Best Telephone For Datacenters? 110
An anonymous reader writes "I've been struggling to find an effective wireless/cordless phone headset for use in high noise environments, such as a datacenter. I'd love to have something like the helicopter pilots or aircraft carrier deckmen wear, but that can hook up to a pots line (or Bluetooth to a workstation with Skype). Has anybody found a solution they like for datacenter applications?"
Jawbone Bluetooth (Score:5, Informative)
I bought the Jawbone Prime for my Droid and its been fabulous.
Supposedly it was desighned for Helicopter and tank crews, there is a sensor on the earpiece that sits on your cheek, it it can't match a noise from the microphone with a vibration from your mouth, it filters it out. If your jaw loses contact with the sensor it uses normal noise cancelling tech.
I ask everyone I talk to on it how it sounds and they say that I come through clearly.
Pilots use.... (Score:2, Informative)
Pilot's just use aircraft headsets with a plug that can plug into a cell phone.
There's no magic too it, they're just big foamy headphones with a microphone and cost way too much.
Re:LOL DAVID CLARKS FTW (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, David Clarks might be a good solution. They use a pretty standard set of plugs that look "somewhat" similar to what a lot of commercial call center phones use.
But a lot of call center headsets are already similar in noise reduction capabilities, and already built specifically to interface with call center gear, and are probably a little cheaper than a good David Clark headset.
Note to self - see if I can get my DC rigged in to my office phone. Coolest, headset, ever. :)
Re:Jawbone Bluetooth (Score:3, Informative)
I have a Plantronics Backbeat that also doubles as a set of headphones that works pretty well too on my Nexus One (does a really good job of canceling noise). The cool thing about the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One (for those who don't know) is split noise canceling microphones in case you forgot your headset or the batteries for it are dead - with the phone alone (on my N1 at least) I can stand in a data center and on the other end the person you're talking too wouldn't believe you were in a data center.
Plantronics Voyager Pro (Score:3, Informative)
I've used this in my data center, sitting in the hot row on a conference call, and no one complained about the noise & could hear me fine. I've used it paired to my Crackberry as well as my Macbook Pro. Probably the best bluetooth device I've used.
Use aircraft headsets (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ThinkGeek.com (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cell-phone/c8e1/
Re:Pilots use.... (Score:5, Informative)
Generally the microphones on those types of headsets are highly directional and have a bandpass filter to eliminate frequencies outside of human speech - so, no magic, but yes engineering.
Re:Pilots use.... (Score:3, Informative)
There's no magic too it, they're just big foamy headphones with a microphone and cost way too much.
Actually, there is some magic. Aircraft headsets have two plugs. The plug for the headphones are, I think, a standard 1/4" three-conductor ("TRS") headphone plug. The mic on the other hand, is a different story. Some have a three-conductor plug, and others have a four-conductor (the extra conductor being for triggering the "transmit" mode on the radio). In addition, some of the mics require a DC bias voltage (like "phantom power" in music recording) to make the mic work. And the connector is a funky size... a little smaller than 1/4"... like 3/16" or something. Lastly, aircraft headsets are pretty expensive.
Something aircraft headsets do have going for them is that they are great at cutting down noise, since they're designed for an environment which is constantly noisy. However, keep in mind that the aircraft radios do the mic squelching at the radio. So, without a squelch feature, your aircraft-to-phone conversion might end up constantly transmitting the environment noise to the person on the other end of your call.
Re:Jawbone Bluetooth (Score:3, Informative)
I use a Plantronics Voyager Pro coupled with a Droid. It uses dual noise-canceling microphones that handle background noise pretty good - including the data center.
Bose... (Score:5, Informative)
I use Bose QC2's in the DC for long stays, they have a phone connection kit, the mic seems to be very able to keep things quiet on both ends, they keep your ears warm and while not serving as a phoneset they can be used to listen to tunes, I do not recommend these headsets lightly or for anyone not in a NOISY environment, they add noise to the sound in quiet environments.
Peltor Is Your Friend (Score:5, Informative)
We've got two datacenters and I've spent ... well, way too much time in both of them. At some point, our network team discovered the Peltor bluetooth headsets -- see http://www.peltor.com/peltor.com/comm_detail.cfm?prod_family=BlueTooth%20Headsets&ind_prod_num=MT53H7AWS2001 [peltor.com] -- and stocked up on about 3-4 headsets per datacenter.
These things work beautifully. They're comfortable for wear (I typically put one on even if I'm not going to make a phone call), pair nicely with both the wired telephone and my iPhone, have great sound quality while talking to tech support, etc. Can't recommend enough.
Re:Jawbone Bluetooth (Score:2, Informative)
Ditto that on the Jawbone. My boss had a Jawbone Prime and recently switched to a Jawbone Icon. He uses it in the datacenter a lot. I never know he is there unless he tells me. Like most, our datacenter is really loud.
Also, when I am sitting next to him in the office and I make a quip about something he is saying on the phone, the person on the other end can't hear it unless he chooses to repeat it to them. I have gotten pretty chatty with the obnoxious comments trying to trip him up before. I come very close to getting in a lot of trouble on the few occasions he chooses to use his (non-noise-cancelled) desk phone.
The magic is done with a secondary mic that touches his face and presumably only lets through the frequencies it detects he is speaking. Pretty cool really.
How about the ones helicopter pilots etc use? (Score:3, Informative)
Your question contains your answer.
Those headphone and microphone combinations you mention in your question are all available with 3.5" and 2.5" (etc.) standard connectors. If that's the kind of thing you want to use, go get one and use it. There are also several that use USB and in-device coding/decoding so if your Skype requirements involve a laptop of stationary computer, those work as well.
There are lots of full ear-cup and direct boom microphone headsets, and fully half can be used with phones, and probably a third of them are available with amplifiers in them so as not to suck the life out of a cell phone etc.
They are all just really pricey.
On my current DoD project we have tried several brands so far.
Go to a pilot supply store and try a few.
Expect to spend $150 USD or more.
Share and enjoy. 8-)
Re:LOL DAVID CLARKS FTW (Score:4, Informative)
If it has aviation-style plugs you probably can, but it's fairly expensive [marvgolden.com]. Aviation headsets use high-impedance condenser mics that require a power source, so the adapters are not quite as trivial as one might hope.
Hearing Aid Phones (Score:4, Informative)
Where I work we sell super amplified phones for people hard of hearing. I sell a lot of them for people in factories or other loud environments. They are very loud and even have a boost function.
http://shop.clarityproducts.com/products/categories/category333.asp [clarityproducts.com]
I'm sure other similar brands exist but this is the only one I have hands on experience with.
Re:LOL DAVID CLARKS FTW (Score:3, Informative)
The biggest problem I can foresee is power. If you're using some type of wireless, it will take a bit of juice to drive a headset of this size. I can see it wearing out something like an iPhone pretty quickly. If you want to hardline it, I don't see why you couldn't disassemble a POTS handset and wire in a female receptacle for something like the DC headset plugs. I would talk to someone smarter than me about basic electrical circuits to see how you could wire up a volume/gain control to the handset, even though the headset itself has independent volume controls.
http://www.davidclark.com/ [davidclark.com]
Re:Hearing Aid Phones (Score:3, Informative)
Re:LOL DAVID CLARKS FTW (Score:3, Informative)