But it had a bright blue LED, which was not only disturbing to me but could also be seen through the damned mask.
How on Earth anybody signed off on that design is beyond me.
It also screams loudly and for long times whenever I power it on and when I want to switch the ambient noise mode. At the point it can be heard by someone close, despite the closed design. Especially that the default is active noise cancelling, and it's broken most of the time, making a loud blow noise in one hear, and that the mode in the middle, that badly recreates the noise around, for which I have no use. Tough luck if the device establish a Bluetooth connection when it's speaking, it cancels the operation and the process needs to be done again. Please, please remember the last mode I used, this is the one I most probably want to use next time.
This device is gratuitously both noisy and very luminous. The latter can be somewhat fixed with some good electrical tape, the later requires a mobile app I can't install and it would disable any feedback, and reverts next time it needs to be reset. Despite its comfort and good sound, when it dies, I'll probably buy something else.
But I have to admit, a blinking eye mask has to be a whole level of craziness higher.
You can disable that through the Android app.
> default is active noise cancelling, and it's broken most of the time
That's not my experience. Wonder if that was since the start as for me the noise cancelling is the sole reason I have it. If you want great sound quality it's often advised to buy something that's solely made for sound.
> The latter can be somewhat fixed with some good electrical tape
I've used "write everywhere pens" on annoying LEDs. Though up to now only on low-value devices (smoke alarms). This as I am terrible at only covering the LED, I often by accident write the area around it as well. You could cover everything except for the LED with some tape to prevent this though.
I love the sound and noise cancelling of these headphones, but it's true the UX is clunky.
That's most certainly a massive improvement.
It's great hardware, they are so close to have the perfect product, but they are ruining it with these small annoying things. Get rid of the loud voice, of the bright led and of the tactile interface that both hard to use and triggers at inappropriate times and I'm sold!
It could have worked well, like Airpods do, but it doesn't. If my phone rings and I remove my airpods and answer holding my phone to my head, I expect the sound to come out of the phone. But the Sonys just stole the phone audio even if they were not on my ears at that moment.
Gaffer’s tape works better for me because its material properties and packaging make it suitable for a wider range of applications.
It handles many of my off label uses for electrical tape and duct tape. It is designed for versatility.
Every time I use good tape I know it was worth it. Good tapes just tape better.
If I need lots of tape, I am using the wrong tape and two or three rolls of the wrong tape is just more of wrong.
I’ve also kept HDD and power LEDs unplugged for that reason, resorting to the motherboard’s RGB lighting set dimly as my power light.
Will people buy it?
Yes.
Let's make it, then.
If it made money, it was a good design.
I disagree. If it made money, it was a successful product, but there are tons of products that are successful despite them being the embodiment of terrible design.
I suppose the difference is I consider good enough design to be good design…and that the client is the customer for design and hence the client’s customers are not the customers for designs.
If the client wants a bright blue LED, they get a bright blue LED. They might also get an informed opinion as well. Or not.
So long as nobody dies and the check doesn’t bounce, we’re on to a winner.
Whether it makes money or not is irrelevant. Tons of people buy stuff because they don’t know better. Maybe it was a cheap mask, or maybe it was the only one sold at airports, or maybe it had aggressive marketing, or the Bluetooth feature was niche at the time. None of that has to do with design.
A designer designing a prison designs according to the objectives of the person writing the check, not the check writer’s customers.
A designer is just another service worker working a day job to buy a hamburger.
It’s not a product at all.
Design is a B2B business where some clients want prisons and others Bluetooth sleep masks.
You can imagine that there’s an existential difference between sleep mask buyers and inmates. But neither writes the check.