However one thing I have noticed is mic quality matters... up to a point.
I'm not even talking mic booms and super expensive setups, the difference between some omnidirectional mic on the bottom of a laptop or the side of one of those bluetooth headphones and pretty much any headset with a mic pointed at your actual face is night and day. It doesn't need to be expensive, but it does need to be within reasonable proximity to your mouth, and preferably not over a questionably compressed bluetooth stream.
I find the macbook pro onboard mic to be superior to every headphone mic and every group room mic I have tested and I have tested many. If you have one and you are using headpones made for music do everyone a favor and set your defaults so that it always uses the mac's mic. With many Bluetooth heaphones you also get vastly better sound quality in your ears if the mic is not in use.
I agree with your statement about quality, but everything is good only until you start typing. Everyone on a meeting will hear it as if their ears were inside your laptop. And when you’re talking while typing, oh god
Out of curiosity, I picked up a Konftel Ego portable blutooth speakerphone for some testing. An integrator turned us on to Konftel as a cost effective alternative to polycomm speakerphones, and they were indeed quite good.
I've been very happy with it! Indeed, I started typing without thinking during a meeting, apologized to the group and they said they didn't hear the typing at all. I was shocked because I am in a temporary setup and am using my mechanical keyboard - which I try to avoid during the day for obvious reasons.
Pretty amazing quality. I ended up getting one for my parents to use on their calls and they love it - works with the computer, their cell phones or their house phone. Provantage has 'em for $80 too.
That is definitely true, but I have developed the good habit of not typing while I talk and muting the rest of the time, or at least when I do have to type.
I agree when compared to BT mics. They suck, in general. But compared to a decent (~50€) wired headset, they lose, hands down. You can also find really decent mics in second-hand stores. I got a 900€ mic for 20€ and just had to replace a few components.
Also, there’s nothing more annoying than hearing birds chirping when you’re trying to have a meeting with the volume turned all the way up to hear you talking. Buy a freakin headset.
Same! The macbook speaker is also one of the best I've heard. Sometimes if I'm not expecting a rustling or footsteps, or a quick car beep in the background of a movie, I'll look over assuming it was a real life sound.
That's coming from plugging a bose speaker in to whatever laptop I'm using before.
The machine has it's flaws, but this part is really close to magic for me.
> Disagree. You still get a ton from a low res image of a person vs a static image.
Like what? Having worked from home since the time when (affordable) connections were too slow for anything but text, it's questionable if audio even brings any value. I never watch any video streams that may be present on calls. They are, while a fun novelty, useless.
> Why would my coworkers need to see the individual pores on my nose anyways?
Your coworkers wouldn't need to see you at all under normal circumstances, but if video is your product then doing it right is worthwhile. There's good reason why movies aren't filmed on first generation iPhones.
People aren't shooting movies, they are just conveying mood and nuance through facial expressions, which is essentially an extra channel of communication that we have evolved to use efficiently. If a team finds that certain discussions go better with video/audio, using a simple web cam will certainly be better than dismissing it entirely jusy because people don't have professional setups
Body language, facial expressions, tone of voice (annoyed, happy, etc), massive speed increase in communication.
Please don't take it the wrong way, but it's extremely strange you don't see any of this.
If I may ask, what do you do for work now? What kind of communication do you need with people where text is as fast as face to face? Have you ever worked in a physical office before? Do you have any issues when it comes to socializing with people IRL?
Without trying to sound glib, it's a long list. I have a number of different jobs across multiple industries. However, director of a beverage company along with working with a software development team are where my calls take place most often.
> What kind of communication do you need with people where text is as fast as face to face?
In particular, software-related technical matters are painful to communicate by voice. Because of that, everyone wants to share their screen to reintroduce text, so any video that is being recorded gets pushed to the side anyway. This where text wins hands down, if you know how to communicate.
Indeed, it has become apparent in the last couple of years, with everyone moving home, that most software developers have no idea how to communicate. Calls have become a crutch to try and fumble their way through it. When you have to repeat yourself over and over again to get your point across, voice bandwidth starts to gain an edge. However, my experience in working with effective communicators in an age when text was the only practical option (long distance charges would have killed you!), it's clear that text is far more efficient when utilized well.
> Have you ever worked in a physical office before?
I have, even in software, a long, long time ago. Some of my jobs also still take me to physical locations. Software has been WFH for most of my software career, though.
> Do you have any issues when it comes to socializing with people IRL?
I guess that's for the receiving end to decide, but in terms of socialization IRL is my preferred mode. Work communication isn't really socialization, though. It's knowledge transfer. And that's where text shines. Not only in its ability to communicate ideas but also the natural maintenance of record.
> Please don't take it the wrong way, but it's extremely strange you don't see any of this.
Frankly, as mentioned, shared screens dominate the vast majority of calls I'm on given the ineffectiveness of voice. Even if I thought there was theoretical value in the video, it would be difficult to give attention to it. I don't find it strange that an animated postage stamp off to the side provides no value at all. What is to be gained from it? You can't see much without taking from the focus.
If you’re in consulting this brings a lot more professionalism to the table if your video and audio are higher quality. For normal coworkers, yea probably not worth it though a good quality mic + boom will be greatly appreciated.
I'd say the opposite. I don't need to have perfect video quality in a business call. I want to see their facial expressions and understand them clearly. I don't care if the skin tone matches reality to 100% or if brightness is perfect.
I'd argue only if you have a presenter without screen sharing, perfect video makes sense. In most business meetings screens are shared anyway or there's a group of people.
