Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes
This is post entry is a summary of my experience with three different headphones until I found one which is compatible with Google Meet (professional version of Google Hangout). I spent a lot of hours every day working with video conference applications like Skype and others. It means stay sat for a long time, and when I don’t have to be in front of my screen I appreciate if I can walk around my room. Of course, this is only possible when the headphones that you use are wireless. A long time ago I had wired headphones and ended tired of having small incidents which damage my ears or drop off anything which was on my table.
So, I decided to read some benchmarks about high-quality headphones, I considered a tool for my job and I decided to spend my money. Having my requirements as a reference and using the benchmark readings for checking them I finally bought the Sennheiser PXC550. I’m not going to say whatever you can find in regular reviews, just some words to say this is a very good product with an excellent sound quality. But, not works with Google Meet (Hangout). What I mean is my voice it could not be understood by other peers. It’s impossible to understand anything. Using applications like Skype, or phone calls the quality was very good. Or using the headphones from my mobile phone and the Google Meet application the quality was good.
Thanks to Amazon guarantee I returned the product and I bought the Bose QuietComfort 35. Also a very good product, maybe a little bit worse than the Sennheiser one in some aspects but anyway a world-class product. Problems with Google Meet (Hangout) were even worst, in this case, sound quality was bad not only from my mic also other people of conversation had a really bad quality. Again with Skype, the quality was good. But when I connect the headphones to my mobile using Google Meet the sound quality was horrible, impossible to use.
Finally, I bought the Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2 SE. From those three that I tried this is the product with less quality IMHO. But Google Meet from my laptop works, my voice quality is not very good but it’s good enough for using them. Again I’m talking about a very good product, with a very good quality. In front of the other two, these ones are weighty, old fashion design, less comfortable, and worst sound quality. Some advantages that I found, the most important of course is it works with Google Meet (Hangout). The sound is louder at the maximum volume, and there are physical buttons for mute and on/off/pairing. Another advantage is the Bluetooth class 1 which give better coverage when I’m not next to the computer.
I didn’t say anything so far, but I’m talking always about Bluetooth connections with my laptop where I have a Windows 10 installed with Google Chrome. Laptop Bluetooth version is 4.0 HCI and LMP version: 6.1280 manufactured by Intel and driver version is 19.30.1646.853 (date: 2016-11-14).
If anybody knows a little bit more about this topic or wants to exchange any similar experience I’ll appreciate.