This is a non-issue.
Edit: lol; my opinions from months of first hand everyday use are wrong, and should be echo chamber hidden by people who have never used the product.
Not really important, but standing around and tapping on my headphone to trying and failing to pause the podcast I'm listening to feels pretty idiotic.
Edit: Have them since early October
And I consider all of those buttons to be pretty important - I use all of them regularly, including when I'm not right next to my phone.
I just hope the 700's are an aberration, and that Bose goes back to a more practical design next time.
Typical HN smugness.
One person who actually has the product, has used it for months, and has themselves designed capacitive gesture button circuits then went back to traditional buttons - says “they aren’t that bad, work fine”...
And a trove of people who have never used the product downvote and tell them they are wrong.
OK.
No; it’s not a terrible design. I’ve maybe twice had to repeat a gesture. It’s drag up/down for volume, tap for mute, and drag forward for skip song. It works fine. Where the hell do you get the opinion it’s a terrible design if you’ve never used them?
Or by slight analogy: You rate a product 4 out of 5 stars. If someone that hasn't used the product insists on a different rating, they're being smug and part of the negative trove you've described. But if someone just says "4 out of 5? Not good enough when other models are 5 out of 5." there is nothing wrong with that.
You giving the overall product a 5/5 isn't the point I was trying to make. I was talking about your rating in the button category, sorry if that wasn't clear, and it was just an example number.
As a user of bluetooth headphones I am really struggling to think of a button not on that list that is important. The only thing that's really coming to mind is pause but maybe that's what you mean by mute?
Those are literally the most essential buttons and by definition you are mostly going to be touching them when the headphones are on your head where you can't physically see the buttons. This is not a great experience.
B. There is nothing you can’t do here with the phone itself. Volume up and down can be done without even looking at the phone. There is nothing that will stop you from enjoying the product even if you for some reason just refuse to accept the capacitive buttons aren’t trash.
Have you actually had a problem with the Bose capacitive gestures? Because I haven’t.
You and everyone else disagreeing with me. “Important” as I in “I can use them all day without ever using a gesture control”.
How are you going to disagree with me having never touched the product? You literally NEVER need to use the capacitive controls, all the VITAL things are buttons. Does that wording work better for you?
You claimed that volume and skip controls weren't important ("the important controls are buttons ... capacitive interface is for ... vol up/down ..." implies volume controls aren't important). That is what I disagreed with. I don't need to have used a particular pair of headphones to know that volume and skip are important controls for me. Same way I don't need to have used a particular keyboard to know I value having an "e" key.