Wireless headsets (was Re: FW: The FP Room: Meeting with Kenand Laura Brody)

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services" <mschw at athenet.net>
Cc: "'Filepro 2 List'" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:16 PM
Subject: RE: Wireless headsets (was Re: FW: The FP Room: Meeting with Kenand 
Laura Brody)


>> Google for "bluetooth headset" (without quotes).  They're typically aimed
>> at hands-free cell phone use, but there are bluetooth adapters for PCs as
>> well.  Also "wireless usb headset" (again without quotes) pulls up
>> several.
>> | Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |
>
> Yeow!  The first few I pulled up were quite pricy.  The GN Netcom
> 9120 was the cheapest one, at $400.00!

whoa whoa whoa, they are usually between $50 and $150, most common about $60 
to $90.
A usb bluetooth transceiver (little thing looks just like a usb thumb drive) 
is about $40 to $50

However...
Although I have read in various web discussion forums that it's supposed to 
work and does work for many, I have not been able to get it to work.

I have two different usb transceivers and two different bluetooth headsets. 
All brand new latest model new stuff.
And I can't get the headsets to work with my laptop as an audio device. 
Trying not to get too far off topic getting into the details of configuring 
a bluetooth device in general, I'll just say that the the two devices 
(laptop and headset) see each other and sucessfully pair, but windows 
doesn't then DO anything with it. Both headsets work fine with my phone and 
both tranceivers work fine in windows for hotsyncing the pda.

It may just be because I have XP SP2 and some people have said that they had 
problems only after SP2. SP2 includes bluetooth support built-in to windows 
for the first time. Before that you had to install some stuff from the 
manufacturer and it seems that older stuff worked better, but after SP2 you 
don't have the option to install it, the built-in support blocks the add-on 
support from working.

It may just be my particular choices of tranceivers. Apparently not all 
devices support all modes of operation, but both mine claim to be fully 
generic and not specialized for example to only work with a mouse.

I paid $80 in a brick&mortar cingular store for a Motorola HS-820 but they 
are about $60 on-line.
I paid $70 on line for a Jabra BT-250 which is a little older but which I 
vastly prefer for it's design.
Both of those are supposed to work fine with Windows not just with a 
bluetooth phone, so, just in case it's my tranceiver that's not compatible, 
my tranceiver is a io-gear GBU211, $42 at Compusa, which really is another 
case of latest & greatest, class 2, bluetooth 1.2, SHOULD work great but...
My other tranceiver is an older generic Ambicom BT2000C, bluetooth 1.1, 
class 2.

google for a known working combo instead of taking the unlucky pot-shots I 
did and you should be able to get a working set up for about $100 all 
together before shipping & tax. And both devices are then useful for other 
things too. With the same tranceiver you can get a bluetooth mouse, sync a 
pda or your phones address book via bluetooth, and the same headset should 
work with any bluetooth cell phone etc... You'll have entered the world of 
bluetooth basically. Some headsets like my Jabra can only pair with one 
device at a time, but others like my Motorola can hold 8 pairing configs at 
once so you can pair the headset with 8 different things and then use any of 
those things at will (PC, phone, other phone, etc) without further fuss.

Beware that there is old and new bluetooth. Bluetooth 1.1 is an older 
standard that suffers interferance with wifi and 2.4g cordless phones on 
rare occasions. 1.2 is a newer standard that cleans that up. Then there is 
Class 1, 2 or 3. Class 1 is the strongest radio power and reaches about 100 
meters. class 2 is the most common and goes 10 meters. class three must have 
very peculiar usage at only 10cm.

If all this sounds unpleasantly and unecessarily complicated and riddled 
with pitfalls, I AGREE. I'm slogging through it and will keep trying until I 
get everything I want because I now have a bluetooth phone/pda and want to 
get things set up so that I don't need the seperate non-bluetooth rf 
transceiver for my current wireless mini mouse any more, nor the usb cable 
for my pdaphone, and be able to use the Jabra headset with my laptop with 
ivocalize and with the voip software that lets my laptop become an ip phone 
on my companies phone system. And have the bluetooth tranceiver permanently 
installed inside my laptop or maybe get a pcmcia or cf card version that I 
can just leave installed all the time. Then there are car kits that let your 
car tie in to your phone for hands-free car-stereo integrated phone use 
without plugging anything in... Many cars have that built right in now 
actually.

> I should have been more specific when I said that I couldn't find a
> wireless headphone that also had a wireless microphone attached to it.
>
> There's also the problem of, "How would I press the CTRL key on my
> keyboard if I want to talk into the microphone, and am not sitting in 
> front
> of my keyboard".

Now THAT is a good question.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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