Apart from being a great punk band name, “heavy sweat” is causing Bose’s new SoundSport Wireless headphones to malfunction. In fact, it’s so bad that Bose is offering full exchanges for an updated unit to those who think their headphones are freaking out.
It’s unclear how big of a problem this is for Bose. When testing the SoundSports myself, I didn’t run into any of the issues described, and that includes some very sweaty sessions at the gym. CNET’s David Carnoy also said he was also couldn’t replicate the problems described in Amazon’s comments, so it’s possible that only a limited number of units are affected.
Bose is also launching the SoundSport Pulse in September, which includes a heart rate sensor. CNET says Bose will have updated units of that model by launch. We’ve reached out to Bose for more information and here’s what it says:
The SoundSport wireless headphone is delivering on its promise for the vast majority of owners around the world. It’s sweat and weather resistant, but a small percentage of customers have experienced a problem under specific conditions related to extreme levels of sweat and moisture. We took every SoundSport wireless headphone returned to us, tore them down in our labs, and now have a solution to make it work just as well for the small percentage as it does for vast majority. Going forward, every SoundSport wireless headphone will have this update, and they will be ready by the end of August. Customers who contact us with the problem will have a new, updated SoundSport wireless headphone reserved for them, and sent free of charge. If they need a sport headphone between now and then, we’ll send them a wired SoundSport headphone, also free of charge. And customers who were sent a replacement headphone already (not the updated version), who have not told us they’re having any issues with that replacement, will be contacted and offered the same support. (This outreach just started, so if those owners haven’t heard from us yet, that’s why.)
[CNET]