Bose QC35 II Requires to Download an App — Concerns Over Inadvertent Sudden Loud Signals

I bought Bose QC35ii and now a female voice very stubbornly insists that I shall download an App. I don t own any smartphone myself (I am not a very social person). So I am waiting for somebody who can download this App on HER smartphone for me.

However, my worry is if that somebody downloads this App on HER smartphone, and then sits next to me in the airplane and her phone is suddenly ringing (should be impossible as regulations are such that she is not allowed to have it turned on, but human nature is not perfect and one may forget) or if she turns on the mobile and starts to watch a movie on high volume, if that sound will come into my headphones!

Panic. Such a mistake can happen even if this person is very considerate since it is of human nature to think it is her private property she can do whatever she wants with without doing me any harm. She simply can forget she downloaded an App that connects her phones with my headphones! Human nature is then in conflict with this modern technology.

So shall I return these the best headphones on the market, only because of this so very stupid technology that forces me to obey this stupid woman s voice??

I really hate Apps and I am not familiar with smartphone and bluetooth and fear there can come a loud signal in my headphones by mistake that could ruin my hearing for the rest of my life!

 

If your tinnitus was caused by "loud noise" then I advise you not to use these headphones or any type of headphones even at low volume, as you risk making your tinnitus worse. If you can return these headphones for a refund you could save yourself from a lot of misery in the future.

You have been warned.
All the best
Michael

PS: There are people in this forum that will tell you headphones use will do no harm as long as the volume is kept low. This is not always the case especially for someone with "noise induced" tinnitus. It is true some people with noise induced tinnitus are not affected by headphone use but many are.

 

There is generally a pairing process that pairs the smartphone with the headphones. A random person in an airplane won't be able to pair with your headphones, so I wouldn't worry about that.

 

Your headphones cannot be operated by anyone else, unless you let them Bluetooth to your headphones, which I would not advise. If you don’t own a smartphone or iPad, what music are you going to listen to. If you’re only using them for hearing protection, realize the numbers are about 13-17dB, with noise cancelling on. They are not for acoustic protection, but more for ambient useage.

 

the person will download this app will sit next to me in the airplane for ten hours. chances are she forgets her phone is connected to my headphones causing me troubles. better throw them away or try to get a refund.

 

I would need to find a random person in this country who downloads this app. Then I need to make sure to never be close to that person ever again in my entire life! Maybe I can offer some money as well to this random person to do me this favor?? I plan to move away from this country and never come back, ten hours away by airplane should be enough to secure I would never get connected to that phone again via bluetooth..??

 

That’s not how it works.

Getting the impression that you are not very tech savvy. You would likely be better served by using a pair of earmuffs.

 

Go and buy a cheap smart phone. It will be a lot less than the headphones. Anyway smart phones are about being anti social. Nowadays you hardly see people talking to each other - just heads down looking at their screens.

 

Seems to me the bluetooth range is less than 1000 meters,

https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected/things-you-should-know-about-bluetooth-range

so moving away by ten hours in a jumbo jet from the bluetooth source should make me safe, no?

 

Safe from what?

If the headphones are no longer paired with a device, the default message requesting a connection will start again.

 

YOU WILL NOT PAIR to another smart phone randomly.

I have used qc15 & 35 for 14 years and millions of miles in the air inclusive of 30 transatlantic flights of 9-14 hours long and 100’s of domestic flights. That is 1000’s of hours using them in the air. Then 1000’s of hours using them walking in my neighbourhood.

NOT ONE TIME did someone else pair my headphones.
This is a NON ISSUE.

As others have said, you can leave the power off then the 1 in 100 million shot you are in reference to reduces to 1 in 1000 million.

 

I never disagreed on that and I am not discussing this question at all.

My question is what happens when the specific phone that I connect Bose with, is being used by accident. Note the unusual situation that I personally do not own any smartphone, so I should then ask another person X1. This person X1 (not a random person Xn where n is not equal to 1) will also follow me on the plane, and may forget her phone is connected with my Bose after ten hours in the air.

Second option is I ask my mother in my home country to download this App and then I connect my Bose to her phone. Then I fly ten hours away from my mother and her phone and never return home again. Will my head phones work as proper noice canceling headphones, or will this female voice AGAIN start to request me to download this App when my headphones no longer can reach my mother s phone ten hours away by jumbo jet?

According to the sales person (who only wanted to sell this product to me ASAP), this second alternative will work WITHOUT ANY PROBLEM AND FOR SURE. I am more skeptic to that though. I think it MAY work, at least so long as I don t pull the ON-switch on the Bose for ten seconds and erase all traces of connected smartphones from its memory? It is a gambling though, as I get no proper answer from anybody on this question. People never used their headphones for this purpose and don t seem to know the answer. Nobody took on their headphones walked out from their house and LEFT THEIR SMARTPHONE AT HOME! This magically important smartphone seems to be ALWAYS following people everywhere they go all the time, into the toilet, into the gym, along their running track, everywhere they go, they never leave the smartphone at home! That is how people behave in this world these days. In the good old days people had one wired phone in their house, and then they went out in their farmland and picked up their potatoes and lived a happy life. Of course they would then miss any phone calls during that time they were out, but they accepted that. They even could not see if they had missed a phone call when they were out picking up potatoes. Instead, as they got inside again, they could focus on peeling the potatoes, not bothering about whether somebody called them or not when they were out. That person has to call again. Simple. It was a simple life. Never to return again.

The first alternative seems bad to me, it will never work well, since person X1 is close to me and uses her phone all the time, meaning I can never use my headphones undisturbed so long as I stay in her vicinity.

 

Why would you pair them with someone’s else’s phone to begin with. It makes no sense, plus I’m sure no one would want to pair their phone with you. It would allow you to listen to everything they are doing.

If you are not listening to anything, why pair them to begin with?

If the purpose is to limit the dB of an aircraft, they are fine in the off position, provided they are « over ear & not on ear »As my earlier posts have stated most ambient aircraft dB is 70-85, depending on many factors. With the NC turned off, you should reduce the dB by about 10, based on a study of 13-17 reduction with NC turned on. That’s leaves you with noise levels of 60-75 for the entire flight. Best you can do, without going for full blown ear plugs, which in my humbled opinion are way less comfortable for an extended period of time.

 

By the way noise canceling is only a term. It is not actually canceling noise, but rather some formula of adjusting to outside ambiant noise. Therefor if you are not listening to anything the NC feature is irrelevant. Just wear them with the NC feature turned off.

 

This is completely wrong. Noice cancelling cancels out soundwaves from the jet engine to a great extent, and I experienced a huge difference when I flied here using noice cancelling and when I turned off noice cancelling. I sat on the plane and turned it on and off frequently as I am also worried of using noice cancelling for too long periods of time straight. But I really enjoyed the noice cancelling effect. Gave me piece in my mind to be able to turn off the jet engine sound by a simple switch, yet the plane did not crash!

 

I have learned that as long as a paired device is in the memory of Bose, it need not be able to actually pair with the smartphone anymore. The female voice will then say something like that my Bose could not connect with my smartphone, but it would not repeatedly say that I need to download an App (as I had done that, and the Bose should know that as long as it is in the memory of Bose).

But if the memory of Bose gets erased for one reason or another (the battery low, or I push the ON button for ten seconds so the Bose memory gets erased, then this voice will start killing me again.

That is my current understanding, which however may be wrong.

 

I have found them to be pretty equivalent to my Peltor X5A earmuffs in terms of reducing aircraft noise and road noise when driving. It's great at reducing repetitive low frequency noise, but it's not as good for high frequency sounds or sudden noises.

Incorrect, it is a destructive waveform that essentially cancels out the incoming sound wave.

 

I never said it had no effect. I agree it has effect. As I stated with it turned on the reduction in dB is 13-17, by published studies. As stated the reduction is less with it turned off. I stated, because I’m not an expert, that there is more at work with sound waves, to accomplish this. I was referring to the simplified term of « canceling » which, indeed is not correct. Just a simplified term for the masses. And, with it turned off, it’s all irrelevant, as her case suggests.

 

cancelling is indeed the correct term used by scientists for this phenomenon. It is to say that 1 cancels against 1 and this is represented as 1 - 1 = 0. No wave means no sound, perfect sound cancellation would be the ultimate hearing protector, but of course this is difficult to accomplish, but Bose has got a long way. Perhaps near to something like 1 - 0.9 = 0.1, if the sound cancellation is reduction by 20 dB. The point is that it is the amplitude that is added, not the dB levels, in the cancellation. The amplitude corresponding to a certain dB is A=10^{dB/20}. A reduction by 20 dB means x dB is reduced to (x - 20) dB. Corresponding amplitudes are 10^{x/20} and 10^{(x-20)/20} respectively. If I normalize the first amplitude to 1, then the second amplitude is 10^{-20/20} = 0.1, and so 1 is reduced to 0.1, meaning that the cancelling sound wave amplitude is - 0.9, so as to give the amplitude cancellation as 1 - 0.9 = 0.1. Bose does not cancel the sound wave perfectly, but they do it pretty well. We do not perceive this cancellation as very excellent since we perceive sound levels on a logarithmic scale. But if one could look at the wave shape and the corresponding cancellation wave shape in an oscilloscope, then one would be amazed by how well Bose does it.

 

Either way I really don’t care at this point.

You have taken my entire post out of context. I was trying to help this person understand the « simple » dynamics, since they obviously are having a hard time and to get into the dynamics of all the formulas would be pointless.

I am not a scientist nor sound wave professional, just someone who has used them and expressed my desire to help this person, with my extensive « personal » experience with them.
Please read all of my posts on this thread. I have used Bose for 14 years cumulatively over 1000’s of hours with & without NC on. They serve a purpose in my life in planes, restaurants, warehouse and morning walks.

 

Then can you please tell me if this is Bose QC 35ii or Bose QC 25. The latter version has a female voice, and my question is what this female voice does. More details see my previous text. I would really appreciate if you can tell me the facts regarding this female voice.

 

You may be thinking of "passive noise cancelling" (which is basically good old dampening). The "active noise cancelling" headphones (like the ones discussed in this thread) do actually cancel the sound wave through destructive interference.

 

Ok one more reply.
I love this, because my T is much better, thanks to this spirited debate. That is true. So thanks! I mean that sincerely.

Cancel=eliminate
They do not eliminate all sound
If you have 1000’s of hours actual useage, as I, then you know, provided your hearing is good, that you can hear outside sound through them.

But......a simple call to Bose would answer any lingering questions.

 

Indeed they don't, since the cancellation effect depends on the frequency of the sound wave. So it is not useful as a hearing protector in an arbitrary environment, however it may serve a function in cancelling out part of the jet engine sound, which a big deal when one shall be sitting in an airplane for ten hours. They may not cancel out the baby cry sound from the seat behind me though.

 

Might as well buy a smartphone and connect it to your headphones if you're willing to shell out money anyway. At least you won't have to worry about your companion using her smartphone to play music or videos.

Or you can ask her to download the app to her smartphone, connect your headphones to the app, switch off the annoying voice prompts on the app, and then unpair the headphones and her smartphone using the "Forget this Device" (or equivalent" option. This is if you plan to use the headphones not for audio but for its noise-cancelling features.

I have QC35 connected to my iPhone, and through the app, I switched off the annoying voice prompts. Then I disconnected them.

 

Thanks a lot for the new input and potential help you provided.

No, you see buying a smartphone would not help me as I then need to pay a monthly fee to use it, and furthermore, I need to educate myself how one uses a smartphone, what its proper name is, smartphone, iphone, mobile phone, or what? Then I need to figure out how to turn it on, and off, and before I have found out how to download an app, already a couple of months would have passed and then that would be too late.

But the other option you provided sounds great.

1. She downloads the app on her phone
2. She switches off the voice prompt
3. She chooses Forget this device

Are you REALLY sure this works? I suspect if she does ALL this, then the Bose voice prompt will also forget that she switched it off, and start all over again? It would be great if it does work though, and I really wish you are right.

What I feel sure could work is

1. She downloads the app
2. She switches off the voice prompt

but then I would be disturbed whenever she uses her iphone or whatever name this device has.