With the Bose QuietComfort 35 Bluetooth noise-cancellation headphones, it was love at first pairing.

I need to think back to my initial obsessions with the iPhone or Mac Air to find a product that I fell for so completely on first touch. And that immediately changed my behavior.

I heard about these headphones over at AVC (thanks, Fred!), bought a pair for a present last January, was immediately smitten and ordered my own after trying them on.

From an industrial design perspective, they are a thing of pure beauty. Attractive to the touch, diminutive in profile, perfectly balanced, so light and comfortable. Work, pack up in a sec and use again everywhere.

It’s not geeky stuff that matters here (though they nailed the specs on this). What keeps me delighted after months of use is that they’ve made work and play better in very specific and demonstrable ways.

These are the game changers for me with this product.

Provide a quiet and concentrative space wherever I am.

I love the streets and am always out, but I simply can’t work in noisy places.

If you travel frequently, work in acoustically-challenged co-op workspaces, or move around from coffee shop to park to restaurants as I do, the biggest issue is noise as a distraction.

No longer.

The number one change for me is focus and quiet wherever I want it, wherever I am. The QC 35s don’t reduce noise, they literally cancel it out.

Seamless auto-answer through Bluetooth for voice and video calls.

From deep concentration writing or modeling out a plan to taking a call and with a touch, then back.

I still have a childlike delight in the seamless ease of this.

The secret sauce is that there’s noise reduction tech in the microphone itself. You can have conversations in very noisy places, and others can clearly hear without dragging in all the ambient roar of a coffee shop or communal workspace.

The big deal, in a nutshell, is that it no longer matters where you are. You can work or do calls anywhere.

A heads up that Bluetooth is a bit funky at times but the tradeoff is an easy one.

Normalizes audio in multi-location video conference room systems

This is a big one for me as I live on Skype and Hangout, one on one and group meetings.

In normally challenging acoustical environments, I can now listen and work, not make listening to others, the work.

This audio problem is exacerbated in acoustically poor places like WeWorks, using their built-in conferencing systems or even most high-end standalone systems. Emphasis is always on video first and the audio is invariably poor. With the standard meeting config where I call in with others to a team on location in a conference room, this was a nonstarter for long meetings. It just doesn’t work.

Problem resolved with these headphones. It’s put listening in the background and understanding up front where it belongs.

The QC 35s are actually kind of the dream solution– high-tech, beautifully designed, so comfortable you forget you are wearing them. They simply do the job above and beyond.

My pair are part of my go-to bag, phone, Mac Air, fast charger and these. Ready for anything the day has to throw at me.

As exceptional for play as for work

Not many products make it to the top of the list for work and play. These do.

Listening to podcasts and music while I hang around, doing chores or cooking dinner. Late nights in a quiet house watching a movie or talk shows in my comfortable chair with a bottle of wine. Hanging around with samthecat, catching up on the news on Youtube.

They just work as you need them to.

The QuietComform 35 is a truly great product that solves problems, creates new solutions and simply makes my life better and more fun.

That is not faint praise.

If you are looking for a Bluetooth, noise cancellation headphone, this may be it.

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Not to forget colors, they come in a variety of them and you can customize which component are which color. Go to the Bose site for these configurations.