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Ace headphones not charging


Got my ACE headphones today, they sound great but they’re not charging. Stuck at 53%. Tried different cables and power adapter that work with other devices. Feel like I’m doing something stupid. No orange or green lights to indicate charging status. Blue light comes on ok when connected via Bluetooth. Is there reboot / reset option of some description I could try???

 

Thanks

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Best answer by Jaimus 6 June 2024, 04:01

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I get the same if they are on...when i turn them off i get the charging light.

I don’t get any light when they are turned off. I get the blue light when turned on be they are not charging 

Got it charging now, needed to follow the factory reset procedure. Turn on, hold power button then plug in cable and wait for light to flash white/amber then key go when it goes solid amber. Now charging. Hope this is a one off!

My Sonos ace headphones have no light to indicate flashing and don’t appear to charge. Is anyone else having this problem? I’ve tried rebooting but it hasn’t changed the charging issue. 

Did you try factory reset, that fixed it for me?

Yeah I’ve tried this, thank you. The amber light doesn’t stay solid amber so no fix. 

I just wanted to chime in, I use the Anker Ganprime chargers (67w minimum) primarily for work and home. I first noticed the ace not charging after I had it pluged in, for a few hours and the battery depleted. I have not tried the factory reset, since there was the day one update, but I did find switching to a generic USBC 14w charging brick, that it is currently letting me charge without the reset. I'm curious to know if those that have done the reset if they are able to use their "fast" charging bricks and that it's a software fix rather than a power limit issue.

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I was also unable to charge my headphones using various Anker chargers. Apple charger worked but really hoping Anker issues can be resolved. Really glad its not just me though

I could not charge with my Anker charger until I performed the factory reset. I then could charge on both the Ankers 18W and 45W ports. However, today it does not work again. I tested my Apple 18W charger and that is working fine. 

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hope we can here something official from Sonos on this

I have the same problem. 

I have the same problem. I was able to charge it for the first time after trying it on. Now, plugging it back to the very same charger and cable doesnt do anything at all. No light status indicator at all on the ear cuffs and the app doesnt show it’s charging. This is frustrating for such a premium device. Are we going to the same Roam fiasco again with this?! My Roam just died a few days ago and I can’t bear another Sonos gear issue again especially for a brand new product.

Same issue here. Using the supplied cables and other cables I use for my Samsung and Dell Laptop and my Roam and Move and none charge my Aces. Dangit....

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Hi @SuperWeeble et al

Thanks for your post! Sorry to hear of the issue you are having in getting your Aces to charge.

Please follow these steps:

STEP 1 - ENSURE ACE IS UP TO DATE

 1. Check for Updates to confirm that Ace is fully up to date.


STEP 2 - ENSURE THAT YOU ARE USING A SUPPORTED CHARGER AND CABLE

 1. Ensure that the charger outputs a minimum 15W of power.
 2. Ensure the cable and charger support USB Power Delivery (PD).
 3. If possible, test charging Ace with an alternative supported cable and charger.


STEP 3 - CHECK ACE'S LED AND BATTERY STATUS

 1. Ensure that Ace's LED light changes colour when the USB-C cable is connected.
 2. Within the Sonos app, swipe up on the Now Playing bar and select Ace to view its battery level. Confirm the charging indicator is displayed, and that the battery level increases.


STEP 4 - FORCE REBOOT/RESET ACE

 1. Force a reboot of Ace by holding the power button for ten seconds.
 2. If the issue persists, factory reset Ace then test the USB-C connections after setting the product up again.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team for further assistance.

I hope this helps.

@Corry P 

While I appreciate you chiming in, this is not an acceptable response. You have a thread full of people who are reporting a defect - and only one succeeded in resolving the issue with a factory reset.

You need to utilize your internal communication channels to escalate this to your development team and/or the Ace product team immediately as this clearly requires a firmware update to fully resolve.

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Hi @Valghora 

If one person was able to fix the issue with a reset, don’t you think that makes a reset worth trying for everyone who has the issue? I’ve also said that anyone that this does not help should call in - multiple people calling in with an issue that cannot be resolved is exactly how we go about identifying an issue and getting it fixed.

If you are affected by this issue, please call in so that there is a support case for your issue to be counted - the more cases there are, the higher the priority the ticket for this issue will be. As a new product, Ace is automatically high-priority, but please help us help you.

Well, I managed to get mine charging. 
It wouldn’t charge on any of the USB C chargers I have, so I tried a USB C to USB A converter plugged into an USB A socket on my ac socket in my kitchen, and it’s started to charge. 

Hi @Valghora 

If one person was able to fix the issue with a reset, don’t you think that makes a reset worth trying for everyone who has the issue? I’ve also said that anyone that this does not help should call in - multiple people calling in with an issue that cannot be resolved is exactly how we go about identifying an issue and getting it fixed.

If you are affected by this issue, please call in so that there is a support case for your issue to be counted - the more cases there are, the higher the priority the ticket for this issue will be. As a new product, Ace is automatically high-priority, but please help us help you.

 

Hey Corry!

I didn't mean to imply that people shouldn't attempt a factory reset. They absolutely should, but that did not work for me and multiple others. Not to mention that if you're unfortunate enough to only own chargers that don't work you won't even have the ability to perform a factory reset because that assumes you can power the Ace.

My point is that this should be taken more seriously and officially acknowledged as a problem unless you want people returning their Aces en masse. As someone who works in a similar industry, I cannot imagine that there is not an avenue for you to escalate what is obviously a systemic problem. Even if a factory reset does work for 100% of people (it doesn't), let's not pretend that having to do that to a brand new $450 product is acceptable.

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Hi @SuperWeeble et al

Thanks for your post! Sorry to hear of the issue you are having in getting your Aces to charge.

Please follow these steps:

STEP 1 - ENSURE ACE IS UP TO DATE

 1. Check for Updates to confirm that Ace is fully up to date.


STEP 2 - ENSURE THAT YOU ARE USING A SUPPORTED CHARGER AND CABLE

 1. Ensure that the charger outputs a minimum 15W of power.
 2. Ensure the cable and charger support USB Power Delivery (PD).
 3. If possible, test charging Ace with an alternative supported cable and charger.


STEP 3 - CHECK ACE'S LED AND BATTERY STATUS

 1. Ensure that Ace's LED light changes colour when the USB-C cable is connected.
 2. Within the Sonos app, swipe up on the Now Playing bar and select Ace to view its battery level. Confirm the charging indicator is displayed, and that the battery level increases.


STEP 4 - FORCE REBOOT/RESET ACE

 1. Force a reboot of Ace by holding the power button for ten seconds.
 2. If the issue persists, factory reset Ace then test the USB-C connections after setting the product up again.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team for further assistance.

I hope this helps.

All - the SONOS STAFF is missing 1 key piece of information and this relates to all you ANKER charging posters out there as well

 

** There is a minimum charging of 15w of power…BUT THERE is also a MAXIMUM.   Use too high a charging block for watt output and it won’t charger.  My Anker Charging block has a feature to double click the on button for devices like this which require lower charging input

Another Anker user here with charging issues. It doesn’t appear to be an over or under wattage issue. I have a 45w, 110w, 140w power bricks and 140w power bank. The 140w power bank works fine usb A or C, the 140 w wall adapter works usb C (only single usb c port). The 45w and 110w only work usb A, usb c’s dont do a thing. They all have the same specifications and voltage/amp ratings so it just appears the ace pick and chooses what it wants to work with and when. I tried multiple cords and factory reset with no changes

Hi guys,

Just like many of you, I couldn't charge my Sonos Ace with an Anker charger, nor with 3 other fast chargers. I tried factory reset and all the methods suggested here. However, I could charge it by connecting it to my Huawei laptop. So I assumed that the issue comes from the Watts power of the chargers, there must be some maximum that the headphones don't support. I got a conventional low power charger with USB type C output and they are charging normally now.

I would have liked to know this sooner because I ordered chargers with type C input from Amazon since the headphones only come with a cable.

I hope this can be useful to you.

Same issue here. Ace will not charge with a 100w Anker power brick. It did charge with an apple 20w power brick. 2 Factory resets did not help with the Anker.

I’m assuming the Ace has a MAXIMUM amp charging limit? If so, what is it?

Also, during the factory reset, my headphones made a popping noise both times I did the reset, anyone else experience that?

 

This is an awesome sounding product, hope the bugs get sorted out soon!

 

Same issue here. Ace will not charge with a 100w Anker power brick. It did charge with an apple 20w power brick. 2 Factory resets did not help with the Anker.

I’m assuming the Ace has a MAXIMUM amp charging limit? If so, what is it?

Also, during the factory reset, my headphones made a popping noise both times I did the reset, anyone else experience that?

 

This is an awesome sounding product, hope the bugs get sorted out soon!

I believe Sonos and many others on here are missing something. It is clear that there is an issue with Anker and the Sonos Ace’s but it doesn’t seem to be a voltage/amperage issue. I have an Anker 737 24k power bank that supports up to 140w PD, and an Anker 717 charger that supports up to 140w PD. Both of these charge the Aces no problem. 2 other Anker chargers at lower wattage but still plenty do not work. The Anker 737 100W and Anker 735 65W. They both do not work via USB C but will charge with a USB-A to USB-C adapter. To further complicate things all the chargers support the exact same voltage and amperage ranges up to their max watts so it doesn’t seem like an incompatibility that can be predicted. If I had to guess the PD negotiating of the Sonos Aces is very specific and therefore only works on a narrow range that chargers might not exactly match. With USB-A it is a preset 5V for all so does not require any negotiation between devices.

After spending hours online and then on a call with Sonos support I was told that I should buy other brand of chargers because my chargers are faulty. No, if the charger supports your 15w minimum and works with any and all other devices, including the Sonos Move then it’s the Sonos Ace’s that need to be replaced. Needless to say I’ll be returning these headphones as soon as possible 

 

 

Same issue here. Ace will not charge with a 100w Anker power brick. It did charge with an apple 20w power brick. 2 Factory resets did not help with the Anker.

I’m assuming the Ace has a MAXIMUM amp charging limit? If so, what is it?

Also, during the factory reset, my headphones made a popping noise both times I did the reset, anyone else experience that?

 

This is an awesome sounding product, hope the bugs get sorted out soon!

I believe Sonos and many others on here are missing something. It is clear that there is an issue with Anker and the Sonos Ace’s but it doesn’t seem to be a voltage/amperage issue. I have an Anker 737 24k power bank that supports up to 140w PD, and an Anker 717 charger that supports up to 140w PD. Both of these charge the Aces no problem. 2 other Anker chargers at lower wattage but still plenty do not work. The Anker 737 100W and Anker 735 65W. They both do not work via USB C but will charge with a USB-A to USB-C adapter. To further complicate things all the chargers support the exact same voltage and amperage ranges up to their max watts so it doesn’t seem like an incompatibility that can be predicted. If I had to guess the PD negotiating of the Sonos Aces is very specific and therefore only works on a narrow range that chargers might not exactly match. With USB-A it is a preset 5V for all so does not require any negotiation between devices.

After spending hours online and then on a call with Sonos support I was told that I should buy other brand of chargers because my chargers are faulty. No, if the charger supports your 15w minimum and works with any and all other devices, including the Sonos Move then it’s the Sonos Ace’s that need to be replaced. Needless to say I’ll be returning these headphones as soon as possible 

 

Thank you for your input - you've just helped me make a decision. I too have been troubleshooting with my variety of Anker chargers to narrow down the issue and it's all over the place

The newly released 167w Anker Car Charger works on A but not C. My Anker 747 works on A but not C. My Anker 713 does not work because it's only C. The Anker power outlet (A9234) works on A but not C.

Initially, I thought that the Anker or Sonos implementation of the Power Delivery protocol causes the issue (since A does not typically support PD). But your findings seem to discredit that hypothesis. If I had to wager a guess, it might have something to do with Anker's proprietary IQ feature that performs the handshake and decides which fast charging protocol to use.

I was on the fence about keeping them because I had hope that Sonos would fix the issue. But with your feedback that Customer Support is telling people that their chargers are faulty it's clear that they have no intention to do anything about it.

I will be returning mine today and I suggest that everyone else with this problem do the same. Remember the golden rules that I unfortunately forgot:

1. Never preorder.

2. Never buy the first iteration of a new product.

3. Never buy a product based on promises of future updates and/or fixes.

 

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So I ended up here as I was having much the same issues as I assumed I could just use my Comsol 100W brick to power the headphones as they are USB C like everything else I own….

This particular power supply brick has 2x USB-C and 1x USB-A and as you can see the maximum rate it can output on USB-A is 12V/1.5A, which from my experiment correlates to these headphones finding their zen in charging rates under 12W.

The typical cable I’ve used to charge almost everything with on this combo was my trusty MacBook Air M1 USB-C lead, which has worked with 95% of my gear. Not the Sonos Ace in the Comsol adapter.

Once I had read a few of these posts, I pulled out all of my USB-C and USB-A > C leads to stuff about.

First stop was a USB-C I got in a portable monitor pack, which was quite thick and solid connector wise...no go on the Comsol brick, worked on my Rato Lithium power pack, also worked on my Bauhn power bank.

Additionally I have an Inseego modem which uses a switch mode plug that outputs USB-A and has a USB-A > C lead which worked just fine.

Once I had tested a number of combinations between 2 power packs/banks and 2 sets of switch mode adapters, I have come to the conclusion that on some select USB-C charging devices it has issues with negotiating a charge rate and doesn’t behave so doesn’t charge. When forced to a limit of 12v - 1.5a the headphones seemingly behave first time around.

I can also use the MacBook USB-C lead on any of the USB-C ports of devices that output at the 12v - 1.5a limit and it works just fine.

The headphones are charging happily now on the Inseego cable connected to the original Comsol adapter I always use, so I will now just need to remember I need to lug that along with me.

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