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?

[pepite_]

I just wonder how bad the problem is. 

I noticed that there is a nice relation between the temperature and the time before troubles. The colder it is, the faster you get an issue.

This morning, -7 in Oslo, I got the audio message about the google assistant after less than 2 minutes (audio resumes at the end of the message), and the listen in problem maybe 3 min later.
Before, it occurred after a few more riding, but it was not as cld outside.

One thing I wonder is, does it happen multiple times to you within the same session outside? For me it does not seem to. This morning it was all good after I powered off/on once following the listen in issue. It may be because my commute is short enough (less than 20 min).

However yesterday, I rode from work to a store, the issue occurred once during that ride, then I was inside, then rode back home and it happened again on my ride home, even though I had not powered off the headphones since the previous reboot on the first leg of my ride.

What about you?

[marreboy1976]

I have the same issue as described here. I live in Stockholm, Sweden. Bought the headphones at launch and they have been great until last week when the temperatures dropped below +8C. 

I get random pause/play pushes, Siri activates randomly each time I go outside. 

A colleague of mine also bought these headphones just last week and today he confirmed to me the same erratic behavior when outside.

Really hope Sony can fix via firmware.. I would even accept an option to turn the touch panel off via the app.

/ Martin

[Aven760]

I called them and they issued an exchange, but I'm not sure if this is
gonna help. Did anyone got exchanged and saw a difference?

[thingamajiggy]

I just talked to Sony Canada and they said they had no knowledge of this issue. Linked this thread to them and they again said they had no official stance on this issue. Very alarming 😞

[Lovash]

even if they know about it, they wont put themselves down. It's easy for them to say that it is not a known issue.. Something may change though if we all go on twitter and make a big noise about it

[thingamajiggy]

Completely agree. I emailed Engadget and Techradar and linked to this thread. Might not come anything of it but still. 

[davida7]

Same problem (The Netherlands). Thing is with me it's doing another thing. It's also messing up with randomly pausing/activating siri/skipping songs but it's doing it at the exact same spots while walking, that much that it can't be a coincidence anymore of 'where' it's happening. Anyone had that problem?

[thingamajiggy]

It's likely that the time it takes you to get to that specific place is the time it takes for the temperature to drop and the controls to start acting up, I have the same where they will pause once for me when I'm walking to the subway from my house.

[skatsman]

There few threads on Reddit regarding this issue. People are trying to contact local support and it looks like Sony is in denial about the problem. 

[Leeknlau]

Temperatures below 10°C (50°F) seem to trigger this, experiencing this in Sweden atm. The cooler it is, the sooner they start acting up. 

I don't even get how this is something SONY could've missed in stress testing the engineering. Shouldn't temperature limits be the first thing that's checked off when going through the technical limits of any product design? Jeez. The launch of these just seems so rushed now. I'm wondering what else there might be that'll start acting up down the road if this is an issue they didn't see coming (or, seemingly, even thought of) during the production.