Sony | Headphones Connect Reviews

I have been researching noise cancelling headphone for over a year now and and have been eyeing this ever since. The headphones, themselves, are fantastic. But the companion app was something I was very interested in as well since I am switching over from my Parrot Ziks and it had an app with some cool features as well.

I get these headphones last week and am taking a trip back home for the holidays. I was looking forward to using them on the airplane and playing around with the noise cancelling options that SonyHeadphonesConnect provides. Sadly, I wake up last week to see my app has auto-updated and now I can’t even get into the dang thing. It’s been days. DAYS. I understand for some that this doesn’t sounds like a whole lot but when SonyHeadphonesConnect has been having bugs since it’s inception how is it that after being out for numerous years it is still bugging all the time?? The companion app is part of the selling point of these headphones and many other products by Sony. So needless to say when I bought my Bluetooth speaker last week I skipped all the Sony’s I was looking at and got the UE Wonderboom.

Long story short the headphones are great but the companion app is garbage half the time. After years of being out it shows 2 stars. Says something about the company and what their actual priorities are: To just sell products by creating false expectations with their user experience they boast so much about.

Update, Mar 31, 2020: I’m angry that Sony was the cause of my WF-1000XM3 constantly changing volumes, but I’m glad they finally fixed it. Took them the better part of a year. Really unprofessional.

Update: The new update makes it so that if you have one earphone set to use Alexa, when you take just that earphone out it completely disconnects both of them and you can never listen with just one. This is really frustrating because I like using Alexa but I also need to be able to only listen with one earphone frequently. Sony’s very poor support of these expensive earphones is degrading and disconcerting.

Original:
The support for the new WF-1000MX3 earphones has been bizarre. There’s apparently been a bug with the Google Assistant integration that Sony has been alternately releasing patches for and blaming Apple for.

However, the patches meant to address this issue have apparently introduced new stability and unreliability issues with my brand new, very expensive WF-1000MX3s. Sound skips a little, and often (1-10 times a day), SonyHeadphonesConnect either refuses to connect to them, or the settings don’t ‘take.’

This is an unbelievable failure from Sony. It really just seems like they don’t know what they’re doing at a fundamental level. I’m still within the returned period for these and am considering returning them and getting the new AirPod Pros, even though those have awful batteries and will undoubtedly sound worse.

Fix this, Sony.

I have had my Sony headphones for awhile. They were as easy to connect via bluetooth as any other device. But lately, it has gotten harder and much worse. What has changed? The number of devices around our house that use bluetooth. SonyHeadphonesConnect is completely useless because while settings shows the headphones are connected, SonyHeadphonesConnect does not say to WHICH bluetooth device. Is it the speakers? Is it the treadmill? Is it my iPad? Even from a room farthest away, doors closed to rooms with bluetooth devices, the headphones connect to something, just not my iPhone two inches away. While I credit the strength of connecting to an unknown bluetooth farther away than the one in front of it, or even to the last bluetooth connected a day or so ago; it is annoying and frustrating not to know which device(s) I should turn off just so I can use the headphones. Turning off every single bluetooth except for my iPhone is not practical. While the headphones work great, Sony did not include in the accompanying app, a means for me to know with WHAT bluetooth device the headphones are connected. I don’t have time to run around the house turning off bluetooth devices. I need to look for headphones or an app that stops this digital whackamole and still gives me quality sound or noise cancellation from my headphones.

I’m torn between 4 stars and 5 stars, but, gave it 5 stars. I bought mine refurbished for $100 with absolutely no regret so without further ado my review.
My ONLY complaint is fit which is personal to my anatomy not how the device works. However, a solid 5 star with no complaints would be including, or even making for sale ear “attachment” similar to Bose, which for ME is brilliant. But I find Sony’s sound quality and ACTIVE noise cancelling superior. But, I find Bose in ear passive “canceling” superior, and possibly the Bose bass quality is a bit better. (As a caveat with 11 years of playing in orchestras, MAY have affected my hearing...yes those violins, violas, cellos, etc, all add up and can be loud, as well as NOW playing bass with my son who plays brilliantly on a VERY large drum kit may have affected my low, as well as high end hearing). So to sum up my ONLY complaints with the WF-1000XM2, they should offer variations on a theme (pun intended) with ear fit and possibly tweak bass. Both issues may be personal. Would I buy again ABSOLUTELY!

The most annoying “feature” of these excellent wh1000m4 headphones that sync with SonyHeadphonesConnect is that it gives you no control over how long the headphones stay in standby mode. If I take them off while watching a show, I don’t want the headphones turning off so quickly. So when I come back to listen, the headphones are off, they have to be turned on, reconnect, then I have to find my remote and continue. This would be an easy software fix function — not sure why this hasn’t been addressed yet because it seems like a pretty obvious customization that most users would want on a high end headphone.

Also annoying is that the headphones don’t maintaining my noise cancellation settings. I wish they’d keep the same setting “ambient sound” when I turn them on and not keep defaulting to “noise cancelling.” So if the headphones shut themselves off (because I can’t set the timer), I have to turn them back on, reconnect, then modify noise cancellation settings again before I can continue watching the show I was watching. Very silly, this could all be avoided with an app update.

Love the headphones. Sound quality is great. Noise cancelling is amazing. SonyHeadphonesConnect itself has a lot of potential and I do like the different modes, etc. The biggest problem with it is the pairing. I have a $17 pair of headphones I use for working out and these connect super fast and no problems switching between devices. With the Sony headphones, it’s always an ordeal with connecting, especially if you were connected to another device and need to switch. I’ve been in the basement trying to workout with them on and they kept connecting to my iPad upstairs, even though they were saying they were connected to my phone. I had to go back upstairs and go into iPad settings to disconnect and then try two more times to reconnect to my phone. Of course once I wanted to use it on my iPad again, I had to do the same thing. It sounds like others are experiencing this same frustration and why some chose the Bose headphones. Any chance this can be a priority fix in a software update? Again, love the headphones and quality but my $17 headphones shouldn’t be far less frustrating to pair. :)

I see a a lot of people rating it one star and saying how bad SonyHeadphonesConnect is. To me it works perfectly I about 3 months ago bout a pair of Sony 900xb headphones which you can adjust the bass the noise cancelling and much more. I got SonyHeadphonesConnect I had to set it up and it worked good and I’ve had it now same condition basically and I don’t touch SonyHeadphonesConnect because I have it all set up to my likeing. And basically how SonyHeadphonesConnect works for mine is turn the headphones on and it automatically says “Bluetooth Connected” and I just use them from there. And maybe people have different Sony devices and don’t work the same but those with this or other headphones from Sony SonyHeadphonesConnect works great no problem and even when I go to SonyHeadphonesConnect and change stuff it is just fine no problem so if your nervous because of all the other ratings take my advice it is a fine app don’t worry. Hope this helps! Ps I have an iPhone 7 and my friend uses SonyHeadphonesConnect flawlessly on his iPhone 8+

So I just got the XM3 buds for Christmas and they blew me away, partly because of SonyHeadphonesConnect. It really makes these already fantastic ear buds that much better with all the features you are given. The customizability you get was far above my expectations, being able to use 20 different levels of ambient sound control and many options with the equalizer, all of which actually sound vastly different. I like how SonyHeadphonesConnect can also keep track of the battery level of the case in addition to the individual earbuds. The only problem I have is that the buds seem to disconnect sometimes when changing to another app however SonyHeadphonesConnect is so well designed that I’ll quickly look past that. All in all, I just want to say thanks for putting so much time into SonyHeadphonesConnect, it truly is the best companion app for a 3rd party device that I have used so far.

I think everybody else is overly critical of SonyHeadphonesConnect, IT IS NOT BAD. The interface to me is simple and looks nice. You don’t end up getting muddy sounds when you distort the music (e.g. to Concert Hall), however the music does sound less loud at the same volume you were just at when the music was undistorted. But there’s nothing horrible about these headphones or SonyHeadphonesConnect , it’s actually really cool (in my opinion) that they have an accompanying app to their headphones and allow you to make these awesome distortions. Anyways, don’t believe all the negative hype, AND even if some of those reviews are true, look at it like this: if you’re just now downloading SonyHeadphonesConnect , then you’re gonna get the most up-to-date version of SonyHeadphonesConnect, free of whatever bugs or glitches people complained about that are now fixed. So believe in Sony, they make a quality product.

I just bought the Sony headphones and also just downloaded SonyHeadphonesConnect.I’m still trying to find my way around and it seems that there sould be more help navigating. I also own a Bose 700 and find their app easier to navigate.
My main issue is that I use an iPad and SonyHeadphonesConnect will only work in the vertical position but not in the horizantal position. Makes it very awkward to use. Please fix that.
When I first charged my earphones they showed 100% full for a couple of days. Then it dropped to 70% and within a couple of hours down to 30%. Later it went back to 70%. Then back to 30%. Now it's back to 70%.
Also I start listening to music then I open SonyHeadphonesConnect and it says connecting but never connects. I AM listening to it.
Come on Sony I have $50 earphones that work better! The sound is great, no doubt but SonyHeadphonesConnect is garbage.

So here are the most common problems and the fixes.

**BEFORE YOU INSTALL SonyHeadphonesConnect : PAIR YOUR HEADPHONES TO YOUR PHONE**
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PROBLEM: Headphones not connecting to the phone

FIX: Hold the power button for 7 SECONDS and the headphones will say “Bluetooth pairing” or something similar, and the blue light near the power button should flash too.
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PROBLEM: You have connected/paired your headphones to your phone but SonyHeadphonesConnect does not show that the headphones are connected

FIX: Turn off Bluetooth (One if the first settings on the top of the page) on your phone and completely turn off your headphones( after pressing the power button twice, the headphones should say “power off”). After you have completed that, hold the power button on the headphones until they say “Bluetooth pairing,” the blue light near the power button should flash too. Then, turn on Bluetooth on your phone and make sure the headphones and the phone are sitting very close together. Repeat as necessary or when you want to use your headphones on a new device.
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Thanks and hope this helps, because it did for me. These Sony headphones are also better than Beats By Dr. Dre or Bose’s comparable models, and I know this from experience because I have owned them.

I’ve had the wf-1000xm3’s for a little over a year now and I’ve never had any problem with them…….. until now. For the last 2-3 months I’ve had some pretty bad connection issues with the earbuds. These problems range from drops in clarity and continuous connection to full disconnection of either a single earbud or both in the middle of use. I’ve had to go through the connection process multiple times to get a stable connection or for the headset to even be read by the phone/computer as “connected”. I know this is just a firmware problem that can be easily fixed, but it is discomforting that the earbuds have not been updated since September. I know they say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but as iOS and Windows continue to make multiple updates a month, connectivity from third party apps is going to start suffering. 3 stars until updates start rolling out again.

I like SonyHeadphonesConnect , like the layout, etc. Very user-friendly, and the EQ is outstanding (I tinkered with it for a week, playing with different manual settings after receiving the headphones and drawing some well-earned jeers of “You’re such a geek” from my girlfriend”).

If only I didn’t have to fight with SonyHeadphonesConnect to get it to connect to my headphones. I’d say I have a 50% success rate of headphones and app connecting to one another on the first try when I turn on my XM4. The other 50% of the time I have to repeatedly close SonyHeadphonesConnect , reopen it, and click connect, which is usually successful after the third or fourth try. The headphones connect to my phone whether SonyHeadphonesConnect is connected or not, so I’m sure SonyHeadphonesConnect is at fault and it’s not a hardware problem. Given this issue was reported by users literally years ago, it’d be nice for Sony figure this out.

OK, I hope that somebody from Sony reads this but considering my complaints have been mirrored in other reviews and not addressed I doubt it.
My new 1000XM4’s are terrific headphones and fix the one major gripe I had with the 1000XM3’s in allowing for multiple connections.
But the Connect app is written for phones period. There is no app for Windows and I would assume for Mac. And SonyHeadphonesConnect for iPad doesn’t autorotate so if you have a keyboard you either need to detach it or try reading sideways.
And even on my iPhone If I have my headphones on while I am moving around doing something like gardening or even walking I get a constant “ding” every few seconds even with notifications turned off. I assume it is because it keeps changing modes but the last thing I want to hear is a bunch of dinging while I am trying to listen to music. Especially with headphones I purchased specifically for their noise cancelation.

I rarely write reviews but alas I’ve found a reason to. The newest version of SonyHeadphonesConnect Sony uses for their headphones is unusable- literally. Like for many others, SonyHeadphonesConnect either doesn’t launch, or freezes, or crashes. I know Sony will address this eventually, but currently these genuinely fantastic headphones (WH-1000M3), which cost twice their weight in pure silver, can’t be used correctly. Please fix this one ya’ll, it’s a bit of a let down...

EDIT: Their customer service was fantastic and they gave me a work-around for the privacy policy problem. For IOS SonyHeadphonesConnect only works on update 13.3. Kind of a bad idea to make SonyHeadphonesConnect only function a specific update (and also likely future updates- I doubt that’ll happen again), but I can launch SonyHeadphonesConnect now so good enough :)

Let me explain, SonyHeadphonesConnect is tied to the product and that ultimately brings my rating down. Context...I’ve been in a love hateRelationship with proprietary Sony products for the last 20 years or so. I was at the airport and lost my Powerbeats pro and needed some thing for the trip and the only viable option at the electronics store were the 1000xm3. Surprisingly they stayed in my ear and the sound was amazing however SonyHeadphonesConnect experience over the last year or so has been very lackluster. SonyHeadphonesConnect provides some of the function of the buds but 25% of the time SonyHeadphonesConnect shows disconnected until I do a fix. It’s annoying and delayed, compared to my Powerbeats pro’s that just work with my iPhone. I bear with SonyHeadphonesConnect for the 1000xm3 only when I have to use it. Yes I will buy product again, and SonyHeadphonesConnect experience is the only con to that purchase.

This 1 star is for your quality control. I can ignore the small problems with your program and I love my 1000-XM3s, but now this is broken. For some reason with the latest update for iOS, after accepting the latest privacy policy the screen shows nothing, no matter how many times I restart the program. I reinstalled the software to try and fix this and now it crashes every time I try to accept the policy. Your headphone volume and device volume are independent, and the only way to adjust your headphone volume is with touch. I turn off touch controls most days, but sometimes (for seemingly no reason) the headphone volume will be low even with the device volume turned all the way up. Since SonyHeadphonesConnect won’t work, I’m now stuck without touch controls. I have the sound cranked on my device, but my $300 headphones are still quiet, and I have no way of fixing it until Sony releases a patch. How this ever made it past QA is astonishing.

I just got a new pair of Sony’s wireless NC headphones and installed SonyHeadphonesConnect to use with them. However, when opening SonyHeadphonesConnect , you’re immediately presented with an “I agree” type checkbox and if you review the privacy policy, you find out that you basically agree that SonyHeadphonesConnect will send Sony the data about when and how you’re using your headphones (including what it is you’re listening to through them)! On top of that, in the policy, Sony gives itself permission to tie that to your device’s unique identifier (ie - the data is NOT anonymous, not that anonymization would make it ok to collect that much data).

I’m sorry, just being able to control my headphones via Bluetooth is not justification for such invasive tracking. I have no idea how well SonyHeadphonesConnect actually works, I immediately deleted it.

Dear Sony: I paid serious $$$ for these headphones: please provide a companion app and Privacy policy that doesn’t track me or send any data back to you.

A friend bought them for me as a gift since they knew I wanted some good noise cancelling headphones. The noise cancellation is great, wish there were more precise sound control (sometimes I want it to be a LITTLE louder, but when I press the volume up it’s TOO loud, wish there was a middle setting for each volume level)

Biggest problem is I can’t connect it to my laptop, which I use to make music. What’s the purpose of these headphones if I can only connect them to one device? I’ve asked my more technically inclined friends how to do this and NO ONE can figure out how to get these headphones to switch between my phone and MacBook sound. I can ONLY use it on my phone, I guess.
Dear Sony: is this a feature or a bug? Am I supposed to buy a second set to pair with my laptop? 😅

So I had an issue with SonyHeadphonesConnect when I first downloaded it so I agreed with the bad reviews, but I deleted it and re-downloaded it and realized that the first time I didn’t complete the startup completely before I got in SonyHeadphonesConnect , I followed the startup completely until everything was set up and decided on and then SonyHeadphonesConnect started working fine. It looks like there might be a glitch during the startup that sets up before it’s finished actually setting up, or maybe re-downloading it just works to fix it? Regardless, it didn’t work, and after deleting it and re-downloading it it works

With a 1000XM2, I’ve had no big problems with SonyHeadphonesConnect . The interface is nice looking and easy to navigate, and I’ve encountered no crashing or bugs with the interface when it connects to my headphones.
However, I do have problems with SonyHeadphonesConnect failing to connect with my headphones all the time; sometimes it freezes on the connect screen, but restarting SonyHeadphonesConnect solves it 99% of the time. Although one time it didn’t connect even after a restart, turning the headphones off/on did solve this.
A problem I have with SonyHeadphonesConnect is that it has to connect every time you go go back to it, which is a 5 second process that is frustrating to sit through when you’re constantly going back to SonyHeadphonesConnect to adjust an EQ. This is slightly more frustrating when it not-uncommonly freezes on the connect screen and I have to restart SonyHeadphonesConnect . It would be great if SonyHeadphonesConnect stayed connected in the background for just a minute after you switch away from it.
The EQ function of SonyHeadphonesConnect is wonderful, but you are limited to six frequency sliders to adjust. If an update were to add more frequency sliders (maybe up to ten instead of six), it would make SonyHeadphonesConnect perfect.

So I really enjoyed my new set of headphones on my iPhone. Allows me to change the base the boys all different types of settings. Something that you were do not get on the beats I am a owner of beats as well. When I do find funny is when I was looking for the same application on my iPad it is not available. So if I wanted to enjoy your movie and change the sound settings I would not be able to. So I wanted to play a video game and change the sound settings I would not be able to. Great set of headphones whose idea was it to nap with the same application on the iPad let me guess blame it on Apple. And I’m sure there’s some things that you can blame Apple I don’t think this is one of them.

The title says it all. I open SonyHeadphonesConnect check the box for agree. It then takes me to the Sony Privacy Policy with the next button in the bottom right corner of the screen. When I hit next SonyHeadphonesConnect freezes and will not move past the screen. I cannot go back I just have to close SonyHeadphonesConnect out. I tried it on WiFi in case it was my cellular connection with the same results. I even deleted SonyHeadphonesConnect and reinstalled it and restarted my phone. I heard things about the Sony WF-1000XM3 headphones, but this makes me want to return the headphones and just wait for the AirPod pro to come back to the shelves. If you have to have an app to get the most out of the headphones and SonyHeadphonesConnect doesn’t work it says a lot about the company. I saw there was an update 5 days ago. If this is the result of the update then Sony is worse than I thought they were to let an issue go unresolved for that long.

So overall, SonyHeadphonesConnect is somewhat decent. Gets the job done, but I don’t suggest messing with surround sound because it doesn’t really fit with audio unless you somehow can only listen to music in that condition. My issue with SonyHeadphonesConnect is that it DOES not load on startup. The screen appears white/blank and all my features are gone. Hopefully a very soon bug release update for SonyHeadphonesConnect should fix the problem, but this failure to smooth out all these bugs especially by the end of 2019 with all these bugs that were shown in apps of other sorts. I just don’t understand why app developers can’t get these bugs to smooth out when we’re in a time period where a majority of software and technology issues have been smoothed out.

I have purchased sony wf 1000xm3 for the 2nd time. In the first set i had faced issues with microphone as the callers were unable to listen to my voice. I thought it to be faulty piece and returned it. As i liked the music i ordered it again.
In the second pair the microphone issue still exists. I can’t make any call through headphone as the person on other side can’t hear you. In addition to that right side headset doesn’t work independently. This ears phones should work with single earpiece but if i place the left side earpiece the headphone disconnected. And right side headphone doesn’t get connected independently.
No doubt these earphones sound amazingly well but hardware and connectivity issues are so frustrating. I have no choice but to return these and go for some other brand. I trusted sony for their quality but this time i am disappointed.

I bought a pair of the Sony headphones about two weeks ago. I was so flipping excited because I knew they are great quality and that I was going to enjoy listening to music a lot more. I was especially excited to have an app that would allow me to adjust the headphones settings right then and there and I could hear the difference. But with the new update I am no longer able to use SonyHeadphonesConnect . Every time you click the accept terms of use button it freezes! So I no longer am able to adjust anything. I enjoy the sleek modern design of not having many buttons on my headphones. It makes it so much easier to navigate and control. Especially with the swipe sensor. But I guess the draw back of having everything controlled on the phone is that you’re kinda sol until it’s fixed 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ please fix soon!!

I am bewildered by the contrasting reviews here, but for my experience with my new WH-1000XM3’s SonyHeadphonesConnect just works well! Never had any issue with it whatsoever. I do have some extra wishes for SonyHeadphonesConnect such as: (a) being able to increase the ambient volume microphone pickup even further; or (b) manually controlling some other stuff. For (a), it’s for me to be able to increase the pickup volume for the “Focus on Voice” option on the “Ambient Sound Control” part. I could hear voices with it but I’d like to be able to increase the voice volume even further. But with that said, great work with SonyHeadphonesConnect !

Being a huge Sony hardware fan, I’m especially disappointed when the software isn’t up to speed.

Sony tends to put an immense amount to time and resources into gimmicky features, while the core features suffer drastically.

The equalizer: why such a small amount of controls, and why such specific frequencies? You are only able to control 4 frequencies from mids to highs that are nearly inaudible to the human ear. Just give me a normal EQ that I can customize and allow me to ‘tame’ the intense coloring that the WH1000-XM3 has.

The Notification and Voice Guide: Turning this setting off doesn’t actually turn it off. It will still do the excruciatingly slow voice when turning the headphones on and off, but not more important things like power level.

Pairing takes forever. Approximately 7 seconds, which is WAY too long.

The list goes on, but it seems like they don’t have a strong reputation to listening to their customers in regards to software, so I don’t want to waste my time.