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Comment by infecto | Hacker News Reader

Reading #2 makes me sad. I had a pair of Bose for probably a decade and tried out Sony and the biggest complaint I have is the lack of a physical off button. The Sony have a known issue where it don’t detect that it’s off of your head and it’s not that obvious that the headphones are on or off. At least a few times a week I put them on in the morning and they have been on all night.

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Sony WH 1000 XM4 and WH 1000 XM6 both have physical off buttons and I've also never had a problem with them not turning off due to inactivity. If I take my XM6 off and put them on the desk, they pause music/podcasts and will fully turn off after some minutes (like 15 minutes? not sure, but it's short enough that if I go eat lunch and come back, they turned off automatically).

XM5, it does not have a physical dedicated on/off button it has a multipurpose where function is determined by how long you hold down the button. It’s not optimal design for me. I am sure a number of brands have moved towards this.

Second the sensor on the XM5 is known to be flaky. These are about a year old and already acting up.

It’s just a poorly built and poorly designed headset for me. I cannot even count the number of times I don’t notice they are on until the next day and they are dead.

> Sony WH 1000 XM4 and WH 1000 XM6 both have physical off buttons

Currently wearing my XM4s and was really confused by the "physical off button" because ... I'm looking at them and they just don't? Where is it? What?

Then I realised that I'm old and, to me, "physical off button" means a sliding switch, a hardware disconnect, etc. (such as exists on my pair of Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2), not a pushbutton that triggers a software power-down (which the XM4s most certainly do have.)

Hah yes me too. That was my intent but will have to be more explicit going forward.

And at least for the Sony my struggle is it’s a multi-function push down button. Maybe a weird gripe but I miss my non off switches. Easy to turn on and off and easy to see the state.

I had that problem pop up with my Sony xm4s after a couple of years of use. Cleaned the lens on the inside of the left ear cup and they work perfectly again. Go to sleep, pause music, etc when I remove them.

I will try that again. XM5 here and I think I am mostly sad about not having a dedicated on/off that makes it obvious.

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