On Lightspeed headsets I bought a couple years ago, from day 1 I’ve had the ANR time out after a few minutes. For a variety of reasons, I never got back to the company (left the country, didn’t fly for a while, had another ANR headset (now a Bose A20, which is great). But I am in the market again for an ANR passenger headset (don’t need a Bose). In looking at reviews, I see many people describe this problem with other manufacturers. What causes this problem? It appears to be a common complaint.
What does it mean, “the ANR time out”?
Airborne_Again wrote:
What does it mean, “the ANR time out”?
I assumed that it meant that the ANR stopped worked, so they reverted to passive mode, after a few minutes.
Passengers not speaking they will go on passive mode?
Timothy wrote:
I assumed that it meant that the ANR stopped worked, so they reverted to passive mode, after a few minutes.
Meaning the ANR turned itself off? My Lightspeed Sierra does that after a while if it isn’t used, but it has never happened to me in flight.
Yes, meaning ANR goes off and headset works in passive mode. Mike and earphones work fine. This happens even if I have done a recent call. Every 5 minutes the ANR has to be turned on again.
On my Bose X this is a feature, not a bug. Essentially the electronics turn themselves off after a while of non-use (IIRC around 20-30 mins) to avoid draining the battery if you forget tom switch the headset off. This should be adjustable somehow. It so far has never happened to me in flight, I think the Boses sense if they’re plugged into an active outlet. I tried to use the headset once on a commercial flight simply to quieten the noise and they turned off after a while.
@WhiskeyPapa on A20 you can take the battery out, you will see some switches, then flip the “AUTO OFF” to off
https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/setting-the-control-module-operation-switches-a20.html
“AUTO OFF” to OFF disable the ANR after 9 minutes, if you don’t speed on A20s
On other ANR models no idea how you can disable “auto off”, but usually it is tricky if the pax don’t speak….
Quiet pax always complain about engine noise but for those who say/hear nothing just get them some CAT ear plugs and save yourself some money
I don’t have the problem with the A20, only the Lightspeed! But thanks. That information is useful.
From Lightspeed Zulu user guide: “Under quiet conditions Zulu will auto shut off approximately two minutes after the headset is removed from our head.”
Is it extremely quite in your cockpit?