Charging Ace from high power USB-C PD - can it brick your headphones?

  • 10 June 2024
  • 5 replies
  • 794 views
J
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Folks;

 

I received my Sonos Ace headphones on Thursday June 6th, got them paired with my phone and laptop, swapped audio from my Sonos Arc (it worked some of the time). I’m traveling internationally and used the Ace headphones in the airport and on a 10+ hour flight without issue. Then charged them overnight with a USB-C PD charger (ChargeASAP Zeus) and this morning it appears the headphones are dead :-(

They are capable of doing ‘something’ as the LED will turn solid blue, and it will turn off again. However theres no sound from the headphones (not even the turn on/off tones), they will not connect to any of the previously paired Bluetooth devices, they will not enter BT pairing mode, and they will not even factory reset. On occasion using a lower power charging cable I can bet a solid amber and solid green light as some indication of charging activity but other than that it’s a solid blue LED and they are non-functional.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring along extra headphones on this trip as I didn’t expect my shiny new Sonos Ace to brick themselves :-( I’ve had to purchase a wired headset to be able to conduct my work calls and my initial chat session with Sonos implied I should leave them charging for 6-hours on a low power charger and then see if they ‘work again’… which I have now done and they don’t work again.

Anyone else had issues with their headphones dying mysteriously after working fine for several days? and it was during charging overnight not during an update…

 

Edit: After two chat sessions and one phone call going through all the motions the headphones are still unresponsive… the support person is escalating to level 2 support now to see if they can offer any additional assistance. Shame as the headphones worked great on my international flight and after ~11 hours of continuous use still had 68% battery life. Will update here when I find out more

 

Moderator edit: combined posts

5 replies

J
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Update: after two chat sessions and two phone calls it was determined that my headphones are unresponsive and are to be replaced under warranty. That doesn’t help me for the remainder of my international trip and 10 hour flight home later this week but hopefully the replacement headphones last longer than 4-days when I receive them.

AlexPermit
Userlevel 5
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Update: after two chat sessions and two phone calls it was determined that my headphones are unresponsive and are to be replaced under warranty. That doesn’t help me for the remainder of my international trip and 10 hour flight home later this week but hopefully the replacement headphones last longer than 4-days when I receive them.

Will you be brave enough to try using your ChargeASAP Zeus charger/high power cable with your replacement?  If you are, please report back your experience.

J
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Update: after two chat sessions and two phone calls it was determined that my headphones are unresponsive and are to be replaced under warranty. That doesn’t help me for the remainder of my international trip and 10 hour flight home later this week but hopefully the replacement headphones last longer than 4-days when I receive them.

Will you be brave enough to try using your ChargeASAP Zeus charger/high power cable with your replacement?  If you are, please report back your experience.

Good question, there’s clearly some USB-C charging compatibility issue going on here per several other threads including this one. I’ve carried this single charging device all over the world for >1 year and not had any other issues. But in this case given it may have bricked my headphones I will be seeking an alternate charging source in the immediate term pending official guidance from Sonos on what may be going on here. I guess I can use my power adapter to charge my MacBook Pro and in turn charge the Sonos Ace from my MacBook Pro as a safety measure. I’ll come back and update here with any additional details as things pan out. I’ve also purchased a modest priced set of headphones to tide me over on my return flight as I didn’t care to sit on a plane for 10 hours without noise cancelling headphones.

D

Same exact issue here.

I found my Sonos bricked after coming home today. It was working last night and I didn't even charge it since last night 

J
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Same exact issue here.

I found my Sonos bricked after coming home today. It was working last night and I didn't even charge it since last night 

How are your headphones behaving? Mine would still kind of turn on but there was no ‘jingle’ in the headphones when they power up but the LED would turn solid blue. They wouldn’t connect to previously paired devices, or enter pairing mode, or allow a factory reset. They would also power off (again no sound) and the LED would go off. And _sometimes_ they would charge and I’d get an orange or green LED but that’s all they would do.

it tool two chat sessions and two calls to exhaust all of the remediation steps to conclude they were dead and should be replaced under warranty. The Sonos support staff were great (once I got connected!) but the experience was a little frustrating going through the same steps multiple times but I get they have a job to do and need to take a methodical approach to diagnosing / fixing.

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