Item — HN Reader

"An important piece of feedback we’ve received from the community during this discussion is that you want the ability to downgrade the firmware on your Bose QC35 product. Today, we’re re-introducing the ability to downgrade firmware QC35 II to 4.3.6 and QC35 series 1 to 2.5.5 via the Bose BTU site for a limited time."

A limited time? Why? How limited?

2 comments

A better question is why they are letting customers do this at all since the whole article proves that there is no point in downgrading. It seems to only add additional confusion if you ask me, and plays in the hands of customers who claim that there's something wrong with the software even now that Bose has proven beyond all doubt that there is not.

My guess: loud, obnoxious, forum participants who won't stop brigading about it. Providing the downgrade – while technologically pointless – will rob those forum participants of their bluster (although they'll probably claim the downgrade is a lie or some other conspiracy).

I agree with your guess, what I don't understand is why they would play along with this type of delusion. It's not going to accomplish anything apart from making these people more convinced in the face of opposing evidence that they were right all along.

It also gives users the trust of being able to run their preferred firmware on the hardware they own. Then they don't have to avoid upgrading as seen in e.g. this other HN comment [0].

I totally understand dev's wanting their customers to run the latest version for a number of reasons. And it being hard or even impossible for e.g. online services to keep older versions available. It's totally reasonable to have the default setup auto update or strongly push the latest version. But a motivated user wanting to run a specific version should have the ability to do so. Especially when we are talking about hardware.

Yes, some users will be idiots and cause support work. But if the companies behavior indicates no one using the product can be trusted to not act like an unreasonable idiot, it's not a big stretch that customers will think the same about the producer.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22783345

On the other hand, it makes a good impression on people like me. I have stayed away from the update due to the forum posts, and I very much think that this in-depth investigation from Bose could be the deciding factor for my next purchase as well. That they both investigate AND let people downgrade returns my confidence in the premium quality of the product. Good PR stunt or good customer care? What's the difference! I am happy. My firmware upgrade went well, by the way. Sounds as good as ever, possibly better with a more caramel flavoured sound in the high notes?

Also, I'm a little confused why I have 3.0.3 firmware on my QC35's and it says there is no update. I'm happy to stay on 3.0.3, since it's works for me, but it's odd. Used the app not the BTU site to check.