I have owned my Sony WF-1000XM4 bluetooth headphones for 2 years. Over the past few weeks the battery life has dropped from ~7 hours to less than 1 hour.
Apparently this is a common problem:
- Rising Number of Unexpected Sony WF-1000XM4 Explosions Are Haunting Users (headphonesty.com)
- WF-1000XM4 - Severe Battery Issues (reddit.com)
I follwed the recommendation in the reddit thread and contacted Sony support. After a brief chat they offered to email a shipping label and repair the headphones at no cost.
If you own a pair of WF-1000XM4s and the battery life decreases suddenly or they get very warm while charging, then you should:
- Stop using the headphones immediately because they could explode.
- Contact Sony support and ask for a repair or a replacement.
Sony should cover the cost even if the headphones are no longer under warranty (mine weren’t); the battery life for a pair of 2-year-old bluetooth headphones should not deteriorate so abruptly.
Update (2024-08-26): I don’t know how long the WF-1000XM4 repair will take, so I bought a pair of WF-1000XM5s.
Overall the WF-1000XM5s are a moderate improvement over the WF-1000XM4s; the audio quality is better and the earbuds and case are smaller.
Unfortunately the Headphones Connect phone app has gotten worse.
Previously the phone app tried to railroad you into signing up for an unnecessary Sony online account during setup. Now you also have to opt-out of integrations with a handful of third-party services (which I don’t use). Sony also removed the option to control the volume by double- and triple-tapping the left earbud.
Instead, double- and triple-tapping the left earbud can only be used to activate the third-party integrations (which I don’t use). You can still adjust the volume by tapping the earbuds, but only by quadruple-tapping (!?!):
Quadruple-tap to adjust volume.
Update (2024-09-07): The repaired WF-1000XM4s arrived in the mail this afternoon. I’m going to continue using the WF-1000XM5s as my primary earbuds and keep the WF-1000XM4s as a backup.