8 ms·

Gaming wireless headphones, not for gaming but for videoconferencing. Bluetooth headphones are universally terrible for videoconferencing because the Bluetooth

Gaming wireless headphones, not for gaming but for videoconferencing. Bluetooth headphones are universally terrible for videoconferencing because the Bluetooth standard sucks and requires downgrading to telephone audio quality whenever the mic is enabled. Plus terrible latency. Gaming wireless headphones that come with their own dongle completely fix these issues and are perfect for videoconferencing. Someday the Bluetooth ecosystem will get their act together, but it'll be a while and you'll have to buy all new devices because it's a standard made by hardware manufacturers for hardware manufacturers. Also, some of those magnetic USB charging cables to keep them charged without fiddling with plugging in cables. The nice thing about these is that the same magnetic cable can attach to both microUSB and USB-C dongles, so you can charge any small device with one cable. And the dongles are tiny so you just put them into all your devices and leave them there, super convenient.

eddieroger 4y ago
This is a real MVP of the work from home life. Some of them, like the Arctis I have, will present two devices to the computer, so you can have music playing quietly under a meeting, but still have voice for calls at a good quality and controlled independently.
kotaKat 4y ago
Odd, I went the opposite way -- a full blown high-end Bluetooth headset. I'm also a field warrior as well part of the time, so on-the-road audio is important to me and my callers. The Blueparrott B450-XT is an amazing headset. Did I buy it at a truck stop? Yeah. But I've been on an audio call where I literally stood in front of a box fan with my face against the fan and nobody could hear the fan in the microphone at all. The noise cancellation on the mics is downright amazing and everyone heard me loud and clear over fans, datacenter environments, the works.
mikesholiu 4y ago
do you have a recommended brand/model?
- modeless 4y ago
  I'm using a SteelSeries Arctis 1 ($69) and I like it overall. Only minor flaws: the battery life is good but not exceptional (magnetic charging helps), the charge port is micro USB (despite the fact that the dongle is USB-C), the wireless range is good but not exceptional, the shape of the dongle is wide and tends to block nearby ports, but the biggest flaw is the power button which you have to hold down for an eternity to turn it on or off. Everything else about it (functionality, sound, comfort, reliability, compatibility, etc) is perfect for me. If you want options, rtings.com does extremely detailed reviews with more quantitative information than you could ever reasonably apply to a purchasing decision.
  - inconceivable 4y ago
    you could get a usb extension cable and mount the dongle anywhere.
    - gcr 4y ago
      OP says the dongle is USB-C, and USB-C extension cables don't really exist. Quoting OSTz on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_dont_usbc_extension_cables_work/j7svggo/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_d...): > Direct USB-C to USB-C extensions are explicitly forbidden for safety and performance reasons because they defeat built-in safety mechanisms. > All USB-C to USB-C cables should support 60W charging, but there are also cables that support 100W and 240W. USB-C chargers and devices identify a cable's capabilities by reading what's known as an electronic marker (e-marker) inside the cable that explicitly reports >60W charging and/or 5Gbps or faster data transfer capabilities. A USB-C charger will first read a cable's e-marker and adjust its power output based on what the connected cable's maximum charging capacity is. > The problem with extension cables in general is that they don't (and can't) have an e-marker, since by design, normal cables only have one addressable e-marker. Therefore, neither the device nor the charger is aware of the presence of an extension. If your USB-C to USB-C extension only supported 60W, and you connected it to a charger/device combo that could do 100W or more, you could start a fire. This failure is particularly insidious because it can potentially lull the user into a false sense of security; everything might work as expected until they change something, like upgrading the charger, and then it could fail catastrophically. > Another reason extension cables don't work well is that the signal integrity requirements for USB-C's higher transmission rates are very strict. Believe me when I say that cable makers would make longer cables if they could.
arjvik 4y ago
Came here just to mention magnetic charger adapters! I bought a cheap set off of Amazon, and then realized I also wanted non-USB-C tips as well. While the brand I bought wasn't selling them, turns out that the same factory manufacturing them also manufactures for other brands, and so on like the third page of Amazon results I found another product using the exact same tips, but this time also including other types!
TMWNN 4y ago
>Also, some of those magnetic USB charging cables to keep them charged without fiddling with plugging in cables. I've had MacBooks for two decades. Until my recent purchase of an Apple Silicon model, they all used proprietary power connections (first barrel, then MagSafe) on one side of the computer. Since I needed a power supply in two different places, this always meant obtaining a second Apple charger. My current MacBook is the first I've owned that also allows charging from any USB-C port. For the first time, I can * use a small USB charger I already owned (A 27W unit in my case. Yes, the computer does charge under use, albeit slower than with the Apple charger) * charge on the opposite side of where the Apple charger goes (which is very useful for my aforementioned multiple-location usage pattern) * still have an auto-detachable connection by, like you, using a magnetic USB connection (<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCJVL7CD/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCJVL7CD/> is what I use)
spdionis 4y ago
Can you recommend some models for the gaming wireless headphones? Are you using Kleer?
EamonnMR 4y ago
Seconding the magnetic adapters. I use one to quick switch my keyboard between my work mac and gaming machine.
garybake 4y ago
Magnetic USB cables are a godsend for young kids with tablets.
vjk800 4y ago
I've been thinking of buying a wireless gaming headset too. How good is the Linux support on the dongles?
- modeless 4y ago
  Perfect for mine. I think they usually don't need special drivers.
  - jon-wood 4y ago
    They almost all show up as a standard USB sound card to the OS, sometimes two on particularly fancy ones allowing you to separately balance chat and game, so you should be fine.
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      Same here. My Logitech gaming headset works great in Linux. I do have to use some third party thing to adjust the goofy LED colors and side channel volume, though. https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl
throwaway290 4y ago
I use wired. No hassle with charging or dongles. It's not as if I am going anywhere in these since the mic arm is quite awkward looking (but provides unbeatable sound quality).
- modeless 4y ago
  No dongle? The whole thing is a giant dongle hanging off your computer. Headphone cables are far more annoying than mouse cables IMO, and they even affect the sound because it's quite audible when they hit or rub on stuff. Plus I find it surprisingly useful to be able to get out of my chair to grab something while still listening and/or talking. I can even go to another room.
  - raffraffraff 4y ago
    Or take a shit. And then worry that you didn't mute properly even though you triple checked it before walking out of the room.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      I once moved to the couch while wearing wireless headphones and accidentally fell asleep at an important meeting. Thankfully I didn't need to speak anymore (I think). A wire anchoring me to the desk isn't the worst idea...
      - modeless 4y ago
        Haha fair enough!
      - swader999 4y ago
        That's equally on them for running a boring meeting.
        red-iron-pine 4y ago
        Sometimes you gotta do boring meetings, and sometimes everyone has to be there. Most of them could be better, have fewer people, be more focused, etc. -- sure, no doubt. But you can't make every meeting into an action-packed saturday morning cartoon. Like, these compliance forms ain't gotta fill themselves out, and each team has to be there. These JIRA and code-review meets are gonna be lame, but we gotta do em...
dzhiurgis 4y ago
Using laptop mic’s fixes bluetooth issue and massively improves audio quality
- modeless 4y ago
  Yeah it's better than Bluetooth but a mic next to your mouth works far better than a mic in your laptop no matter how good it is.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    You obviously never tried recent macbook...
    - modeless 4y ago
      I have a M1 MacBook Air and what I said is still true. It's a matter of physics.
- ejolto 4y ago
  Then it sounds like you are playing the bongos if you type during a meeting.
  - toyg 4y ago
    And like you're in an airplane hangar when the laptop gets a bit hot.
- vbarrielle 4y ago
  Really depends on the laptop. On my work laptop, the microphone is located next to the fans (instead of for instance next to the webcam). You can imagine the audio quality.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    This also depends on what service you are using. I have done video calls over Jitsi where nobody reported any issues, but immediately after a switch to Discord my voice got apparently drowned in so much noise nobody could understand me and people could only continue talking after I muted myself.
Eisenstein 4y ago
Don't use magnetic USB adapters. They run a decent risk of frying your device. The USB-C spec was not designed to have the connection broken in that way. You will have no issues 99% of the time, but you will eventually have that time when your device gets fried. It takes a very precise design and a lot of clever engineering to have a high-current power connector with tiny pins be able to break without having the ground be the last connection to be broken. It is also easy for the magnetic connector to short the power into a data line, and because it doesn't connect in the proper pin order and has no 'mid-plate' it has no mitigation against arcing. See this picture: * https://imgur.com/a/bMvYtfy https://imgur.com/a/bMvYtfy Notice how some pins are longer than others? They are designed that way so that they connect first and disconnect last, so that ground is always established before and after other pins connect. This prevents connecting and disconnecting a cable from frying your electronics. "The mid-plate shall be connected to the PCB ground with at least two grounding points. The mid-plate shall be designed such that plug pins A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, and B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9 do not short to ground during the connector mating process with an effective 6.2 mm receptacle shell implementation." [1] [0] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Figure 3-13, Page 65. [1] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Section 3.2.1 Interface Definition, Page 43. * https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-connector-specification-release-22 https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-c...
- psychomugs 4y ago
  Among the neurotic optimizations I’ve made to my cable setup - retracting USB-C cables and normal cables of any length, adapters for any and all devices I own - I have avoided magnetic adapters for the above reasons.
  - roym6 4y ago
    How did you make retracting cables?
    - danudey 4y ago
      You just buy them. I wouldn't trust them for high-power or high-drain devices, personally, but you can just search amazon and see what they have.
RobotToaster 4y ago
I use wired headphones (ATH-M50x) with a boom microphone cable, no worries about batteries or dongles.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  But how do you get up and walk across your house to your fridge to get a snack in the middle of a meeting without missing any of the meeting?
jrootabega 4y ago
Headsets with a mic arm that auto-mutes in hardware also have the benefit that you can go to the bathroom, use the kitchen, etc. on mute, but still respond quickly if someone addresses you.
- grungydan 4y ago
  Unless it's a Logitech headset, in which case 90% of the time the functionality of the mic-arm-mute breaks at the software level requiring various troubleshooting dances before anyone can hear you again. How they can be such a leader in the peripheral space but still produce absolutely the worst garbage software will never stop being annoying.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    When you're a leader you can just coast on your brand name!
  - wink 4y ago
    Wow, I have a semi-old Sennheiser PC 320 G4ME (with a cable) and the hw mute has never let me down, also I'm pretty sure it's actually in HW, so how would the software fail?
  - Mumps 4y ago
    I found out, after a full year-and-a-bit that Teams did not respect my Logitech G930 push-to-mute. How no colleague ever informed me, I can only speculate.
    - wolrah 4y ago
      G930 got me too. If it's powered on while connected to external power (like a USB battery) it works as an audio device but none of the inputs work, including the mute command.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    It seems like the mistake there would be implementing the mute in the software instead of a proper hardware shutoff.

eddieroger 4y ago

This is a real MVP of the work from home life. Some of them, like the Arctis I have, will present two devices to the computer, so you can have music playing quietly under a meeting, but still have voice for calls at a good quality and controlled independently.

kotaKat 4y ago

Odd, I went the opposite way -- a full blown high-end Bluetooth headset. I'm also a field warrior as well part of the time, so on-the-road audio is important to me and my callers. The Blueparrott B450-XT is an amazing headset. Did I buy it at a truck stop? Yeah. But I've been on an audio call where I literally stood in front of a box fan with my face against the fan and nobody could hear the fan in the microphone at all. The noise cancellation on the mics is downright amazing and everyone heard me loud and clear over fans, datacenter environments, the works.

mikesholiu 4y ago

do you have a recommended brand/model?

modeless 4y ago
I'm using a SteelSeries Arctis 1 ($69) and I like it overall. Only minor flaws: the battery life is good but not exceptional (magnetic charging helps), the charge port is micro USB (despite the fact that the dongle is USB-C), the wireless range is good but not exceptional, the shape of the dongle is wide and tends to block nearby ports, but the biggest flaw is the power button which you have to hold down for an eternity to turn it on or off. Everything else about it (functionality, sound, comfort, reliability, compatibility, etc) is perfect for me. If you want options, rtings.com does extremely detailed reviews with more quantitative information than you could ever reasonably apply to a purchasing decision.
- inconceivable 4y ago
  you could get a usb extension cable and mount the dongle anywhere.
  - gcr 4y ago
    OP says the dongle is USB-C, and USB-C extension cables don't really exist. Quoting OSTz on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_dont_usbc_extension_cables_work/j7svggo/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_d...): > Direct USB-C to USB-C extensions are explicitly forbidden for safety and performance reasons because they defeat built-in safety mechanisms. > All USB-C to USB-C cables should support 60W charging, but there are also cables that support 100W and 240W. USB-C chargers and devices identify a cable's capabilities by reading what's known as an electronic marker (e-marker) inside the cable that explicitly reports >60W charging and/or 5Gbps or faster data transfer capabilities. A USB-C charger will first read a cable's e-marker and adjust its power output based on what the connected cable's maximum charging capacity is. > The problem with extension cables in general is that they don't (and can't) have an e-marker, since by design, normal cables only have one addressable e-marker. Therefore, neither the device nor the charger is aware of the presence of an extension. If your USB-C to USB-C extension only supported 60W, and you connected it to a charger/device combo that could do 100W or more, you could start a fire. This failure is particularly insidious because it can potentially lull the user into a false sense of security; everything might work as expected until they change something, like upgrading the charger, and then it could fail catastrophically. > Another reason extension cables don't work well is that the signal integrity requirements for USB-C's higher transmission rates are very strict. Believe me when I say that cable makers would make longer cables if they could.

arjvik 4y ago

Came here just to mention magnetic charger adapters! I bought a cheap set off of Amazon, and then realized I also wanted non-USB-C tips as well. While the brand I bought wasn't selling them, turns out that the same factory manufacturing them also manufactures for other brands, and so on like the third page of Amazon results I found another product using the exact same tips, but this time also including other types!

TMWNN 4y ago

>Also, some of those magnetic USB charging cables to keep them charged without fiddling with plugging in cables. I've had MacBooks for two decades. Until my recent purchase of an Apple Silicon model, they all used proprietary power connections (first barrel, then MagSafe) on one side of the computer. Since I needed a power supply in two different places, this always meant obtaining a second Apple charger. My current MacBook is the first I've owned that also allows charging from any USB-C port. For the first time, I can * use a small USB charger I already owned (A 27W unit in my case. Yes, the computer does charge under use, albeit slower than with the Apple charger) * charge on the opposite side of where the Apple charger goes (which is very useful for my aforementioned multiple-location usage pattern) * still have an auto-detachable connection by, like you, using a magnetic USB connection (<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCJVL7CD/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCJVL7CD/> is what I use)

spdionis 4y ago

Can you recommend some models for the gaming wireless headphones? Are you using Kleer?

EamonnMR 4y ago

Seconding the magnetic adapters. I use one to quick switch my keyboard between my work mac and gaming machine.

garybake 4y ago

Magnetic USB cables are a godsend for young kids with tablets.

vjk800 4y ago

I've been thinking of buying a wireless gaming headset too. How good is the Linux support on the dongles?

modeless 4y ago
Perfect for mine. I think they usually don't need special drivers.
- jon-wood 4y ago
  They almost all show up as a standard USB sound card to the OS, sometimes two on particularly fancy ones allowing you to separately balance chat and game, so you should be fine.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    Same here. My Logitech gaming headset works great in Linux. I do have to use some third party thing to adjust the goofy LED colors and side channel volume, though. https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl

throwaway290 4y ago

I use wired. No hassle with charging or dongles. It's not as if I am going anywhere in these since the mic arm is quite awkward looking (but provides unbeatable sound quality).

modeless 4y ago
No dongle? The whole thing is a giant dongle hanging off your computer. Headphone cables are far more annoying than mouse cables IMO, and they even affect the sound because it's quite audible when they hit or rub on stuff. Plus I find it surprisingly useful to be able to get out of my chair to grab something while still listening and/or talking. I can even go to another room.
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  Or take a shit. And then worry that you didn't mute properly even though you triple checked it before walking out of the room.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    I once moved to the couch while wearing wireless headphones and accidentally fell asleep at an important meeting. Thankfully I didn't need to speak anymore (I think). A wire anchoring me to the desk isn't the worst idea...
    - modeless 4y ago
      Haha fair enough!
    - swader999 4y ago
      That's equally on them for running a boring meeting.
      - red-iron-pine 4y ago
        Sometimes you gotta do boring meetings, and sometimes everyone has to be there. Most of them could be better, have fewer people, be more focused, etc. -- sure, no doubt. But you can't make every meeting into an action-packed saturday morning cartoon. Like, these compliance forms ain't gotta fill themselves out, and each team has to be there. These JIRA and code-review meets are gonna be lame, but we gotta do em...

dzhiurgis 4y ago

Using laptop mic’s fixes bluetooth issue and massively improves audio quality

modeless 4y ago
Yeah it's better than Bluetooth but a mic next to your mouth works far better than a mic in your laptop no matter how good it is.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  You obviously never tried recent macbook...
  - modeless 4y ago
    I have a M1 MacBook Air and what I said is still true. It's a matter of physics.
ejolto 4y ago
Then it sounds like you are playing the bongos if you type during a meeting.
- toyg 4y ago
  And like you're in an airplane hangar when the laptop gets a bit hot.
vbarrielle 4y ago
Really depends on the laptop. On my work laptop, the microphone is located next to the fans (instead of for instance next to the webcam). You can imagine the audio quality.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  This also depends on what service you are using. I have done video calls over Jitsi where nobody reported any issues, but immediately after a switch to Discord my voice got apparently drowned in so much noise nobody could understand me and people could only continue talking after I muted myself.

Eisenstein 4y ago

Don't use magnetic USB adapters. They run a decent risk of frying your device. The USB-C spec was not designed to have the connection broken in that way. You will have no issues 99% of the time, but you will eventually have that time when your device gets fried. It takes a very precise design and a lot of clever engineering to have a high-current power connector with tiny pins be able to break without having the ground be the last connection to be broken. It is also easy for the magnetic connector to short the power into a data line, and because it doesn't connect in the proper pin order and has no 'mid-plate' it has no mitigation against arcing. See this picture: * https://imgur.com/a/bMvYtfy https://imgur.com/a/bMvYtfy Notice how some pins are longer than others? They are designed that way so that they connect first and disconnect last, so that ground is always established before and after other pins connect. This prevents connecting and disconnecting a cable from frying your electronics. "The mid-plate shall be connected to the PCB ground with at least two grounding points. The mid-plate shall be designed such that plug pins A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, and B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9 do not short to ground during the connector mating process with an effective 6.2 mm receptacle shell implementation." [1] [0] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Figure 3-13, Page 65. [1] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Section 3.2.1 Interface Definition, Page 43. * https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-connector-specification-release-22 https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-c...

psychomugs 4y ago
Among the neurotic optimizations I’ve made to my cable setup - retracting USB-C cables and normal cables of any length, adapters for any and all devices I own - I have avoided magnetic adapters for the above reasons.
- roym6 4y ago
  How did you make retracting cables?
  - danudey 4y ago
    You just buy them. I wouldn't trust them for high-power or high-drain devices, personally, but you can just search amazon and see what they have.

RobotToaster 4y ago

I use wired headphones (ATH-M50x) with a boom microphone cable, no worries about batteries or dongles.

mrguyorama 4y ago
But how do you get up and walk across your house to your fridge to get a snack in the middle of a meeting without missing any of the meeting?

jrootabega 4y ago

Headsets with a mic arm that auto-mutes in hardware also have the benefit that you can go to the bathroom, use the kitchen, etc. on mute, but still respond quickly if someone addresses you.

grungydan 4y ago
Unless it's a Logitech headset, in which case 90% of the time the functionality of the mic-arm-mute breaks at the software level requiring various troubleshooting dances before anyone can hear you again. How they can be such a leader in the peripheral space but still produce absolutely the worst garbage software will never stop being annoying.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  When you're a leader you can just coast on your brand name!
- wink 4y ago
  Wow, I have a semi-old Sennheiser PC 320 G4ME (with a cable) and the hw mute has never let me down, also I'm pretty sure it's actually in HW, so how would the software fail?
- Mumps 4y ago
  I found out, after a full year-and-a-bit that Teams did not respect my Logitech G930 push-to-mute. How no colleague ever informed me, I can only speculate.
  - wolrah 4y ago
    G930 got me too. If it's powered on while connected to external power (like a USB battery) it works as an audio device but none of the inputs work, including the mute command.
- ridgered4 4y ago
  It seems like the mistake there would be implementing the mute in the software instead of a proper hardware shutoff.