it that any cheap true earphone out there has no such issues but only Bose's? And all you can tell us is to update our firmware like we havent already. 

Needless to say, we don't pay hundred of dollars for a pair of earphone that will just die one morning we wake up. Or pay that amount just for music? You jolly well know that there are better earphones out there that priced lower than yours, Sony, Seinheiser, or even google's own earphone.

Please honestly admit that there is a problem with this defective product and recall them back. I know of the financial consequences but think of the bigger picture, you gonna lose a huge portion of your loyal customers if this is the kind of service/product that comes out of Bose. Worst is that our local Bose retailer refuses to let me refund mine! if you can help me out with that it would be great, if not, this will be the last time im touching anything that's Bose.

From a very dissatisfied customer,

Kelvin

[Vicky_W]

Hello Kelvin, 

Thank you for posting today. 

I would like to start by apologizing that you are having issues with your SoundSport Free headphones. Whilst I can appreciate that this seems like a common issue online, the number of units sold vs the number that is having issues is very small. It can often seem like a larger issue online as this is a place people come when they have issues, not when the headphones are functioning well. Personally I have brought most members of my family these headphones and none have had any issues. However, I can appreciate your frustrations and will be sending you a private message to see if I can help in any way to get your headphones exchanged. 

In regards to your concerns about the audio lag. In the SoundSport Free headphones, the signal path runs from the source device to the right earbud which then sends it to the left earbud. TWS (True Wireless Stereo) is limited in it's ability to synchronize multi-channel audio across the various stages from the source to the earbuds. We also had reports of a few third-party applications that had excessive A/V lag. We were able to mitigate much of the lag with a firmware update. Due to the variety of compression methods available for video transmission and the integration of third party products and services, there is no perfectly lag free solution for every use although it is much improved over this time last year. We are constantly working to improve the capabilities of our products however the technology to solve the limitations of TWS is not currently available. When it is you can be sure that our engineers will be testing it for use in our products. Not all users experience a lag though, it can vary dependant on the phone you have.

Some great steps that I would recommend to see if you can reduce the amount of latency would be:

1. Update the device that you are using's software.
2. Update the firmware of your headphones at http://btu.bose.com.
3. Perform a product reset on the headphones. To do this place the earbuds into the charging case, plug the charging case into a wall outlet using a USB charger and wait 5 seconds, unplug the USB cord from the charging case and wait 1 minute. After that remove the earbuds from the case and try again.

I hope that helps, please do let me know if you have any questions.

Kind Regards, 

Vicky W - Community Support