How To Enable Noise Canceling On Bose Headphones

Making a phone call or immersing yourself in your music when you're out and about at work or commuting is rarely pleasant and distraction-free. Unwelcome sounds, voices, and noises disrupt your listening experience. Normally, you can crank up the volume until you drown out the outside world. But turning it up that loud is uncomfortable to the ears. That's where noise cancellation comes in.

In oversimplified terms, headphones (and earbuds) that offer noise cancellation use an array of microphones to catch noise waves and feed your ears the exact opposite of that wave, effectively muting the noise (via Bose).

With noise cancellation active, you don't need to boost the volume to uncomfortable levels. But you might not wish to wall yourself off from the world either. Some sounds you don't want to erase, say, the commuter train announcing your stop. Enter Bose noise cancelling headphones; they let you enable noise cancellation without enveloping you in an audio cocoon.

Bose headphones support multiple noise cancellation levels. You can set the active noise cancellation high to tune out all white noise and ambient sounds for a clean listening experience. Or, tone it down to allow some sounds and voices. Bose provides up to 11 levels of noise cancellation for newer models. 

You can choose whatever level suits you or your surroundings using the Bose companion app or the noise cancellation button (or swiping if you're listening on earbuds). The fine, granular control comes in the shape of a slider for newer Bose headphones. But even older models offer two basic presets: high and low. Some Bose headphones also have Aware mode or Conversation mode. You can press the Aware button and listen to outside sounds and voices without taking your headphones off. Noise cancellation also works with the headphone mics, so when you're making a call, the receivers will only hear your voice, not the ambient sounds and noises around you.

To activate noise cancellation on your Bose headphones,

1. Turn on your headphones and connect them to your device.

2. Open the Bose Connect app on your phone. Get the app from the App Store or the Play Store if you don't have it already.

3. The app home page should show the headphones you're using next to the volume and noise cancellation sliders.

4. Slide left to right to pick your preferred noise cancellation level.

High noise cancellation erases all sounds; medium noise cancellation allows some awareness of the environment; and sliding it all the way to the left disables noise cancellation. Plus, there's a separate toggle for disabling noise cancellation in settings.

You can also create favorites to toggle your preferred noise cancellation level quickly.

1. On the app home, tap the gear icon on top to access settings.

2. Tap one of the three customizable favorites.

3. Select the preferred noise cancellation level.

4. Tap save.

5. You can now access these favorites from the app home (via Bose).

When you power off your headphones, the noise cancellation level will revert to the default. You can toggle the "Remember my last setting" switch to prevent that.

For earbuds, you can either use the slider or swipe left or right on their touch surface to change the noise cancellation levels.

Some older models come with a different app interface. To enable noise cancellation for them, go to Settings, tap Noise cancellation, and select from High, Low, or Off modes (via Bose).