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Bluetooth Headset Roundup
Faeton writes "
HowardChui.com has 5 nifty Bluetooth cellphone headsets reviewed. Looks like we're moving towards the StarTrek Comm unit (check out the size of the Nextlink Bluespoon Digital headset!)"
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I liked the round-up but what matters to me most is price, and I could not find price info anywhere. How much do these things cost?
I don't remember Kirk having his Phaser set to 'Outdoors' or 'Silent'
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
What's with the Bluetooth folks? I've been hearing about this stuff for ages, yet there's so little in the way of actual products out there. What gives?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Price of new mobile phone: $400
Price of bluetooth headset: $60
The look on that chick's face as she sees you talking to yourself with what looks like a cybernetic implant in your ear: Priceless
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I have been doing some modifications to 802.11b notebook cards, namely to increase the potential range of receiving connections... for purely legitimate purposes, of course *cough*
Anywho- I was wondering what sorts of antennae mods could be used to increase the range of bluetooth signals...
A lot of the new cell phones have bluetooth connectivity, I was wondering what sort of fun could be had with a bluetooth sniffing program, or a jammer, for that manner...
Yeah, but which one works well when driving down the freeway in a topless jeep with the (mud) tires howling at 75mph?
Looks like we're moving towards the StarTrek Comm unit
I hope people don't start talking in klingon in public while using one of these...
Hi.
Can anyone point me to links that will tell me when i will be able to use bluetooth headsets such as my jabra earphone that he reviewed with REGULAR phones. Either thru and adapter or a new phone.
Thank you...
A closer example of a Start Trek Comm unit would be this unit from Vocera. Of course, there is also the Nextel system which both behaves and looks surprisingly similar to the communicators from the original Star Trek series.
... is a bluetooth headset that doesn't make me look silly.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
I had mixed results with the Jabra and a non-Bluetooth phone.
It worked reasonable well with my Timeport, but not as well with my wife's Samsung. However, even with the Timeport, it was a pain to Accept a call, or Terminate one. I constantly had to go back to using the phone's button, rather than the headset buttons.
Another problem was determining whether or not it was still in Active mode or on Standby. There is a sound tone which goes up in pitch or down in pitch when you turn it on/off. Most of the time, I wound up leaving it on, having the battery drain, and then not having it charged when I wanted to use it.
The other thing was having to have carry around both the phone and the adapter. It'll will stay in the drawer until I find a Bluetooth phone (although Verizon seems determined to prevent me from finding one), and then we'll see if it was worth buying.
Why is it so impossible to find any of these headsets at local electronics stores (let alone an official T-Mobile, cingular, ATT, or Verizon store).
All I can find is some crappy bulky looking Belkin headset and a huge Jabra one at Circuit City. What a joke!
If you want to talk hands free when you're out and about on you mobile and you don't have the cash to spend on Bluetooth headsets, these things are ideal
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Here:
Even when the BT400 was directly in front of a fan I could not get it to effect my voice. This is due to the BT400's design and not due to any noise canceling.
And Here:
One of the Bluespoon's selling points (besides the amazing size and battery life) is the fact that it has a built in DSP (digital signal processor) that helps cancel noise. In my fan test there was a noticeable drop in fan noise whenever I talked indicating that the noise canceling really does work.
As a side note, I own a Jabra BT200 and it is unusable on the road with the convertible top down. I'm looking into getting an HBH-35
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
These devices will not do much to lessen the distraction drivers have when talking on their mobiles.
f ic -evidence.html
The issue is the immediacy of the mobile phone conversation. It diverts the attention that a driver needs to be placing elsewhere.
http://cartalk.cars.com/About/Drive-Now/scienti
Studies have shown that there is negligible difference in the increased accident probability for users of these devices as opposed to hand-helds.
If you need to take a call on your commute, do us all a favor and pull over!
sorry...i'm a phrase nazi.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
This was a nice review, but I'm curious how all of these perform next to the Plantronics M3000 that's supposed to blow the rest away. This one's supposed to have a battery life of 10 hours. Anyone have any insight on this?
c at alog/display_product_detail.jhtml?rootId=cat115005 7&productTypeId=cat1150057&prodId=prod4960008#
http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/
As an aside, I find that HowardChui.com is a very informative resource for all sorts of cell-phone tech. Definately worth adding to your bookmark list!
(PS. If someone wants to buy me the Bluespoon, I'd be much obliged...)
Bluetooth is kinda like the first time you ever used a remote control for the TV instead of getting up to change the channel. (For those of you who have ever had to actually do that.)
You make one device discoverable and tell the other to search. And if the profiles are set so that the devices can make sense of each other, they start working.
I believe with Macs you can control iTunes with the phone (sounds cool) and others are working on getting Winzip to function.
My experience:
I have a Sony T68i phone w/ Bluetooth. My grey market USB adapter from Mitsumi was a dud, but the second US model worked pretty well thanks to some Widcomm software. There isn't much I've done that couldn't be achieved with a cable, so maybe it is just pure, uncut geek factor.
A major problem Bluetooth is currently facing is interoperability. During the test it seems that some of the headsets were paired with different phones, but they were mostly Nokia phones (which supposedly do not differ too much when it comes to the BT implementation).
Buying one of those earpieces and trying to pair it with your [fill in brand here unless Nokia] phone could be difficult. Not to mention the BT dongle for the PC. If you were hoping for a hands-free headset that gives you more Counterstrike kills, you'll probably find that your dongle does not support the necessary profiles.
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
Bluetooth: erasing the descernable difference between people with really nice cellphones and those with advanced delusional schizophrenia.
Is that person mubling behind you on the train really an important businessman, or does he just think he is? Worse, is that CIA agent who just dialled your number real, or is he just one of the voices? With bluetooth(tm) there's essentially no way to know!
Next thing you'll be thinking you're living in some kind of futuristic hi-tech paradise where people communicate with lightning-powered machines. Yeah right - you're really still back at the pigfarm on Jutland and it's still 1282. Get used to it.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
If you dont have to look at and press buttons how is it any more distracting than conversing with someone in the passenger seat?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I saw this article today and found it very interesting. For all the screaming about the dangers of driving while using cell phones (obviously there are dangers), the AAA study found cell phones to be much lower on the list of problems than one might expect. Far more problems were cause by some very mundane things that I am sure we are all guilty of at some time or another. Notice the statistics at the bottom of the article.
i've wondered about these bluetooth headsets, will they work with a PC that has a bluetooth base???
-- troutsoup.com
No figures for this anywhere. Do you need a tin foil hat to use one?
Oh wait, it's Chui, not Chiu... nevermind.
Ok, so now I have a good idea as to which headset to purchase, now can someone direct me to a list of which phones are Bluetooth enabled and which carriers support them?
I have my hands in your pants. Look down. I'm going to rip of your schlong and stick it on a pole outside of the Microsoft campus. You should too!
The author notes that the Nokia comes with a removable NiHM battery. He then complains that NiMH's suck, because they have memory effects. This is not the case. NiCd batteries have a memory effect, not NiMH's.
Depending on how big your outer ear canal is the Bluespoon can be a tight fit. For example I found the Bluespoon to be painful at first since the speaker was bigger than my outer ear canal though after a few days of usage I got used to it and it wasn't so bad. On the other hand my father (who has a fairly large outer ear canal) found the Bluespoon to fit perfectly.
I cringe thinking about owning another device that I have to recharge and strap to my body.
Stuff that needs to be unloaded off my person as I walk thru the door at the end of a work day:
Cell Phone, Pager(s), Laptop, Keys, Wallet, Garage Door Opener, Coffee Mug, Spare Change (sometimes), daily junk mail.
Argh!!
Now somebody just needs to invent a way to recharge devices without hooking them up to a cord that plugs into the wall. Something like Bluetooth, but for power distribution.
I liked and understood his review. He clearly stated his benchmarking process, and included tests of things real people do. He made mention of things that normal people find annoying. The bit about 'my father has a large ear canal' made me laugh.
If only more video card reviews were like this.
Yay me!
Am I the only one that would love a Bluetooth headset for my computer? I use Mac OS X and have a number of speakable items, and it would be a great boon if I could I use a headset as the exclusive input/output for spoken commands. Why do I never see a single one of these things even make an effort at breaking into the desktop market?
you too can look like a stylish callcenter operative with your bluetooth headset, be the envy of your friends and speak into your oversized hearing aid with a extended straw.
call now operators are standing by to laugh at you while they take your cash
yeah, i look like like a 6' 3" shaved head borg with the sony/ericsson ear piece (which is priceless) but... man what a pain in the butt.
you have to recharge the thing... and i don't know about you -- but i barely get the time to charge my phone as needed. it's also unfortunate you can't chain together charging devices like this -- but that is a whole different gripe.
you have to work with a new interface on the damn ear piece to answer the phone (or send the call back to phone) which is a hurdle. yeah laugh away smart boy... try three of these devices and for a few months and drop one important call and you will never use it again.
because of artifacts of digital transmission (jitter buffers and individual buffer sample size) the use of blue tooth headsets increases the end to end delay over a sometimes already intollerable cellphone network delay.
the price is insane.
reception with the phone is not perfect. I don't understand everything about interference but there is a lot of it... and, again, if you are on an important call you and can't hear the other person you are likely to just drop this thing in the trash.
blueTooth's transmission wave length is in the range of microwaves (i.e. water heating range). why would anyone want that radiation near their brain.
to sum up: save your money...
You dirty, dirty troll.
NiCds don't have a memory effect, either. It's an urban legend.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
there's a dude here in my office that wears one of the Jabra headseats 24/7, and everyone else makes fun of him behind his back. we joke about the guy having been assimilated by the borg. the funny thing is that he's such a loser that nobody ever calls him. we've never seen him actually talking on it. he's an older guy who's always buying useless crap, and it's apparent to everyone else that he thinks it gives him status. it's really, really pathetic. i advise all of you against these. At the very least, don't wear it when you're not using it. thanks. :)
Chaos camp is currently happening in a field near Berlin. There are about 10 monitoring points around the campsite, when someone wanders past with a bluetooth phone in their pocket it is logged on a webpage. The type of bluetooth device is shown along with the device name such as "Jim's ph0wn" or "Nokia 789" This uses off the shelf bluetooth dongles. The potential for tracking people is obvious as is the potential for setting up an early warning system to detect your boss comes through the front door.
Chaos camp has a 155Mbit link via a microwave dish on hydraulic tower mounted on a truck. The camp seems to have fallen off the internet at the moment, a kid has probably single handedly DoSed the entire LAN again. I can't link to the bluetooth tracker page just now.
Who really cares? Guess they're handy if you use your phone a lot, but not for the average joe.
What I want is bluetooth cans (or headphones, for the Americanly challenged). That would be the end of wires for me when I'm on the road with my laptop. And it would be nice to actually use the built in bluetooth in my laptop for something (other than uploadin porn movies to my Nokia).
There is this Korean firm (Openbrain) which have developed bluetooth cans, but this page has been present for more than a year, and they still don't list any retailers anywhere in the world.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Let's see... the lowest cost unit in the roundup is $70, and it's replacing:
:-)
- 3 feet of wire,
- an earphone, and
- a microphone,
which is available at my local dollar store. Yes, for one dollar (cash American) I can get the same wired earbud/microphone that came with my Motorola phone (free), except without the logo.
WiFi at least keeps people from having to ruin a perfectly good weekend or two, drilling holes in walls and fishing cables. But Bluetooth???
I've never understood why someone would want to replace a high security, exquisitely simple, low cost device with a complex, battery consuming, expensive, insecure device. It's not like you have the option of running SSH or IPSEC over Bluetooth, even if you wanted to.
Besides, earphones are cool! You wear them with sunglasses and you look like a narc.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The software you're referring to is called "Clicker," by Salling Software. It can be used not just to control iTunes, but also basically anything else which responds to AppleScript commands.
Note - there is a non-zero chance that this is completely useless. But it's hella cool. Make sure to watch their video (QuickTime required).
If so, why does documentation from the manufacturers themselves often warn of this? Did they fall for the UL too?
Hey, is it possible, preferably in linux or osx, to use a bluetooth enabled cell phone as a modem for a bluetooth enabled laptop? Anybody done it, and do you need a special phone and/or service?
I wasn't speaking of the manufacturers of the cells themselves, but I'd swear I'd seen similar things in the docs for nicad-powered devices. Scams?
This teaches me something I didn't know; thank you.
Why waste all that development time and money on wireless ear pieces for cell phones? The ear pieces in the pictures were almost as big as many of today's cellphones. Why not just make the whole cellphone as an earpiece? Saves on cost, battery power, the number of items to carry around (and lose), and so on. I'd buy one if they did that instead.
Has anyone interfaced one of these to a computer? Do they work on a standard protocol? Something that Linux works with? It would be handy in voice controlling a car computer that I've been thinking about hacking together for fun. Every extra wire eliminated in such a cluttered environment would be a blessing.
I am female. I have a small head and very small ears. I have a Jabra headset now but it's hard to keep it on cause my ear is just too small. The plug that goes in your ear, hurts after a while and the whole thing is not snug, it flops around on my ear. The geeks who are inventing these things need to remember stuff like that, but they never do.
I got one of these models (actually a previous one the HBH-30) so it's good to see it got highest marks. Actually I don't have a bluetooth phone, I have a mac and I wanted to use it with the voice chat programs like ohphoneX or I guess iChat now.
:) hell, maybe I'll dig up a 2.5mm adapter for my ancient but still cool StarTac :-) Why limit yourself to cell phones? ;-)
Anyway, bad luck, OS X doesn't support the right connection mode yet (SCO synchronous connection-oriented) although at the WWDC they hinted that it would be in the next revision IIRC. Until then I'm SOL or looking for other options, I don't really feel like learning how to write an IOKit driver at the moment. So finally I hear about this nifty gadget here and reviewed here which will basically let you connect a bluetooth headset to any kind of 2.5mm jack equipped cell phone / portable phone.
Not quite good enough I'm afraid but actually I figure it will be easy enough to convert the 2.5mm headset jack into two separate plugs (one for mic other for headphones) and plug them into the right jacks in my TiBook. Some instructions are on this discussion board, but actually I think that I might just buy one of the older "hands free car kits" that work through the cassette deck (such as this one or this other one since they're dirt cheap. I'll just splice the casette cable into a regular 3.5mm (aka 1/8") jack. Or whatever. I'm sure radio shack can supply the necessary parts.
Then I'll be able to use my headset with anything! My computer, my camcorder
simon
home page
Now all I need is for these to get cheaper. Say, $20? Though, I'd probably cave in at $40.
The theory behind Bluetooth is awesome- a flexible, low-power, very short-range wireless medium (a personal area network of sorts) that can be used to connect a multitude of devices.
The reality, at least for Mac users, lives up to the theory beautifully. While it's true that the store shelves aren't crammed with Bluetooth devices, the ones that are out there are top notch.
Personally, I have three BT-enabled devices- a 12" PowerBook, a T68m phone, and a Jabra BT 200 headset. I use all three constantly.
I have a couple of friends who are SMS freaks, and I use the PB to send & receive SMS messages with them via the phone. It's SO much easier being able to use a full keyboard instead of the phone's keypad! If a message comes in on the phone it appears in a window on the laptop, and I can reply right away. Also, I synchronize phone books between the PB and cell phone. At home, if I'm working on the laptop and the phone rings it also acts as a caller ID, letting me decide if it's worthwhile to go into the kitchen and get the phone off of the charger to answer it.
Additionally, the Sony Ericsson Clicker application lets you run any AppleScript-able function through the phone. Since you really can do just about anything through AppleScript, the phone becomes a remote control for the computer. It's a nifty novelty that's actually come in handy for me several times.
I just got the headset on Monday, and I'm glad I didn't read the review before making my purchase! I love it to death, and haven't had any problems with range or interference. Voice dialing is effortless, and the convenience of keeping both hands available while talking is far greater than I would've expected. (For me the choice was also a matter of asthetics, as the headset will be integrated into a cyberpunk costume at DragonCon at the end of this month.)
I've heard people compare Bluetooth with 802.11, and I don't think that it's a fair comparison. While there is some overlap in what you can do with the two technologies, I find that they compliment each other very nicely, rather than compete. I like the added security that BT's range provides, and my favorite function of the Clicker application wouldn't work with a longer range protocol. If I'm watching a movie or listening to music on the Mac and leave the room (presumably with the phone on my hip), Clicker will automatically pause whatever I'm listening to. When I return, it starts back up with no interference from me. Nice!
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
I went from a big phone (old model) to a new phone (a lot smaller in comparison) this year. The first thing I noticed was that the mic was further away from my mouth. This resulted in me having to talk louder for people to understand me.
Now, when I look at the pics of these things, I noticed that the mic is even further away from the mouth.
Do you have to scream to make yourself understand, or what?
How smaller can these things get? I mean the distance between ear and mouth isn't subject to Moore's law.
Welcome to 2001, folks.
Leave it in your car in the ashtray, leave your phone in your bag. Get in car - phone rings - pick up teeny headset and talk. Make a call? put in teeny headset, press button and speak a name.
I guess they're one of those things that you only appreciate how nice they are when you use it. I've had numerous handsfree kits for cars and digging out a tangle of wire from your doorpocket and trying to get it connected and in your ear before the caller rings off is no fun at all...
Get S-Man for your P800 and bluejack all those discoverable devices...
There are adapters from Orange Micro, TDK, MSI, and Brainboxes (to name a few) that make the Bluetooth headsets described in the article usable with your Mac.
Since I'm deaf in one ear, and these things block hearing in one ear, the possibilities are interesting...
"I can't hear you honey, I have a bluetooth phone in my ear!"
"Uh-oh, it's the Pointy-Headed-Boss calling - I better switch ears on my phone!"
Excuse me, I am a HUMAN. HUMANS have chicken farms. ORCS have pig farms. Thank you very much.
I use the Plantronics M1000 ($119 MSRP), and it does just fine. I can even have coherent conversations in a machine shop, with 85 dB in the background. The cost - $51.86 plus shipping. The headsets reviewed here are far too expensive for my taste.
Overall this was a good article but it
appears that the tester wasn't aware of the
ability to adjust both the speaker and the
headset volumes during his tests. The version
that I tested for a major wireless provider
had the ability to adjust the sensitivity on
the microphone and the output volume on the
headphones.
As for the interference, that would and does
affect all bluetooth devices. The usable distance
for devices for the Bluetooth Headset standard
(I believe that was the name) is 30ft.
Additionally, one can take the FCC ID that is
listed on each device and check for EM test
results on their SAR testing results site.
Disclaimer: I didn't check the rest of the device
reviews to see if the interference and distances.
Some of the distances may be better/worse for
other devices.
I am working with an app that deals with simple voice recognition (IBM ViaVoice, to be exact). The app works OK, no full dictation, just some very discrete commands.
I was wondering if a Bluetooth headset and a USB dongle would be an adequate mirophone replacement. Voice recognition apps are usually a bit sensitive to mic quality.
Has anyone tries this?
And does any Linux drivers exist that can read the sound stream off a USB dongle?
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Bullshit
There is a HUGE difference between using a handsfree kit and holding the phone in your hand. Both distraction-wise and your ability to control the car (both hands on the wheel vs. one). I've got personal experience with this - I feel very uncomfortable talking on my phone without handsfree while driving (Hence I don't do it.), meanwhile I find that I can easily keep my eyes on the road/mirrors and both hands on the wheel when using a handsfree kit.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It does exist, but it is nearly impossible to reproduce except under strictly controlled laboratory conditions.
Most of what people attribute to the "memory effect" are really symptoms of other problems (Improper overcharging, for example. Also cell reversal in multi-cell packs.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I'll buy one when they're silver and stick out of you ear about two inches ala Lt. Uhura.
Sounds cool, looks cool, but I'm not sure that I would pay $350 dollars just for a gadget. Who knows maybe someday this will be an essential, just like cell phones are today.