[HN Gopher] Jabra denies support for Elite 85t Bluetooth earbuds...
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Jabra denies support for Elite 85t Bluetooth earbuds on computers
I purchased Jabra 85t bluetooth earbuds a 2 months ago. After
updating Macos to Monterey, the mic drops after a random amount of
time on Google Hangout and sometimes Slack, in the span of 20
minutes. This is not an isolated case, users have been complaining
about it. For instance on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jabra/co
mments/qjwxdu/muting_during_slackzoom_calls_on_mac_elite_85t/ On
this post, official Jabra Support declares: "We do not support the
use of the Jabra Elite 85t on computers" I also reached out to
their support per email, and after a few back and forth and
reaching their Lead, the answer is the same. They won't provide a
refund nor solutions. This limitation isn't advertised on the
official Amazon offer nor on their official website. Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Jabra-Wireless-Bluetooth-Earbuds-
Titanium/dp/B08HR78C46/ Official website:
https://www.jabra.com/bluetooth-headsets/jabra-elite-85t In the
absence of advertised limitation, shouldn't the mic work (without
dropping) with every device supporting the adequate BT profiles?
How is a user supposed to know they don't support computers?
Author : wawawiwa
Score : 211 points
Date : 2022-05-15 15:31 UTC (7 hours ago)
| woodson wrote:
| Have you tried it with the Jabra Link USB dongle? Yeah it's pricy
| if it's not included (it was with my Evolve2 65), but while using
| it I never had any issues, as the computer sees it as a USB
| soundcard (which works pretty well on Win/Linux/Macos).
|
| Unfortunately, I never had any luck with any Bluetooth audio
| device of any manufacturer on computers (as opposed to
| phones/tablets).
| dgacmu wrote:
| There's a good answer below about how to disable this feature in
| Chrome.
|
| An alternative to starting it with the experiment flag is to use
| the "Disable Automatic Gain Control" Chrome extension:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-automatic-...
|
| I've been using it for a while with an 85h and it at least
| removes _that_ part of the failure. The stupid things keep
| rebooting themselves randomly while I'm on calls, however - I
| will never buy another Jabra product again.
|
| (there was a discussion about this a while ago on reddit where
| folks identified these workarounds):
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Jabra/comments/qikzif/elite_85h_spo...
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| What does it even mean they don't support "computers"? Bluetooth
| doesn't distinguish between computers and mobile phones.
| [deleted]
| brudgers wrote:
| After updating Macos to Monterey
|
| That sounds like a breaking change to MacOS by Apple.
|
| Apple has strong financial incentives to have its headphones be
| the preferred option across its product lines.
|
| Considering that Jabra is getting the blame here, Apple has
| little financial disincentive against breaking changes to its
| software.
|
| Good luck.
| Master_Odin wrote:
| I've the same headphones, and the two problems I've had with them
| were: 1. Mic auto-muting during meetings. The fix here was to
| disable automatic mic gain or whatever 2. Headphones not always
| properly playing music from my phone when also being connected
| (but not used) to my laptop. Fix was to turn off Bluetooth on my
| laptop.
|
| In both cases, it seems to be purely an issue with macOS and
| Apple software, as I've never had a single issue when using
| windows or my Android phone. For the second issue when I
| researched it, the conclusion was that apple just regularly does
| poorly with BT devices connected to multiple sources as why would
| you use something other than your apple product?
| tga wrote:
| What is a good alternative for a USB/Bluetooth office/WFH headset
| with a noise canceling _microphone_ (no background voices/noise),
| especially one that would also work on Linux?
|
| Jabra Elite2 40 for example looked almost perfect, but was almost
| unusable on Linux/without their custom software.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I don't know about noise- _cancelling_ , didn't even know there
| were headphones doing that.
|
| But I have the Jabra Engage 75 (not Engage2) and I'm very happy
| with them. The mic doesn't pick up other voices in the house,
| since it sits 1 cm from my mouth and is fairly directional.
|
| Also, the phones and base don't seem to communicate over
| Bluetooth because the range is great: more than 10 m through a
| thick house wall. I also don't notice the lag. The base is
| connected to the PC via USB. It also supports BT for connecting
| to a phone. And the volume controls on the phones affect the
| volume reported by Pipewire. The only thing that doesn't
| interact with PW is the Mic mute button. I don't have any kind
| of Jabra software installed - and there isn't any for Linux
| (they only have an SDK).
|
| My only gripe with them is that they always prioritize my
| phone, so whenever I get a random notification they will cut
| the audio from the conference on the PC in order to play the
| "ding".
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I was going to recommend the Sony WH-1000XM4 (which are more
| expensive). But I wanted to Google Linux support first and I
| ran into this discussion on Reddit [0], it sounds like the
| issue is not with the headphones (any BT headphones you choose)
| but with Pulse Audio.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sony/comments/jght5s/sony_wh1000xm4...
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| A problem with Linux support for Bluetooth audio? Say it
| isn't so! I don't understand why people are surprised that
| using Bluetooth devices on Linux frequently requires "their
| custom software". This is why.
| smoldesu wrote:
| On the flip side, Linux audio supports things that MacOS
| and Windows do not. Do _you_ have 990kbps LDAC running on
| your desktop? Probably not if you aren 't on Android or
| Linux. With PipeWire, I feel pretty comfortable saying
| Linux has Mac and Windows beat with wireless audio
| compatibility. Yes, Pulseaudio/ALSA and Jack kinda suck.
| That's a pretty dead horse to beat when you consider the
| offerings on... other platforms.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Of course I do, I wanted to be sure for myself that the
| difference is inaudible on Windows like it is on Android.
| I bought an adapter which supports it and confirmed it
| was transmitting it, then did my a/b/x testing.
|
| It sounds like you agree with me, the default Linux
| support for Bluetooth audio is bad and requires custom
| workarounds to fix. That's exactly what I said.
| SSLy wrote:
| What workarounds are you talking about? Pipewire is stock
| in distros, and you don't have to configure anything.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| I'm not sure what you meant by "stock in distros", but I
| hope you don't mean it comes installed and configured out
| of the box on all distros, as that is emphatically not
| the case:
|
| https://askubuntu.com/questions/1399464/cant-install-
| pipewir...
|
| https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-pipewire-on-
| ubuntu-li...
|
| https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2022/04/pipewire-
| replac...
| SSLy wrote:
| It is stock in Fedora, and it's the "driver" in Ubuntu
| just that apps are using ALSA/Pulse emulation libs, not
| the native ones. This has no effect on the BT support.
| Also, it's just Ubuntu being weird again.
| avihaybar wrote:
| Had the same issue with my 75t Elite on OSX with Slack Huddles.
| It seems like the root cause was the "Enable automatic gain
| control", or something along those lines.
|
| It was super annoying, as they kept muting me mid-sentence, but
| since turning this option I haven't faced this issue anymore.
| wawawiwa wrote:
| (OP) That's what on the Reddit post indeed, but unfortunately
| this option isn't available everywhere, and it doesn't always
| work :/
| Aissen wrote:
| There's always the slight possibility that this might be a bug in
| the macOS Monterey bluetooth stack ? Hardware interoperability is
| quite complicated, but the device did work with the previous
| version of macOS (presumably the one Jabra had to test before
| shipping).
| tyrfing wrote:
| Indeed. There are 100s of complaints on Reddit about Bluetooth
| devices being broken on Monterey, including Apple peripherals:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/search?q=monterey+bluetooth&r...
| darkr wrote:
| Surely anything that supports bluetooth is by consequence "a
| computer"?
| Animats wrote:
| Search for "false advertising lawyer". This is a good case for a
| class action. Provable misrepresentation, deep pocket company.
| You may not get much out of it, but you can apply some pain to
| Jabra.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Why is this submission 2x as wide as the comments? (I'm on mobile
| Safari)
| dwighttk wrote:
| Ahh. It's that url isn't it?
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Bought them after reading good reviews on r/audiophile and
| r/jabra and after some use they have this bug of one of the
| headset lowers the volume without fix. Last time i buy from them.
| gotrythis wrote:
| I have the Elite 85h, and it has the same problem, as well as
| about a dozen other problems when you connect it to a computer.
| Same response. But the sales letter for the product makes it
| clear that they do support computers.
|
| My last email to Jabra was ignored:
|
| The message that computers are not supported devices on the Jabra
| Elite 85h was a very upsetting response to receive, so I didn't
| respond for quite a while. It's quite frustrating to hear that
| expensive bluetooth headphones designed to connect to 8 devices
| are not meant to work with computers. If that were the case, I
| would expect the Jabra site to say that computers are not
| supported in BIG letters, as I imagine a lot of people, like me,
| would expect their computer to be one of those 8 devices.
|
| However, this statement about computers not being supported
| cannot be true. On the Jabra site for this product, it says: "no
| need to plug your headphones into your computer." It also has a
| picture of the product beside a Macbook. I've included screen
| shots of the product page that show these two points that clearly
| indicate computers are supported. I've heard this issue of the
| Elite 85h not being compatible with computers before from Jabra
| support, but it seems so implausible that Jabra would make
| bluetooth headphones that don't support computers, and equally
| implausible that they would mislead people into buying them on
| their site by suggesting that computers are supported if they are
| not.
|
| I'm still hoping to get solutions to all the problems I'm having
| connecting my Jabra Elite 85h to my MacBook Air. Currently it's
| unusable and I'm going to have to buy another headset to replace
| them, which is much more wasteful than I would like.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I use my Jabra headphones to connect to all 8 of my cell
| phones. I'm sure that is the use case they were built for.
| Titan2189 wrote:
| Aaand now you're on the watch list
| [deleted]
| fire wrote:
| > However, this statement about computers not being supported
| cannot be true. On the Jabra site for this product, it says:
| "no need to plug your headphones into your computer." It also
| has a picture of the product beside a Macbook. I've included
| screen shots of the product page that show these two points
| that clearly indicate computers are supported. I've heard this
| issue of the Elite 85h not being compatible with computers
| before from Jabra support, but it seems so implausible that
| Jabra would make bluetooth headphones that don't support
| computers, and equally implausible that they would mislead
| people into buying them on their site by suggesting that
| computers are supported if they are not.
|
| Yeah, like... this is exactly how you get yourself sued, so if
| that's what they're hoping for...?
| unixhero wrote:
| I bought them and then stopped using them. They're junk. Why?
| There's always something, some reason why they're not ready to go
| when I need them such as when someone calls. .
| TheChaplain wrote:
| It could be that Jabra isn't the actual manufacturer of the
| headphones and it's just a rebrand and the actual manufacturer
| doesn't give a crap to resolve the issues.
| userbinator wrote:
| Tell them that Bluetooth is Bluetooth and all implementations
| should interoperate. Or that's how it should be, and although
| there's plenty of stories about it not working with specific
| combinations of devices, "on computers" is such a ridiculously
| vague excuse.
|
| _After updating Macos to Monterey_
|
| On the other hand, if I were you, I would suspect that first and
| go after Apple before blaming Jabra. (Maybe the latter knows that
| Apple broke something in its BT implementation, and this is their
| excuse?)
|
| Perhaps someone with this same environment and knowledge of (or
| is willing to learn) the BT specs/details can try debugging the
| problem and determine the ultimate cause and possibly come up
| with a fix. I'd love to read such an article and I suspect many
| others on HN would too.
|
| (I use BT devices very rarely --- and so far all the ones I did
| use, seemed to work OK; even the generic Chinese ones with the
| infamous voice prompts.)
| layer8 wrote:
| > Bluetooth is Bluetooth and all implementations should
| interoperate
|
| Just like USB-C is USB-C I guess. ;)
| userbinator wrote:
| I'm not aware of any features of BT which are tied to the
| host being "a computer" or not, however.
| layer8 wrote:
| Yeah, but that's a less clear argument to make than
| "everything Bluetooth should always be interoperable".
| Since Bluetooth isn't universally interoperable (e.g.
| depending on the supported Bluetooth profiles), it's not a
| priory clear that "doesn't work with PC audio" may not be a
| reasonable technical restriction. Of course we know it
| isn't in this case, but it's not as simple as "it says
| 'Bluetooth' so it should work".
| grishka wrote:
| And then people keep asking me why I have trust issues with
| wireless tech. A 3.5mm jack just works, with everything, every
| time, all the time, regardless of any outside factors.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| >regardless of any outside factors
|
| There is at least one relevant "outside" factor. While the
| connector is standardized, the housing end of the plug does not
| seem to be. As soon as a phone is in a case, the case's hole
| for the 3.5mm connector is too small to accept the housing of a
| normal 3.5mm plug. That's true even for the shell the active3
| tab comes with, not only some cheap after-market. It still
| works with the connector not fully in, but not reliably.
|
| Maybe my 3.5mm connectors are all too old and I should try to
| find a replacement with a more narrow housing. Or a 3.5mm
| male/female "adapter" with a narrow housing.
| zdragnar wrote:
| If you have a drill and a small bit, you can open up the
| external case's hole quite easily. It's an unfortunate task
| compared to the more universally sized options, but the
| trade-off is there if you want.
| grishka wrote:
| It indeed is something easily fixable. The one thing I
| dislike about wireless communication is that, besides
| relying on software that (hopefully correctly) implements
| scarily complex specifications, it uses invisible radio
| waves. For wired connections, you can see and touch the
| thing that connects your two devices. Thus they're much
| easier to troubleshoot.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Right until the spring wears out.
| smt88 wrote:
| I don't understand what this means. I've used dozens of wired
| 3.5mm devices for decades and have never had an issue with a
| spring. I have headphones from the early 2000s that still
| work and only needed replacement ear-cup foam.
| kencausey wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)#/medi
| a...
|
| The spring is that bent metal piece. As you push the plug
| in it initially pushes by the spring and then it catches in
| the narrow section of the plug to hold it in.
| smt88 wrote:
| I can't find any evidence that this is common on 3.5mm
| jacks. If it is, it must be an incredibly reliable
| design, because I've never heard of a 3.5mm audio port
| breaking.
| jpollock wrote:
| Tell that to my linux desktop which keeps losing track of the
| 3.5mm jack audio output.
|
| I keep having to reset it and fiddle with it every reboot.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Huh. No issues like that at all with any of my Linux desktops
| and analog jacks (mostly Devuan). They all seem to detect and
| maintain sources fine.
|
| The problem I personally have (if there are any pulseaudio
| experts out there) is it continually re-enabling ephemeral
| audio sources like HDMI and bluetooth when they are plugged
| back in, even if I'd set them to "off" before unplugging them
| - fortunately since I set the analog to default it usually
| doesn't mess anything up, but it's a bit untidy, and also
| annoying for the one USB webcam that has a mic plugged in,
| where I get a surprise input if I don't watch it.
|
| It'd be great to have it persist settings for identically
| named sources even after they are removed.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I take a guess that you are using an HDA based sound chip? If
| yes, have a look at [1]. Can't help you out more than that
| though, it's been _years_ since I was forced to deal with
| that crap on Linux.
|
| If it's any consolation... I recently came across an ASUS
| all-in-one PC where it was not enough to install the Realtek
| Windows HDA driver, no... that would have been too easy. You
| also needed to install a tiny _extra_ driver that wasn 't
| visible by default on their driver list in the Audio driver
| section. The entire audio world is utter, utter madness.
|
| [1] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/sound/hd-
| audio/notes....
| midislack wrote:
| Sounds like you pushed the wrong button. If you can't even
| keep your 3.5mm audio running there's little chance you can
| work Bluetooth with all its foibles.
| grishka wrote:
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Audio has worked great on Linux for a while. Pulse Audio
| improved a lot, and now Pipewire, pretty much everything
| just works.
| pjerem wrote:
| To be fair, I'm at a point where my audio works better on
| my personal Linux setup than on my high end Windows Dell
| laptop at work.
|
| Which is the exact opposite as my situation 10-15 years
| ago. That's how much Windows transformed itself into a
| pile of shit during the last decade.
| worik wrote:
| I have the same experience Linux <-> MacOS, compared to
| twenty five years ago
|
| Part of it is that Linux got better, part of it Apple got
| worse.
|
| Very odd
| grishka wrote:
| As you can see from the parent comment, pretty much
| everything just works, except when sometimes it doesn't
| :D
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Same here. I just need to change the audio output to sth.
| else and back, and it works. Not a big issue for me though.
| jahewson wrote:
| Website says requires Bluetooth 5.1 but macOS only supports
| Bluetooth 5, right?
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And yet I'm quit sure this is just yet another Bluetooth 2.0
| A2DP device, rather than something running LE Audio which would
| require BT 5.0.
| swores wrote:
| I've just initiated a within-30-days return for a full refund of
| my new Jabra Evolve2 75 headset. It comes with a USB dongle so
| they definitely won't be claiming it doesn't support PC use, but
| I don't trust a company that makes such scammy claims and I've
| tweeted them to say just that.
|
| Ah well, I thought I was enjoying my third Jabra product and it
| turns out I won't touch them with a barge pole again, unless and
| until they publicly retract and apologise for this behaviour.
|
| Anyone have recommendations for a good on-ear headset for
| (mostly) work calls?
| theptip wrote:
| Bose QC 35 headphones work reasonably well, good noise
| cancelling, good enough mic for calls. I hear the Sony NC
| headsets getting better reviews in the last couple years on at
| least their NC functionality.
| gomox wrote:
| Headsets without a boom microphone only work in the quietest
| of environments, the Bose is not really a suitable
| replacement for the Jabra model mentioned above.
| luka-birsa wrote:
| I just want to stress that while Jabras statement sucks, you
| really should be reaching out to Apple.
|
| Have the same issue on my MBP with Sennheiser Pxa550. With
| Monterey I actually had to install a plug-in for Chrome that
| keeps my volume at max during meet calls.
|
| List of my issues: - audio doesn't work - audio doesn't switch
| from call mode to HiFi mode - if I have a call running, it will
| not switch or work via my headphones - audio balance switches to
| right headphone ....
|
| I tried every recepie and thread I found online. Nothing.
|
| Apple sucks.
|
| Funny thing tho, I actually have a pair of Jabra 75t. And they
| seem more stable than Pxa550.
|
| Again - direct hate towards Apple. I'm guessing all works with
| Apple headphones, as they sprinkle that secret sauce in their
| drivers that nobody else has access to.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I think computer BT announces many more features, and they weed
| out problematic BT implementations much better.
|
| I'm running an old Philips SHB3075 with my MacBook Air M1, and
| it has no problems whatsoever. The connection takes a bit
| longer compared to my iPhone, but I think it's negotiating a
| lot of things over the air during that connection.
|
| I've attended half day long meetings, and join 2 meetings on
| average over zoom and Skype. Nothing shifts, nothing drops.
|
| So, BT is a complicated protocol with a lot of baggage and
| layers, and _proper debugging_ is much better than finger
| pointing.
|
| Jabra can update the firmware on the device, but they're lazy
| or there's something wrong with hardware. I own a 45
| (previously called Stealth), and the family got 5-6 software
| updates over the years.
| exikyut wrote:
| So then install Android-x86 on your laptop. Use it for a bit,
| verify the mic fails.
|
| Call them up and tell them that you're performing a hardware
| compatibility evaluation to the same standard of due-diligence
| that would be used ahead-of-time in any competent enterprise-
| scale hardware accessory rollout - and that a prerequisite step
| in this process is to validate candidate accessories on Android
| in unusual environments, to exhaustively verify interoperability
| considering the known variability of the Bluetooth landscape (on
| both sides of any given connection).
|
| "But that's a computer."
|
| "Yes, running Android, an OS explicitly supported by logos on
| your packaging, specific instructions in the user manual and
| support in the official app."
|
| "Using this hardware on a computer is not supported."
|
| "Your official product communications clearly convey that you
| unilaterally support Android regardless of device type. The type
| of Android device I am using here is an x86 laptop, precisely to
| facilitate wide-range compatibility testing, and to catch
| potential compatibility issues early on. I'm interested in using
| this hardware, but after only 20 minutes of testing I've found I
| experience dropouts _while_ using the officially supported app
| and running on an officially supported operating system. "
|
| I would be _very_ interested to know how the conversation would
| continue...
|
| Sadly this would be one of those Weird Thing In Instruction
| Manual-generating events ("why does this say it's not compatible
| with Android on PC???") but it might work.
|
| (And if the person on the other end of the phone is mostly
| listening for keywords and they actually think you might be doing
| some sort of enterprise rollout (* _cough_ * and want to buy _a
| lot_ more hardware * _cough_ *)... they might suddenly be very
| interested...)
| evan_ wrote:
| This fails at the "call them up" step. Nobody you get on the
| phone is going to understand or care about any of this.
| exikyut wrote:
| They _might_ , best-case-scenario, just be listening for
| keywords, and actually think I want to do a rollout. It's
| kind of sad one has to think this way, and I wouldn't push
| things to the point of actively deceiving, but what if
| something like the above worked?
|
| I admittedly don't care about any of it either. My goal would
| be to introduce chinks in the armor in the arguments
| presented and try and carry that as far as possible in the
| hope a solution presents itself. The idea in the GP popped
| into my head as one entirely-throwaway potential solution to
| that bigger-picture problem. It's quite possible a different
| approach may work better.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You don't tell them it's Android-x86 until you get escalated,
| I suppose.
| Bud wrote:
| At which point they'd say "Android-x86 is not Android" and
| hang up.
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| Ironically, AOSP has an x86 build target.
| pjerem wrote:
| You can be as right as you want once they hang up.
| janoc wrote:
| And there were actual phones shipping Android on Atom
| (i.e. x86) CPUs.
| regularfry wrote:
| Here's the thing: what does "it might work" result in? 'Cos I
| can't see a version of this that ends up with you having a pair
| of working Jabra 85 earbuds.
| tlholaday wrote:
| Is this section of Jabra's FAQ new?
| https://www.jabra.com/supportpages/jabra-elite-85t/100-99190...
| benchaney wrote:
| I'm currently struggling to find usable bluetooth earbuds. One
| pair that I found comes flying out of my ears when I moved my
| head at all. Another is dangerously loud even on the lowest
| volume setting. The third came with a nonstandard (and therefore
| essentially useless) charger. It really seems like the entire
| market is flooded with garbage.
| Bud wrote:
| There's a reason Apple has sold over 300 million pairs of
| AirPods, even though they are expensive.
| post_break wrote:
| What device was connected when the sound was too loud? Both iOS
| and Android have the ability to adjust volume limits to
| minimize this.
|
| Have you tried Samsung Buds+ or the new Galaxy buds? They have
| incredible battery life and decent microphones. Unfortunately
| they don't fit my ears so I'm using Airpods 3.
| benchaney wrote:
| This is iOS. I haven't been able to find the ability to lower
| the minimum volume, and based on posts in the support forums,
| this seems like a common complaint that has yet to be
| addressed by Apple. That said, if you happen to know
| something that I don't, I'd be delighted to hear it.
| sto_hristo wrote:
| Have you tried Sony WF-1000XM4? I currently have them and have
| had 0 issues with them so far. Bluetooth connectivity is great
| and i regularly switch them between a linux laptop (used for
| meetings, slight media) and android phone (calls, music).
| benchaney wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely look into
| them.
| smoldesu wrote:
| +1 for the Sony XMs, doubly so if you're on a Linux
| machine. These things "just work" as well as the Bluetooth
| adapter you have on the other side. Connection is easier
| than literally any other Bluetooth peripherals I've used.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| How's the mic on those? I have the WH-XM3s and boy do
| they suck. I've never managed to get good audio from
| their mic, be it on Linux, macOS, or iOS.
|
| I bought them for listening to music, so I don't really
| mind, and for this they are absolutely great, even on
| Linux.
|
| Never had any issues with them and didn't have to jump
| through any hoops.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Wouldn't know, I literally never use it. Got a Shure SM57
| I use for remote meetings.
| mleonhard wrote:
| 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?
| driverdan wrote:
| > How can we get companies to respect their users?
|
| Stop buying their broken products.
| jchw wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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).
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| Most reputable often just means ones with the largest
| marketing budget.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| mleonhard wrote:
| Violence and crime are unacceptable strategies for citizens
| of democracies. Please delete your comment.
| noasaservice wrote:
| 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.
| pksebben wrote:
| 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.
| krick wrote:
| Honestly, I don't care about the problem itself that much. I
| mean, I'm used to constant problems with pretty much all audio-
| devices on my linux laptop (even when they work fine on Windows,
| which seriously makes me angry -- when it was supposed to be the
| fucking year of linux on desktop?), my Elite 65t's are no better
| nor worse, I did use them on the laptop a couple of times and
| they worked _somehow_.
|
| But the response is infuriating. I wouldn't really expect
| anything else from something like Xiaomi, but Jabra? Don't they
| care about their reputation at all? I mean, they could at least
| pretend they care. Refunding a single customer is cheap as fuck,
| even if he is not really in the right. Well, I don't know, but I
| suspect this thread may already cost them more than fucking $150
| or whatever it is Jabra Elite 85t costs now.
|
| However, to be completely honest, I'm not sure what my next
| wireless earbuds manufacturer should be. I bought 65t's a long
| time ago (obviously), and I'm pretty sure nothing could really
| compete back then, all things considered. I don't know about now.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Reason #329 that I don't buy Bluetooth stuff. The OP's
| description above sounds like a good day using Bluetooth, in my
| experience.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I own the 75ts, they work excellent on Linux. None of my wireless
| headphones work all that well on Mac, come to think of it...
| aendruk wrote:
| The Elite 85t has also been working well for me. mSBC, PipeWire
| 0.3, Linux 5.17, Intel AX200
| syntaxing wrote:
| I own the Evolve2 65 and had issues at first but a firmware
| update on the app fixed a ton of issues. Been going strong using
| the Bluetooth directly on my MacBook running Monterey. I would
| not use the included dongle if possible. It's UC adapter is
| absolutely terrible on macOS.
| thetinguy wrote:
| Complain to the ftc and your local attorney general.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This is a lesson in not buying from sketchy companies
| unfortunately.
|
| They don't, as far as I am seeing, advertise PC compatibility. So
| you are out of luck there.
|
| Return them if you can and buy something better.
| unixhero wrote:
| The thing is, Jabra or GM NetCom are bot sketchy vo.paniea. GM
| NetCom is a global leader in hearing aids.
| scrose wrote:
| They also don't advertise supporting phones...
| thriftwy wrote:
| Jabra is an old, well-known brand.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Well-known to be the bane of meetings in offices everywhere.
|
| Why anyone would buy their garbage is beyond me, not that
| that excuses how they treat their marks^Wcustomers.
| tootie wrote:
| We exclusively used Jabra speakerphones at my last few
| offices and I have a few at home. They work very well and
| I've never seen them have a single problem.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Same. They also regularly win recommendations from a
| variety of review sites.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Now question really should be all they better or worse than
| the alternatives? Haven't used their product overly much,
| but never truly had issues.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| It's a brand I would expect my 70 year old mom to buy because
| she remembers it from 15 years ago.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I've never heard of them. I'm 56.
| millzlane wrote:
| I wouldn't call it sketchy. It says right on the product page
| what connectivity the device supports.
| https://www.jabra.com/bluetooth-headsets/jabra-elite-85t##10...
|
| They don't attempt to mislead at all.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| > It says right on the product page what connectivity the
| device supports.
|
| I don't really see anything there beyond "bluetooth support",
| and it seems to me that expecting very common systems such as
| macOS and Windows would work is pretty reasonable.
| donalhunt wrote:
| There are two "Connectivity" sections. :/
|
| It mentions in the second one that it's for mobile devices.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| It just says "devices". Turns out there's a second
| section on that chaotic page which mentions "mobile". I
| _did_ check this before, and it 's not mentioned anywhere
| else, including in the datasheet and specifications PDFs.
| It's only in _one_ of the "connectivity" section with a
| vague unclear ambiguous _singular_ "mobile device"
| mention, which contradicts other parts of the same site.
|
| I don't think they're trying to fool customers on
| purpose, but it's extremely unclear what exactly you're
| buying and many sections would lead you to believe that
| it will work on any Bluetooth-capable device, just like
| pretty much all Bluetooth devices do. I think this is
| basically false advertising due to incompetence.
| krick wrote:
| Sketchy? Jabra is arguably the industry leader in hands-free
| audio, producing this stuff since 1983. It was the brand you
| buy to use with your phone when driving a car before "true-
| wireless headphones" was even a thing.
| mywacaday wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, I have the 75t which I use for mobile
| and work. I love them and would rbuy again in a heartbeat but
| this kind of nonsense is unacceptable.
| wawawiwa wrote:
| (OP) same here :'(
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| I'd hope they lose the Bluetooth label and certification for this
| kind of crap, but we know nothing will happen.
| g051051 wrote:
| You'd have to prove that they're the ones with the faulty
| Bluetooth implementation, not the PC hardware, drivers, or OS.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Not when they're the ones claiming they don't want to
| interoperate with stuff that does have Bluetooth
| certification (e.g. Apple hardware).
| g051051 wrote:
| They have said they don't want to interoperate. They said
| they won't certify against whatever random hardware and
| software a person has in their PC.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Who exactly certifies MacOS (or any OS) for Bluetooth
| compliance?
| userbinator wrote:
| It's usually not about the OS but the BT controller
| (hardware) itself.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| No, both the OS and the hardware are certified by the
| Bluetooth SIG. An example:
| https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-
| events/pipe...
| x0x0 wrote:
| Come on; bluetooth is in year ~20 of public alpha test. No
| certification would mean a thing besides, "Bluetooth: it could
| work!"
| hyperdimension wrote:
| That's a pretty good slogan. I vote for a duel between
| Bluetooth and USB-C marketers as to who can use it.
|
| EDIT: the idea of tunneling USB-C ports over Bluetooth (like
| the wireless USB standard that I never quite saw take off)
| just occurred to me while writing this comment. What fresh
| hell.
| buildingsramen wrote:
| I have the same issue with Elite 75t. It seems to be the result
| of the microphone volume adaptively creeping downwards. When it
| gets too low, Jabra auto-mutes.
|
| You can bump the volume up to the midpoint in your audio settings
| and it will take about another month to re-occur. Sorry this
| isn't a better solution.
| techSupport123 wrote:
| this is a"feature" added to the OS in Monterey that applies to
| bluetooth headsets - it will auto-mute you when input volume
| drops to zero, and, AFAIK, many video conferencing clients (zoom,
| google meets, etc) use this feature to help deal with background
| noise.
|
| - Zoom instructions to disable dynamic input volume -
| https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/432445/bluetooth-h...
|
| - google meet instructions (when run via Chrome) - there's a flag
| you can add when starting Chrome, --force-fieldtrials='WebRTC-
| Audio-AgcMinMicLevelExperiment/Enabled-20' , that will fix the
| issue. For ease of use, create an AppleScript file, convert it to
| a shortcut, and launch Chrome from it.
|
| edit - formatting
| orev wrote:
| No, this happens on Windows too, and it's not related to auto
| mute or anything like that. The audio stream just drops for a
| second, like if there was interference or buffer issue.
| symlinkk wrote:
| This kind of shit is why I just went with AirPods Max.
| stevewodil wrote:
| I have a eerily similar problem with my Galaxy Buds+ on my
| macbook. 15-20 minutes into a Zoom call and suddenly my audio
| doesn't work and neither does the mic, I have to ditch the
| headphones and use the laptop mic + speakers.
|
| Going to guess it's a macOS bug given that other headphones are
| showing the same behavior
| msrpotus wrote:
| I recently had a problem with one of my Jabra earbuds dying. They
| claimed it was no longer under warranty (even though their
| website promised a year or two under warranty and it had been
| only about 8 months). I eventually just gave up and got new
| earbuds. It pretty much destroyed my view of the company.
| elchief wrote:
| I'm on my third pair of elite active 75ts. Love em, but they're a
| little delicate. Good warranty support tho. They work ok, but not
| great, on my Asus ubuntu laptop
| tims33 wrote:
| To be fair, the Mac bluetooth stack is a dumpster fire. Not sure
| that works as an excuse given that everyone else's headphones
| seem to work on Mac.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I bet your credit card or merchant will provide a refund.
|
| Which is too bad because the only thing I don't like about my
| Jabra 65t s after probably 1k hours of use is they don't get
| quiet enough, but :shrug:.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I bet your credit card or merchant will provide a refund.
|
| After 2 months? I guess it depends on the merchant, but I think
| my credit card requires that I dispute a charge within 30 days.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I don't trust Bluetooth for video conferencing. Having everything
| hard-wired is much more reliable. It's why work from home video
| conferences are janky in a way that in-office VCs weren't. If you
| can get a dedicated microphone or webcam and combine it with
| wired headphones or speakers.
| samanbb wrote:
| My Jabra Elite 85h over-ear headphones suffer from the same
| issue. These are Wirecutter's suggested Bluetooth headphones,
| which is why I bought them. I wonder if they still would be if it
| was widely known that these headphones are not meant to be used
| with computers.
| kurthr wrote:
| Yeah, this is sketchy behavior for a premium brand. They really
| seem to need you to run their mobile app. It's hard to tell
| from their advertising that it covers more than iPhones...
| although it does say it works with Google Assistant.
|
| The only info I found about supporting other laptops (it
| mentions phones, tablets, and mobile devices?) was in their
| help faqs:
|
| https://www.jabra.com/supportpages/jabra-elite-85t/100-99190...
|
| Which basically says it won't fully function... but it might
| work with MS teams?
|
| I wonder what data they're collecting with the mobile app,
| whether it's being monetized to support development, or simply
| that they don't care about a fairly common use case.
| tootie wrote:
| That's different than OP was implying. They're saying that a
| lot of the playback and volume controls may not work as
| expected, not that you won't be able to hear and speak.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > These are Wirecutter's suggested Bluetooth headphones
|
| I stopped trusting Wirecutter a long time ago when they
| "recommended" powerline adapters that sucked. After buying some
| and doing my own testing I realized the whole product category
| sucks unless you're super desperate with no other options.
|
| Of course instead of saying that Wirecutter happily gives the
| best piece of garbage 8 or 9 stars. That's the problem with
| affiliate marketing blogs like Wirecutter. They'll happily do
| relative rankings of pure crap if it means you'll buy
| _something_ for them to get the affiliate revenue.
|
| We need a new generation of review sites and reviewers.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Powerline networking is a great example of where review sites
| totally fall down; it's amazing in most cases, providing
| great bandwidth and very low jitter and packet loss. Then for
| no reason*, it will absolutely suck for some people. The only
| way to find these kinds of problems is to survey every
| situation and test each product in all of them, which is
| clearly impossible.
|
| People will hear this and go, "aha! Crowd sourcing!" The
| issue with that is that with modern technology the problem is
| overwhelmingly user error (or to be generous, perhaps UX). So
| you will spend essentially all your time chasing down people
| who don't know how to charge their product, or have their
| powerline adapter hooked up upstream of a UPS, etc
|
| Your wiring is to blame. Maybe some staple missed and nicked
| the wire, maybe you have something leaking EMI, maybe you
| just have dirty power.
| donmcronald wrote:
| IIRC their tests were over a short, direct run of wire. I
| tested them using different lengths of runs, across
| circuits, and in different houses. The Wirecutter test
| setup was the most ideal environment possible. It was as if
| a manufacturer dictated the setup.
|
| To their credit, I think they updated their test setup to
| be more realistic.
|
| > Your wiring is to blame.
|
| That's quite the assessment for the info given. Lol.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The Wirecutter test setup was the most ideal
| environment possible. It was as if a manufacturer
| dictated the setup.
|
| The thing with comparison tests is, you have to use a
| reliably reproduceable, documented testing environment.
| Everything else just ends up with nasty letters from
| lawyers complaining about the test being unfair or
| whatever.
|
| Your uncle's shoddy 1960s-era farmhouse wiring may be the
| ultimate stress test for a powerline adapter in real
| life, but no way you can use that house as any basis for
| a comparison test looking like resembling science...
| zdragnar wrote:
| Dirty power and poor wiring are terrible for many things.
| It's not a surprise it might cause issues with this too.
| bitL wrote:
| My Jabra Evolve2 65 started dropping mic under Windows randomly
| as well... Maybe it's the same chip and the same problem as in
| 85t?
| woodson wrote:
| Do you use the included usb dongle?
| bitL wrote:
| No, didn't even notice there was one.
| throwaway2214 wrote:
| today i bought 9$ wired 3.5mm jack headphones (noname) better
| than 90$ sony and 300$ bose
|
| everything is a scam
| rincebrain wrote:
| Yeah, I got burned by this "philosophy" when I found their Elite
| 85h full headphones wouldn't play with anything but a very
| specific subset of my devices (my Android phone, amusingly, not
| among them) and tried to complain.
|
| They do sell a dongle to make this work, and more generally I
| have heard you can use things like the Creative BT-W2/W3 to make
| Bluetooth devices that don't play well with whatever
| chipset/driver mess you have play well - because they just show
| up to the OS as a generic soundcard and don't mention the word
| Bluetooth to anything the OS can see, and their implementation,
| unlike many software/hardware vendors', _works_ robustly. But I
| have not personally tried it, yet.
|
| (I'm still using the 85h for some things because the set of
| {USB-C charging, good noise cancelling, does not break with
| strange bugs in a week} headphones is much smaller than you might
| hope, but not for more general use.)
| mtVessel wrote:
| That's such shit. Companies that pull nonsense like this
| shouldn't be allowed to market their products. If you're in the
| US, try contacting the FTC.
|
| I have the Elite 85t and it works fine with my Android phone and
| both my Dell Win 10 machines, so it may be a Mac issue. No excuse
| for their shitty behavior, but I'd research Mac-specific BT
| fixes.
|
| Or it could be an issue with the button functionality. Try
| disabling button actions for calls in Sound+.
| Hakashiro wrote:
| This is a blatant abuse and they should be sued and shut down.
| This is beyond unacceptable. There is no reason to do this kind
| of thing.
| ip26 wrote:
| So if you sell a bluetooth device, it is _legally required_ to
| work properly with every other bluetooth device on earth? I
| don't see how that will fly.
|
| The obvious reason for doing this kind of thing is their target
| market & 99.9% of sales are to people using them with phones,
| so Jabra has no business reason to spend money providing
| customer support for PC interoperability.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Then again from their marketing perspective properly
| supporting computers on all devices would likely be smart. It
| is not like they don't have the expertise with their other
| product lines. This sort of stuff eventually reflects badly
| on those too.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > So if you sell a bluetooth device, it is legally required
| to work properly with every other bluetooth device on earth?
|
| It actually is. If you use either the Bluetooth patents or
| trademarks (e.g. logos and names), not only you must pass a
| certification that ensures this, you must also "maintain a
| level of quality that meets or exceeds industry standards",
| and this evidently doesn't.
| lupire wrote:
| Does the Bluetooth trademark owner have a place to report
| violations of the spec? It's their brand to protect, not
| yours.
| regularfry wrote:
| Consumers can pursue false advertising claims in addition
| to whatever goes on between the Bluetooth org and their
| licensees.
| [deleted]
| HKH2 wrote:
| Well, I've never got any non-Apple phones/computers to work
| with Apple phones/computers using Bluetooth.
| dijit wrote:
| Extremely bold claim there.
|
| I definitely use my macbook with non-apple hardware. From
| headphones to laptops to android phones.
|
| My first Macbook used to pair with a Nokia E72 to get
| internet via the GSM modem, I used it every day on the
| train.
|
| Two weeks ago I connected an old Oneplus One via
| bluetooth to my macbook (2020 mbp) to get some old photos
| from its internal memory.
|
| What doesn't work?
|
| EDIT: actually, I'm not sure I ever connected a laptop to
| a macbook, but I have a linux laptop so I can try it if
| you want.
| HKH2 wrote:
| I couldn't get file transfers to work. It was a while ago
| so there might have been a Bluetooth version mismatch or
| something. I didn't bother troubleshooting it much
| because WiFi is more convenient for me anyway. I'll give
| it another try.
| dwighttk wrote:
| How many have you tried?
|
| I've never had any non-Apple phones/computers _not_ work
| with Apple phones /computers using Bluetooth.
| HKH2 wrote:
| Two or three. I couldn't get file transfers to work. It
| was a little while ago.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Gotcha. I've not tried that many either, and occasionally
| it took some wrangling, but it's always worked. (Also I
| may be forgetting a time when I tried but succeeded using
| something besides Bluetooth)
| smoldesu wrote:
| Quick aside: there are a _lot_ of wireless headsets that
| simply _suck_ on MacOS. I have a pair of Sony XM4s that I
| can run with 990kbps audio on Linux that are stuck at
| 330kbps, barely connect half the time and auto-open Apple
| Music every time they connect for some godawful reason. I
| think Apple 's desktop audio experience is getting really
| so-so. Pretty much their only advantage is CoreAudio at
| this point, and even that's shaky when you compare it
| with the likes of PipeWire...
| aksss wrote:
| You want to "shut down" Jabra because a product they released
| doesn't have perfect Bluetooth compatibility? Seems harsh.
| Thank God you're not in charge of these things.
| Retric wrote:
| Not supporting is one thing, false advertising and failing to
| provide a refund is another.
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