Sony WH-1000XM3 Muting in the Cold

[bugzy3188]

Is there a way to turn off gesture control on the 1000XM3s? It barely works in optimal conditions and when standing outisde in cold weather they will consistently register swipes (even though nothing has touched the headphones), either turning volume up/down or skipping tracks and after about 1 minute they will mute as if I am holding my hand over the right ear. Any suggestions?

[Pascale_F]

Hi bugzy3188, 

Welcome to the community. 

I'm just going to try to find some answers for you. In the meantime, maybe someone else in the community might have some ideas. 

Thanks,

Pascale

[batee5]

Hi bugzy3188,

Welcome to our community!

I don't think there's an option to disable the touch controls on the WH-1000MX3 unfortunately.

Cheers,

Batee5

[bugzy3188]

So the headphones are basically not useable in temps below 30 degrees? Is sony planning to address this? It seems like a pretty big oversight, people do expect to go outside from time to time with their headphones.

[Aven760]

I'm in Canada and I can't not confirm more on this issue. It's totally fine in warm room but barely usable outside in cold windy days especially now it's winter.

[Crackwood]

I got the same problem today and yesterday as weather is colder.  MY Xm3 just shut down randomly.  Also often outside the touch buttons will not work as I need to reboot it or reconnect to my phone.

[arnolfini]

Yep - exactly the same here.  The touch controls go bananas in the cold, especially if it's windy it seems, making the headphones virtually unusable.  The listen in function will start and can't be turned off, Siri will suddenly chime in, they will randomly pause or suddenly fast forward/rewind multiple times, all the while refusing to respond to me *actually* using/tapping on the gesture controls.

I bought these headphones specifically for use during my commute, a significant portion of which involves walking outside.  It's been about -6 °C here in Toronto the last few days, and is likely to remain below 0 for a large portion of the next few months, so I'm really hoping there is some sort of fix on the way. I didn't spend this much money on a pair of high-end headphones only to find that I can't use them for 4-5 months of the year.  

[Cochlea]

I can also confirm this issue.  I received my headphones on Nov. 2.  Overall they work great except for this one potentially fatal issue.  On windy and/or cold days the touch controls are activated randomly.  Most commonly, the voice assist get's turned on but I've also frequently had tracks pause or skip.  This also happens if I try to wear a hood over them.  In addition, most recently, I also had the touch controls stop working after coming inside from being outside in the cold (and not even that cold, 30 F).  After a while the touch controls start acting fritzy and the only fix is to turn off/on the headset.  I have tried a full factory reset which also hasn't solved the issue.  Although I support the idea behind having touch controls, until they are tweaked to work more properly in a wider set of conditions, seems like physical buttons or at least the option to turn off touch controls should be added.  Like many others here I specfically bought these for commuting which often involves being outside in the wind etc.  As an amateur audiphile, I have over-ear headphones that sound better and more clear than these but I specifically got these because their sound quality is okay (not a Hi-Fi) and they have great ANC (except some issues with wind feedback).  I could easilty stick to decent audiophile headphones with passive noise isolation or with a bluetooh adaptor if these don't work (such as M50xBT, MSR7 or MSR7NC, Sennheiser 598cs, all cheaper and better sound quality but less commute friendly).  

Please advise on how to fix this.  I am disappointed that others are experiencing this because I was truly hoping it was a problem with my unit specfically that could be replaced.

[arnolfini]

UPDATE

Spoke to Sony Canada Customer Care yesterday (I'm only here on the Sony Ireland site as this was one of the results that came up when I Googled the issue), and the person I spoke to said that they had received several reports of this issue so were aware of it.  The person I spoke to said that their engineers were now determining if they were looking at an issue concerning a batch of faulty units, or a larger design oversight/problem.

They offered to replace my headphones with another unit which I held off on for now as I'm fairly sure it's a broader design problem, although I may give it a shot in a week or two just in case.  If it is determined to be a design issue with this model then Sony will notify customers through online channels and offer a fix of some sort be that a firmware update or a redesigned replacement unit (XM3.1) or whatever - this should be available to all original owners of the XM3s regardless of whether their warranties have expired (I was concerned about this point as mine are replacements so only have a 90 day warranty).

In the meantime, the only way I've found to use the headphones in the cold is wired.  I already had a lightning to 3.5mm cable that lived in my bag for those occasions where the headphones run out of juice, so now I just use that when I'm outside (the headphones turn on automatically when you plug in the cable, so you need to be sure to turn them back off otherwise the mute problem remains).  This is obviously far from ideal - the active noise cancelling and bluetooth were the key reasons for the purchase after all - but at least I have music (and warm ears) for my commute.  The design means they offer a certain amount of passive noise cancelling anyway.  

Finally, I just urge everyone who is experiencing this issue to notify Sony Customer Care wherever they are to make sure they are aware of this problem and hopefully speed up the resolution.

[Aven760]

Good to hear they are making it a big deal. As much as I love this headphone, the issue is a deal breaker for most people.