Jon Machtynger is Chief Technology Officer for IBM Collaboration Solutions in the UK & Ireland. Jon ‘volunteered’ to test-drive a GO 660 Bluetooth headset and use it for day-to-day use with Sametime Unified Telephony (and customer demos) in return for a write-up… and hereby qualifies for the honour of being a guest blogger on dadams.co.uk – Darren
The Jabra GO 660 is so easy to use that it took me some time to get it to work.
Let me explain.
When I opened the box, it contained:
- The ear piece
- A car charger with USB port
- Micro-USB converter to allow charging of the ear piece from a computer, or charger
- Various plastic accoutrements to allow me to attach the ear piece to my ear
- A LINK 320 Bluetooth adaptor that fits into a USB port
- A micro-CD
I took out the ear piece, switched it on, and paired it with my iPhone. It took some time for the iPhone to locate the ear piece – the iPhone picked up a bunch of other ear pieces, computers, and other mobiles before noticing the Jabra, which was strange since the ear piece was right next to the iPhone, and everything else was completely out of sight. Once that was done though, pairing the device was trivial as it had a default code.
I then tried to pair the ear piece to the included Bluetooth LINK 320. This simply didn’t work. I tried following the manual, which wasn’t very detailed at all, with no luck. I need to say that this was on a MacBook Pro. I’m not used to things not working on a Mac, so was quite confused. It then occurred to me that the dongle was doing what was probably already supported on the Mac. I simply paired the ear piece to the existing Bluetooth device present on the Mac, and everything worked. I also need to mention that the Mac, like the iPhone, also took some time to locate the Jabra before I was able top pair it. In effect though, there was nothing to do with this device, but to let both the Mac and my iPhone be aware of it.
The sound quality is very good, and the device is very very small. It may be that a background noise cancellation system is working. All I can say is that it seems much louder and clearer than my existing ear piece. One other nice thing about it is that I have it paired to both my Mac and iPhone simultaneously. I can’t use both at the same time, but I don’t have to pair / un-pair the device regularly as I would with other devices.
I’m using the Jabra as a micro-headset for Sametime Unified Telephony, but actually it’s far more useful than that. I now use it as a default remote headphone for content on the laptop within the office. Everything that would come out of the speaker now magically appears in my ear. I don’t need to carry dangly headphones with me to listen to recorded content.
I can see these type of devices being the most widely-adopted as we roll out SUT. Speakerphones and do-it-all solutions like the Jabra PRO 9470 and Plantronics Calisto 800 series have their place (particularly for home working or if you’re important enough to have your own office), but you can’t beat these for versatility, especially with a work force who spent a lot of time on the move.
By the way, you’re right, the GO 660 does have background noise cancelling.