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When I receive a call, my Bose SoundSport headphones randomly ring at max volume, with audible clipping. This happens when the iOS ring volume slider is set to

When I receive a call, my Bose SoundSport headphones randomly ring at max volume, with audible clipping. This happens when the iOS ring volume slider is set to the middle and hearing protection is enabled at 75dB. The sound is shockingly loud, especially when listening to an audio book at low volume. There was a multi-year megathread about it on the Bose forums before the company removed the forums entirely. I chatted with five different Bose Support staff and they all refused to file a bug report. They are happy to send me a third pair with the same problem. How can we get companies to respect their users?

nyanpasu64 4y ago
Ouch. I'm not sure if this fixes your problem, but on Android I like to enable developer options and disable absolute volume to decouple the phone and speaker/headphone volumes, so I can use the device itself to turn down the peak volume (and hopefully noise floor) no matter how loud of a sound the phone tries to output. This might help ringtones, but probably not sounds generated by the headphones. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be exposed by Apple for iPhones.
newsclues 4y ago
- mleonhard 4y ago
  Violence and crime are unacceptable strategies for citizens of democracies. Please delete your comment.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    Whilst I agree with your sentiment regarding violence, I think that what's identified as crime in this case is not necessarily just. It should be criminal to sell faulty equipment and do nothing to fix it, but it isn't. Ergo, the system of law has already failed to reflect what should be appropriate behavior. IMO these companies have already torn up their version of the social contract, so I'm not terribly worried if a frustrated customer takes their website down for a day or two or takes some other nonviolent form of corrective action. I won't do it, but I wouldn't be clamoring to shut down anyone who did.
  - noasaservice 4y ago
    In my experience, when people have no other methods to become whole (when wrong was done against them), they *will* lash out in ways you might disapprove of. If anything, advocacy of violence shows just how far down our societal belief that we wouldn't be wronged, is nearly gone. I'm for limited violence when all other methods have been exhausted. But then we have to decide exactly what "violence" is.
    - otterley 4y ago
      Come on, let’s at least talk about sending a letter to their attorneys threatening legal action first. Class action plaintiffs’ lawyers eat this stuff up.
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    Let me tell you the story of my country who shot dead a president and his wife. It was a democracy before and it is after. I am not endorsing the comment that started this discussion, just telling you are not necessarily right: there are cases when violence and crime are not only acceptable, but even necessary.
  - newsclues 4y ago
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Voting with your wallet isn't about changing the company. It's about not ordering a plate of shit then asking for seconds. You don't need to change the company. Just stop buying their shitty products if you don't like them! You might say - but nobody else is selling a rhinestone studded shit pacifier... You don't need it, you just want it.
driverdan 4y ago
> How can we get companies to respect their users? Stop buying their broken products.
- jchw 4y ago
  Well, Jabra and Bose are both shipping some arguably “broken” products (though frankly I find “broken” to be a tad flippant of a description.) That does leave some alternatives. How are people buying bluetooth earbuds supposed to know that buying flagship products from some of the most reputable companies in the field would lead them here? Honest question. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask everyone in the world to try to blast past the reams of SEO and fake reviews to try to find the random users in Reddit and support forums suffering from serious, poorly-documented limitations and awful bugs. In my mind, something must be systemically wrong here.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > In my mind, something must be systemically wrong here. It is. Three things are at play here: The power of consumer protection agencies is way too low, the standardization group (=Bluetooth SIG) doesn't give a fuck, and the Bluetooth standard itself is a horrible mess dealing with a lot of historical baggage. In an ideal world, cases such as "won't operate with a standard-issue Mac" would cause an investigation by a consumer protection agency and the party found to be at fault by violating the specification would have to remedy the issue and/or face substantial fines (obviously, the larger the company the bigger the fines).
    - alias_neo 4y ago
      > The power of consumer protection agencies is way too low In the UK, if they advertise them as working with / connecting to a computer, there's no way you aren't getting your money back. Consumer protections in this country are pretty solid for this sort of thing (thought sadly not the case for new expensive things like cars, new build homes, etc). I had PC World try to screw me with the old display panel switcheroo on a first gen flat screen Samsung LCD in the 2000s, a £1000, 32" screen which was supposed to have a "new" chevron pattern to the sub-pixels. Store display and review models had it, and it was all over their advertising, mine were plain old squares. Trading Standards / Citizen's Advice Bureau had them practically begging me to take a replacement mere hours after an outright refusal to replace a TV I'd been using for a year already.
tootie 4y ago
I'm like 50% suspicious that Apple is doing this on purpose to get you to buy Air Pods.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> How can we get companies to respect their users? Stop giving them money unless they provide source and schematics and unlockable bootloaders and put things together with screws rather than glue. As long as you the public at large keeps taking abuse and keep handing over more cash, they'll keep doing it.

nyanpasu64 4y ago

Ouch. I'm not sure if this fixes your problem, but on Android I like to enable developer options and disable absolute volume to decouple the phone and speaker/headphone volumes, so I can use the device itself to turn down the peak volume (and hopefully noise floor) no matter how loud of a sound the phone tries to output. This might help ringtones, but probably not sounds generated by the headphones. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be exposed by Apple for iPhones.

newsclues 4y ago

mleonhard 4y ago
Violence and crime are unacceptable strategies for citizens of democracies. Please delete your comment.
- pksebben 4y ago
  Whilst I agree with your sentiment regarding violence, I think that what's identified as crime in this case is not necessarily just. It should be criminal to sell faulty equipment and do nothing to fix it, but it isn't. Ergo, the system of law has already failed to reflect what should be appropriate behavior. IMO these companies have already torn up their version of the social contract, so I'm not terribly worried if a frustrated customer takes their website down for a day or two or takes some other nonviolent form of corrective action. I won't do it, but I wouldn't be clamoring to shut down anyone who did.
- noasaservice 4y ago
  In my experience, when people have no other methods to become whole (when wrong was done against them), they *will* lash out in ways you might disapprove of. If anything, advocacy of violence shows just how far down our societal belief that we wouldn't be wronged, is nearly gone. I'm for limited violence when all other methods have been exhausted. But then we have to decide exactly what "violence" is.
  - otterley 4y ago
    Come on, let’s at least talk about sending a letter to their attorneys threatening legal action first. Class action plaintiffs’ lawyers eat this stuff up.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  Let me tell you the story of my country who shot dead a president and his wife. It was a democracy before and it is after. I am not endorsing the comment that started this discussion, just telling you are not necessarily right: there are cases when violence and crime are not only acceptable, but even necessary.
- newsclues 4y ago
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Voting with your wallet isn't about changing the company. It's about not ordering a plate of shit then asking for seconds. You don't need to change the company. Just stop buying their shitty products if you don't like them! You might say - but nobody else is selling a rhinestone studded shit pacifier... You don't need it, you just want it.

driverdan 4y ago

> How can we get companies to respect their users? Stop buying their broken products.

jchw 4y ago
Well, Jabra and Bose are both shipping some arguably “broken” products (though frankly I find “broken” to be a tad flippant of a description.) That does leave some alternatives. How are people buying bluetooth earbuds supposed to know that buying flagship products from some of the most reputable companies in the field would lead them here? Honest question. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask everyone in the world to try to blast past the reams of SEO and fake reviews to try to find the random users in Reddit and support forums suffering from serious, poorly-documented limitations and awful bugs. In my mind, something must be systemically wrong here.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > In my mind, something must be systemically wrong here. It is. Three things are at play here: The power of consumer protection agencies is way too low, the standardization group (=Bluetooth SIG) doesn't give a fuck, and the Bluetooth standard itself is a horrible mess dealing with a lot of historical baggage. In an ideal world, cases such as "won't operate with a standard-issue Mac" would cause an investigation by a consumer protection agency and the party found to be at fault by violating the specification would have to remedy the issue and/or face substantial fines (obviously, the larger the company the bigger the fines).
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    > The power of consumer protection agencies is way too low In the UK, if they advertise them as working with / connecting to a computer, there's no way you aren't getting your money back. Consumer protections in this country are pretty solid for this sort of thing (thought sadly not the case for new expensive things like cars, new build homes, etc). I had PC World try to screw me with the old display panel switcheroo on a first gen flat screen Samsung LCD in the 2000s, a £1000, 32" screen which was supposed to have a "new" chevron pattern to the sub-pixels. Store display and review models had it, and it was all over their advertising, mine were plain old squares. Trading Standards / Citizen's Advice Bureau had them practically begging me to take a replacement mere hours after an outright refusal to replace a TV I'd been using for a year already.

tootie 4y ago

I'm like 50% suspicious that Apple is doing this on purpose to get you to buy Air Pods.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

> How can we get companies to respect their users? Stop giving them money unless they provide source and schematics and unlockable bootloaders and put things together with screws rather than glue. As long as you the public at large keeps taking abuse and keep handing over more cash, they'll keep doing it.