Bluetooth wireless buds for calls?

January 24, 2018 11:00 AM

Hello, I'm kind of tired of buying wireless buds like Phaiser or Beats only to find out that while they may produce high sound quality callers can't hear me. Reviews I've found tend to focus on sound quality and little to calls. I don't really want the Locutus of Borg Bluetooth type of wireless device, but if I have to I suppose I will. Mic pickup must be very good. Does such a thing exist?
posted by tcv to Shopping (11 answers total)

I use an Mpow Hunter bluetooth thingy, and I chat with my mom while biking home most days (I'm just on paths, don't worry.) so it works pretty good. I had an expensive jabra neckband, the Jabra Halo Smart, that she said sounded a little better, but when it kicked it (far too early for it's $100 price in my opinion- they have a warranty, but it was a big hassle and I ended up giving up) I switched to the lower cost model of the same brand, the halo fusion, and it was terrible.

The mpow hunter has been a good lower cost version. The mic is inside the headphone port on your left, so if I am only using one headphone bud, I drop the other one out of its port so that the mic is revealed.

some people think the neckband/halo style of bluetooth buds are VERY stupid looking though, so that's the con of this style.
posted by euphoria066 at 11:14 AM on January 24, 2018

The headsets my employer bought us all when we moved to Skype for all phone calls are made by Plantronics which also makes consumer-level earbuds. I haven't tried them but in case no one else has a suggestion, I'd give them a try (in a scenario where you can return if they aren't satisfactory).
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:14 AM on January 24, 2018

Best answer: I actually bought Apple Airpods to use primarily for phone calls, and they're working GREAT for that application -- nearly as good as my much-more-expensive Sennheiser Officerunner desktop headset -- but obviously they're only really useful with an iPhone.

Are you trying to make calls from a VOIP or computer-based telephony system, or using your cell phone?
posted by uberchet at 11:43 AM on January 24, 2018

Response by poster: I'm just making calls on my cell phone.
posted by tcv at 12:05 PM on January 24, 2018

Best answer: Airpods are approximately the douchiest appliance I've ever owned but man do they work well. I take all my work calls on them - indoors, outdoors, doesn't matter. The audio quality is amazing.
posted by some chick at 2:54 PM on January 24, 2018

Best answer: +1 to everything some chick just said about Air Pods
posted by fjom at 3:28 PM on January 24, 2018

Response by poster: Oh man those are wicked expensive. And aren't they hard to lose?
posted by tcv at 6:02 PM on January 24, 2018

Plantronics makes most of the world’s telemarketer headphones. The backbeat (wireless earbuds) sound great. My favorite plantronics headset is called Focus. They are awesome. They don’t look as cool as some of these other ones but holy cow are they great sounding.
posted by andreapandrea at 9:15 PM on January 24, 2018

Best answer: I've been a near-constant road warrior before, and back then I always had a single-ear Bluetooth earpiece for my phone. THOSE THINGS are serious douchemarkers, especially if you're the asshole who walks around with it on his (and it's always a dude) ear all the time just in case a call comes in.

That said, if you take con calls in your hotel room, having something like that is a major improvement for you.

For a long time I tried to keep folks from using my cell number because I work at home, and have a hardline they can use. This was more about call quality than minutes; the company pays both bills. But in the last couple years reception at my desk has gotten much, much better, and so I end up on the cell phone almost as much as I'm on my regular phone. Which put me back in the market for a Bluetooth device.

I picked the Airpods because of Apple's ease of use, and because of the packaging. You can slip the little box in your pocket and carry them all the time, which turns out to be pretty nice if you're trying to read in the coffeeshop and the people at the next table won't stop talking about Trump or whatever. I never carried headphones with me all the time before, but these make it easy, and so I do. The fact that they do "double duty" makes them worth the extra money, IMO.
posted by uberchet at 6:50 AM on January 25, 2018

Best answer: Nthing some chick and others on airpods. They work so well that I hope they become ubiquitous so that I don’t feel like a jerk wearing them anymore.
posted by umbú at 12:28 PM on January 25, 2018

Response by poster: Well, it looks like I have to give them a try at the least. I have some Christmas money left over and that will help.

Thanks everyone!!
posted by tcv at 8:55 AM on January 26, 2018