Headphones aka: Marriage Savers

Sonya and I have been married for around 30 years.  We know we are different and we know neither of us is going to change much.  Living in a small motorhome magnifies these differences.

One of our differences is our sleep habits.  Sonya needs much more sleep that I do.  She goes to bed around 10 and wakes at 8.  Me, I go to bed at midnight and wake at 7.   Sonya also takes a little bit of time to get going in the morning.  Me, when I am up I am up.

Sonya's response:  I would sleep later than 8 am if Don and the dog would let me, but Don is noisy in the morning and the dog licks your face if you aren't paying her attention.  And she wants both our attention in the morning.

Sonya needs quiet when she is asleep.  I usually have the TV going even if I am not watching it.   At home we go to opposite ends of the house.  In a 23 foot motorhome there is no opposite side to go to. So I was given a mandate, get some headphones to watch the TV so my wife could sleep in peace.

Since this was for my wife after all, I decided to go all out and spare no expense.   Only the best for Sonya especially if I am the one to have to use it.  I got a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones  Very expensive, but only the best for my wife after all.

In all seriousness, I have always wanted a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones and now I had an excuse.  You would see all of the road warriors on the planes have a pair so they did not have to listen to the engine noise.  I never could justify the expense since I did not travel that much and the drone of airplane engines puts me to sleep anyhow.

I really wanted a pair since they were the height of luxury.  I had tried them a couple of times in a store and WOW! was the only response that was appropriate.

Bose has always been at the top for audio equipment.  They are the unquestioned leader for active noise cancellation.  The QC35 headphones are their latest and only came out in June of this year.  All I can say is they are great and work as advertised.   Don't like the air conditioner noise, put on the headphones with noise cancellation on and no noise.  Generator noise, you might feel the vibration but you won't hear it.  Sonya says they work great for what we bought them for, she has not heard the TV while I have been using them.

The headphones come with a case to store them in, a charging cord, a traditional 3.5mm cord, and a 2 prong adapter.  They also have a built in microphone for using with a cellphone.  If you do not like black, they are also available in sliver.

The QC35 headphones cover your ears so no sound penetrates or for our use,  escapes.  They are very comfortable. The padding around the ears is like memory foam and is great.  They have bluetooth if you want to use that method to connect to devices.  They are also have an input for a traditional cord if that is better for your application.  

The active noise cancellation requires power.  They come with a built in battery that has to be recharged every 20 hours of use.  It uses a USB port to do the re-charging.  I have moved to this approach for everything.  The USB ports in the Fuse are perfect for this.

Since the Fuse TV does not have bluetooth built in I took the simple approach.  I ran a $10.00 12' audio cable from the TV to the head of the bed.  I dressed the cable so you could not see it above the valance and I was in business.  I just left the end dangling so it was easy to plug in.

I leave the audio cable connected to the back of the TV. We use the remote to turn on and off the speakers on the front of the TV.  This setup works pretty well and there is no fiddling wth cables in a confined space.

Since the headphones are Bluetooth as well, I have connected them to some other devices.  I have connected to the Jensen radio above the cab over bluetooth.  I have have also had the headphones work with my iPhone and computer using Bluetooth as well.   It all works well.

There is another option if you decide to go down this path.  There are bluetooth dongles that can be attached to the TV audio jack.  You can search for "bluetooth audio transmitter" and see lots of them.   If I slept on the drivers side bed I would have had to go this direction.  I did not do enough research to see if the TV USB ports were powered, how well these devices work with Bose headphones and which ones did not have the dreaded lip sync delay problems.  I went for the guaranteed approach and have been very happy so far.

You don't have to use a set of Bose headphones to get most of the benefit of this project.  Using the audio cord and the earbuds from your cellphone will give you 90% of the benefits.  You will also only have $10.00 invested in the project.  But Sonya's comfort is my paramount concern and nothing is too good for her :-)