Quickly turn off noise cancellation on Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 and Bose QC 35 headphones
This Android app allows you to quickly turn off noise cancellation on Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 (NC 700) and Bose QC 35 (QC35) headphones.
The app also allows a (less-useful) change of mode on Bose QC Earbuds and Bose QC 45 headphones -- it is not able to fully disable active noise cancellation.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 have a "noise control" button to cycle through noise cancellation presets, but these are on a scale (three presets between 0-10) from actively passing external sound through, to cancelling out external sound. In a very quiet room, any setting on this scale can result in an audible hiss, and you may not want any active pass-through/cancelling at all, but just the sound. The official Bose Music app does allow you to temporarily turn off noise cancelling, but this setting is buried in the app and takes some time to get to.
You can:
- turn off noise cancellation through this app, or
- add as a quick settings tile to turn off with as single touch, or
- add a single touch shortcut you can pin to your launcher.
Noise cancelling will turn back on if you alter the noise control settings on the headphones, or when you next turn the headphones on.
The application sends a short message (repeated 3 times) over the device's Serial Port Profile (SPP) connection.
The cancellation levels are fully supported on the NC700: "off", "0", "5" and "10" .
To change noise cancellation level on the NC700, where enabled is 0=off, 1=on; and, if enabled, level is 0-10 (the level is inverted in the packet to: 10 - level):
Send:
0x01 0x05 0x02 0x02 (10-level) (enabled)
Response:
0x01 0x05 0x03 0x03 0x0b (10-level) (enabled)
When toggling enabled off to on, device returns to default level regardless of the level sent, so a second repeat packet is required to resume to a level other than 10.
The cancellation levels are partly supported on the QC35: "off" (off), "0" (low), "5" (sends "medium" as below but no effect on QC35) and "10" (high).
To change noise cancellation level on the QC35, where mode is 0=off, 1=high, (2=medium?), 3=low:
Send:
0x01 0x06 0x02 0x01 (mode)
Response:
0x01 0x06 0x03 0x02 (mode) 0x0b
The medium mode does not appear to do anything on the QC35 -- perhaps it does something on the QC35ii?
The cancellation levels are approximated by switching modes on the QC Earbuds: "off" (second custom mode), "0" (Aware), "5" (first custom mode) and "10" (Quiet).
To change the noise cancellation mode on the QC Earbuds, where mode is 0=Quiet (full NC), 1=Aware (pass-through with optional ActiveSense adjustment for loud noises), 2=first user-supplied custom mode, 3=second user-supplied custom mode.
Send:
0x1f 0x03 0x05 0x02 (mode) 0x01
Response:
0x1f 0x03 0x07 0x00
Response:
0x1f 0x03 0x06 0x01 (mode)
The cancellation levels are approximated by switching modes on the QC45: "off" (Aware), "0" (Aware), "5" (unknown mode where the device says "Quiet" but doesn't appear to change mode?) and "10" (Quiet).
To change the noise cancellation mode on the QC45, where mode is 0=Quiet (full NC), 1=Aware (pass-through):
Send:
0x1f 0x03 0x05 0x02 (mode) 0x01
Response:
0x1f 0x03 0x07 0x00
Response:
0x1f 0x03 0x06 0x01 (mode)
QC45 does not support custom modes, but sending mode=2 ("first user-supplied custom mode" on the earbuds) causes the device to say "quiet" but seemingly not change mode?
This product is provided 'AS IS', the developer makes no warranties, accepts no liability, and hereby disclaims any implied warranties, including any warranty of merchantability and warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. This software sends a specific message to the device you choose. This has only been tested on one pair of headphones of a single firmware version. You accept liability for whatever happens, including any damage, injury, or loss.
