Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2 buttons mod by Oscarko

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Make my headphones stupid again!
I've got the plantronics backbeat pro 2 and everything would be fantastic, except I am using them in a bed and that wasn't what good people of plantronics had in mind.
As you may know or not (as apparently I didn't) the "smart" function buttons are on the flat sides of the cups so as you lean on a pillow you will simply press them and beep the next video plays, beep the thing is making a call, beep, beep, beep......in my bed I want stupid BT headphones, not ones that will call police or quick-order pizza when I fall asleep watching the new star trek tv series. (and that is going to happen with the way things are shaping up. Space whales! In a space! Mushroom spores to teleport across a galaxy when you hook them up to a dude!. .whatever the script writers are smoking these days must be potent)
But fear not I have a 3d printer and a caliper and 20 minutes to spare and I am not afraid to use any of those things. And no need for mushroom spores this time.
Now, I didn't want to make permanent changes in case I will change my mind and use them outside where I would badly want to make calls, use them as headset and talk very loudly so everyone on the street could hear my conversation with my cleaner and do all that while having my phone in my trousers. (fat chance, I look like an idiot even without doing all that)
So I am not going to destroy anything, just replace the button faceplates with dumb faceplates. And if the headphones break and need warranty repair, I can swap things back and nobody would be wiser.
Now first how to remove the original faceplates - they are just snapped in with few tabs, but look on my pics where are the tabs. (left and rigth side are different)
Use thin plastic tool or something thin like a flexible palette knife, or just first try to pry it with your fingernail, then stick the palette knife to pop them off. The tabs will not get broken if you are careful. The side with play button has only 2 tabs up and down, the other side with the call button has 4 tabs.
You want to print the two L and R inserts - they are perfect fit. I made them customizable. In my case I wanted to glue a leather on top of my new insert because I am was born with a leather silver spoon in my mouth and I am very fancy. Very fancy!
But you can print other tops - I gave you two - a simple grid and a Daenerys Targaryen Dragon crest (she doesn't know). Those should be glued on top of the printed inserts.
But you can be creative - you can print the insert in one color then print the top part in another color and glue them. Or you may sandwitch some film between those things - it is up to you.
I went with just a classy look for the above mentioned posh reasons and I had the same leather that the headband is made of from some old sofa. (or close to it) You can also glue some exotic wood veneer (about 1-1.5mm) that would look very posh too.
You may use some small sticky tape to hold the inserts in. I wanted to make them removable eventually so the tabs are just push in, not hook tabs as on original.
The volume rotary is not affected by this mod.