Bose has taken the extreme measure of officially discontinuing its Sleepbuds, its in-ear noise masking earbuds. In a blog post and email to customers, the company blamed poor battery performance and power issues after a raft of complaints.
The company is offering all customers a full refund on the $249 Sleepbuds. In a quite fawning apology John Roselli, General Manager at Bose Corp said:
“Based on what we knew, we believed that software and firmware updates could fix the issues. But the failures have continued, and recently, they’ve increased. That led us to look more closely at each piece of hardware. And we learned that while the battery we chose functions safely, it doesn’t work as consistently or predictably as it should to meet our standards.”
Sleepbuds were designed to help those who struggle to get to sleep each night by playing 10 pre-loaded soothing sounds such as crashing waves and, weirdly, aeroplane engine noise. They are also on sale from Apple , usually a ringing endorsement of quality.
But users have complained of poor power management with buds cutting out unexpectedly and doing the very thing they promised not to do – wake you up.
Bose is giving full refunds to any customer whether they’re affected or not. You can process an exchange or request a refund . We’d strongly advise the latter – as does Bose, to be fair.
Author: Henry Burrell, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Previously Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, Henry covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
Recent stories by Henry Burrell:
- The Polaroid Hi-Print is a pocket printer for your phone snaps
- A new connected Rubik’s Cube lets you battle others online
- You’re going to want this new Lego NES set
Polaroid has continued its twenty-first century revival with the Hi-Print, a new pocketable Bluetooth photo printer that you might prefer to its instant cameras .
The unit prints onto 2.1 x 3.4in with adhesive backs, letting you print credit-card sized stickers of photos from your phone.
Polaroid said when the Hi-Print prints with its official photo paper, it uses a dye-sublimation process that should result in waterproof prints that don’t fade. Here’s hoping.
All you need is the printer, a pack of paper, and the iOS or Android app and you’re good to go.
The £81.99 printer is available now from Polaroid’s website , with a pack of 20 prints costing £15.99. It’s a little pricy, but sometimes it’s nice to make physical all the images we normally keep digitally.
Author: Henry Burrell, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Previously Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, Henry covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
Recent stories by Henry Burrell:
- OnePlus Keyboard 81 Pro review
- A new connected Rubik’s Cube lets you battle others online
- You’re going to want this new Lego NES set
