Can you hear me now? No.

January 10, 2021 2:48 PM

People keep having difficulties hearing me on phone calls when I use headphones or Bluetooth. No problems when putting the phone to my ear or using speakerphone. No problems hearing other people. I had this problem with my Galaxy S5 and now with my Moto G Power phone. I’ve tried both a Plantronics Voyager Legend Standard Bluetooth and a pair of Bose QuietComfort 20 earbuds with both phones.

With the Bluetooth, people can hear me but not clearly at all. The only exception is when it is wrapped inside my scarf and hat. With the headphones, sometimes people can hear me fine and sometimes not at all. I have suspicions about the headphones being partially broken because changing the phone volume with them doesn’t work right anymore. But even when they did work, people had trouble hearing me especially when there was any amount of wind.

What should I try to fix this? If necessary, I’m open to buying a new Bluetooth or pair of headphones.

posted by catquas to Technology (3 answers total)

Do you have a voice memo app, or a number that you can call to leave a voicemail and hear what your voice sounds like? I did this with a pile of headsets that I thought were "good enough" and upon listening to recordings of all of them back-to-back-to-back, it was pretty clear which headphones were old and bad. To go a step further, you can go out into that windy place and do the same test again, or point fans and introduce other background noises.

Or you can just call in a favor, borrow some time from a friend, and make a bunch of test calls with them using your different headphones.
posted by meowzilla at 4:06 PM on January 10, 2021

I went through 3 sets of Bluetooth earbuds before I found some with a microphone that provided good sound. I'd recommend the Anker Soundcore Liberty 2.
posted by mezzanayne at 5:54 PM on January 10, 2021

Some of the reviews for the Moto G suggested that the speaker wasn't compatible with earphones. Make sure the wired brand comes with a built in microphone on the cord. You might try the local corporate store of your phone service provider for a set of microphone enabled earphones (throw a fit to the customer service line about how loyal you've been as a customer and getting sold shoddy equipment that doesnt support hands free communication and they are likely to credit your account the cost of them.) Good luck
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 4:37 AM on January 11, 2021