Living with smart headphones
Pat Pilcher spends three days with Bose’s new headphones which feature a digital assistant.
Ambient noises, including the Bieber power ballads and power tools, were banished from my ear drums. For that I am eternally grateful.
Digital assistants are becoming smarter and more common and they’re now available in headphones.
Bose’s new headphones, the Quiet Comfort 35 II, can work with Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri at the press of a button.
The wireless headphones also come with active noise-cancelling. Priced at $579, they’re not cheap, but you do get a lot of tech with your headphones.
How handy is it to have a digital assistant strapped to your head? I spent three days with the QC35 IIs to see if they could improve my digital life.
Day one
Catching the bus into town, I’m running late for an urgent appointment. Holding the action button on the left earcup I hear a tone signifying Google Assistant is ready.
I say ‘‘call [the person I have the appointment with] and my phone dials the person’s number. The call happens smoothly. About the only aspect I’d rather avoid were the looks I got from fellow passengers. Oh well.
Clarity is good – especially when calling another highdefinition mobile phone. Microphones on the earcups can kill unwanted sounds using two custom digital signal processors. During the bus ride call, I asked if the person I was calling could hear extraneous noise (such as sniggering bus passengers). The person hadn’t even noticed I was calling from a packed bus.
Departing the bus and walking briskly, I fired up some music to add some spring to my step. Audio playback was impressive.
Bluetooth can be the kiss of death for music playback but the QC35 IIs delivered a rich and nuanced soundstage.
Day two
I start the day commuting to the airport and soon realise I’d forgotten to throw a micro USB cable or 3.5mm cable into my laptop bag. Powering on the QC35 IIs, the voice informs me that the battery is at 75 per cent. Will they make it through a day’s use?
It turns out that the battery life is pretty good. Bose rates it at 20 hours, and by my reckoning, I’d wrung out 18 hours of use over two days. With Bluetooth, active noise cancelling and frequent Google assistant queries (much to the amusement of those nearby), I got through an entire day before they died.
The QC35 II headphones have an integrated rechargeable battery. They no longer take disposable AAA batteries as used in earlier models.
This strikes me as a good thing. Buying batteries that ultimately end up in landfill is something I’m keen to avoid. I just wish Bose had opted for a removable rechargeable battery.
If your phone has a 3.5mm audio socket and the headphone’s batteries conk out, Bose bundles a 3.5mm headphone cable. The cable is a generous 900mm long. This meant I could have my phone plugged in and in a trouser pocket.
When the batteries finally died it meant no noise-cancelling or Bluetooth. I was still getting audio. While audio playback on unpowered QC35IIs isn’t terrible, it ı´s definitely better when they’re powered up.
The bundled cord is an invaluable addition for in-flight use. While Air New Zealand is bluetooth-friendly, other airlines still ban its use. Having a cord becomes vital in these situations, especially for plugging into your seat’s in-flight entertainment system.
Bose now charges extra for the airline adaptor plugs it had bundled with earlier Quiet Comfort headphones. Wouldn’t it be great if airlines used normal 3.5mm headphone sockets?
Day three
Spending the day working from home to get some peace and quiet, I discover that builders working nearby think Justin Bieber is cool and that they like listening to him loudly to drown out their power tools. Sigh.
The variable noise cancellation is a great feature. Ambient noises, including the Bieber power ballads and power tools, were banished from my ear drums. For that I am eternally grateful.
Throughout the day, I found myself answering incoming calls and asking the Google Assistant lots of questions. It didn’t take long before it became almost second nature.
This was helped by the easy-tofind controls on the QC35 II. They consisted of actual buttons for tweaking the volume, music playback and a button for answering/ending calls, as well as summoning the Google Assistant/ Siri.
The headphones also look good too. The QC35 IIs resemble earlier models but they’re slightly heavier, weighing in at 236g. There’s lots of padding on their earcups and an extra-wide head band.
Bose uses lots of aluminium which means they’re quite durable.
Verdict
The QC35 IIs are expensive but for those able to afford them, they’re one of the better Bluetooth noisecancelling headphones around.
Having access to Google Assistant (or Siri) was handy, even if it did attract odd looks. For air travel, open-plan offices or builders, the QC 35 II’s active noise cancellation and great audio playback capabilities are hard to beat.