WH-1000xm2 Auto Shutoff is Terrible.

[curious_dan]

I recently purchased a WH1000xm2, thinking of it as an investment for continuing education. As a college student, the noise cancelling has been great for busy cafes and libraries with deep thrumming AC systems. For the most part, the headphones are more than satisfactory for creating a bubble of focus in a variety of circumstances.

That said, I have a huge gripe about one 'feature' (bug?) of the headsets.

The headphones shut off completely after five minutes if no bluetooth or physical cable connection is established. This makes a lot of sense coming from the perspective of preserving battery life: nobody wants to accidentally drain the headphones when they weren't using it.

However, it's hugely dysfunctional to users like me who might want the noise-cancelling feature more than the music-playing feature. I have to either pull out a clunky cable unconnected on one end, or connect to my phone via bluetooth and let the connection needlessly drain my phone battery. The 30 hour headphone battery is very impressive. Unfortunately, my poor phone will not last standby for 30 hours with bluetooth on. On certain days, the bluetooth connection has been the biggest source of battery drain on my phone.

I feel like it doesn't have to be this way.

One of the great features about this headset is the programmability. Certain settings can be changed on via the app, and from what I can tell, the onboard memory on the headphones will store that information even when disconnected from the phone. So why not create a setting for auto-shutoff? Let the user assume the level of potential battery waste. Glaringly, a certain manufacturer of quiet and comfortable noise cancelling headphones has a very similar feature to the one described above for their newest cans.^

From what I can gather, this problem was unsolvable on the MDR 1000x, because it had no smartphone connection ability. This model does, and it seems almost silly to not include this feature. I mean, if Sony can accommodate the (literally) dozens of people who need their music to be produced from an outdoor stage at their back right, why can’t Sony accommodate countless students like me who want some silence no strings (physical or bluetoothy) attached?

This isn't a deal-breaker. But I feel like it is an option that many people would appreciate, and would add so much more value to the product.

^Bose QC35's have auto-off timer options in the app, configurable to 5m, 20m, 40m, 1h, 3h, or never.

[HeadphoneGuy]

I would just like to let Sony know as well that I am about to purchase another pair of noise canceling headphones, and am disappointed to hear about this auto shut off "feature". I own a pair of 1st gen QC35s and often use them just to block ambient noise when I have a headache/trying to sleep.

If this isn't addressed in an update (hardware or software/firmware), then I guess I'll be getting a pair of sennheiser pxc 550s or even the wireless bose qc20 buds. I love Sony products, and hearing about this issue is really saddening. Get it together, Sony. 

[rehuhta]

Yes please update these to have this annoying feature be something we can disable. Nobody seems to like this feature. If it was like 30 minutes, it would be a conveniance but 5 minutes is just a nuisance.

All this emphasis on hearing the world around you, setting juuust the right ammount of noise canceling in the app, calibrating it and the thing turns off in 5 minutes.

So now I either have to kill my phone battery with an infinite loop of silent music just to keep these things "on" ready to receive phone calls while relaxing in a bus or use a terrible cable to use 1 third of the functionality at the cost of the other 2 thirds. 

[ItalyBen79]

I thought I thought my headphones had a bug. I cannot believe I moved away from Parrot Zik to this. I use them to reduce the noise on long haul planes while I sleep. Having the cable attached is inconvenient because then I can’t moved, and the Bluetooth will drain phone battery. I mean Sony, seriously, I thought you were a leader in audio equipment, if this is the standard of your products I will run to Bose from this second on.

[Sandvold]

I tried now a quick temporary fix. Find a redundant stereo connection mini jack cable and cut off the cable as close to the plug as convenient. The plug only will then be so small that it easily fit into the coin compartment of a wallet. When you insert the plug in the 1000 headset, the NC will be permanently on until you remove it after necessary use. The headset power turns off in the same instant. Voila, the NC will be separately working for as long as you need and not be draining battery off a connection to the mobile phone or the headset, apart from the NC.

[smithiainsmith]

Great idea.  This works well.  Obviously it'd be good if the Sony boffins could come up with a fix...but in the meantime, thanks for your genius...i was about to take them back to the shop for a refund.  This would have been a shame...as the noise reduction is really good.