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proeder · May 5, 2004, 07:41 AM

Hi,

I recently bought the nice Jabra BT250 Bluetooth headset.
To share my experience with you I wrote a little review about it. The headset is very nice to be used with iChat and the Mac.

The review can be found here.

If the link doesn't work go to my homepage and then to reviews and then to "Jabra BT250".

I hope you find my review useful.

Patrick

selowitch · May 5, 2004, 10:16 PM

Apple's Bluetooth software doesn't support voice recognition yet. Until I can get a BT headset that can do all of these:[list=1][*]ViaVoice or iListen with no compromises;[*]iChat;[*]Compatible with Xbox Live[*]VoIP[/list=1]
I'm not buying it.

Applefreak01 · May 5, 2004, 10:54 PM

Originally posted by selowitch:
Apple's Bluetooth software doesn't support voice recognition yet. Until I can get a BT headset that can do all of these:[list=1][*]ViaVoice or iListen with no compromises;[*]iChat;[*]Compatible with Xbox Live[*]VoIP[/list=1]
I'm not buying it.

Yep me too. I would like to have a bluetooth headset that would work with OS X but it looks like that's not going to happen for awhile. Maybe Tiger will have support for voice recognition via bluetooth. One can only hope.

selowitch · May 5, 2004, 10:58 PM

Might it be practical to for the hardware engineers to bypass Bluetooth in favor of 802.11x? Could a headset be made to use that protocol? Is the transfer rate fast enough?

Applefreak01 · May 5, 2004, 10:59 PM

A question about the link to the review. He says it works with iChat on a Mac. Does he just mean that the sound works or the voice chat works. If Apple's bluetooth doesn't support it how can this be?

Applefreak01 · May 5, 2004, 11:01 PM

Originally posted by selowitch:
Might it be practical to for the hardware engineers to bypass Bluetooth in favor of 802.11x? Could a headset be made to use that protocol? Is the transfer rate fast enough?

If 802.11x is fast enough for internet downloads, streaming, etc it should work in a headset application. I think it's possible to make such a device.

selowitch · May 5, 2004, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Applefreak01:
If 802.11x is fast enough for internet downloads, streaming, etc it should work in a headset application. I think it's possible to make such a device.

Then they should do it. Bluetooth has been a very mixed bag thus far. Let's bring on Wi-Fi in headsets!

Applefreak01 · May 5, 2004, 11:08 PM

I guess Apple has another product idea to start researching

jamesa · May 9, 2004, 07:42 AM

http://www.mobilewhack.com/networkin..._mac_os_x.html

the voice recognition thing isn't coming any time soon, I don't imagine. It'll get left to 3rd parties

-- james

Cadaver · May 9, 2004, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by Applefreak01:
A question about the link to the review. He says it works with iChat on a Mac. Does he just mean that the sound works or the voice chat works. If Apple's bluetooth doesn't support it how can this be?

The current version of Apple"s bluetooth software supports audio in/out on headsets.
What may not work via the BT headset is speech recognition. iChat audio otherwise works just fine thru a BT headset.

As for me, I'd like to see someone release a stereo BT headset w/ mic.

Spheric Harlot · May 10, 2004, 06:46 AM

Originally posted by Cadaver:
As for me, I'd like to see someone release a stereo BT headset w/ mic.

"Stereo" as in "CD resolution"?

Not until there is a radically new Bluetooth standard that supports that kind of bandwidth under real-world conditions...

Peter · May 10, 2004, 09:15 AM

a p p a r e n t l y Romeo (the phone controller) may have Bluetooth headset support, so you connect your phone to mac, and headset to mac - and you can talk on your phone via headset. apparently.

Cadaver · May 15, 2004, 06:56 AM

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
"Stereo" as in "CD resolution"?

Not until there is a radically new Bluetooth standard that supports that kind of bandwidth under real-world conditions...

No, just stereo as in stereo. But, yes, I understand that the slow x-fer rate of BT makes it unlikely that anyone would bother.

rocky2 · May 17, 2004, 06:54 PM

I have actually beta tested such hardware and it worked fine.
The key is to encode and compress the audio stream as it leaves the audio source and to decode it at the headset. In the hardware I used, a button battery was mounted in a slot to power the BT stereo headset and the encoder unit at the stereo source (could be a home stereo, PC, Mac or even and iPod) was about the size of a small box of matches and also used a button battery to encode the sream and broadcast the BT signal. I tested it over a range of 5 meters through a 2x4 wall and it worked fine. I am not an audiophile but the music was very high quality and maybe CD level. It was a pleasure to listen to and worked well with no dropouts. Whether the company (not Apple and not in the USA) will bring it to market, I don't know, but I sure wish I had been able to keep the proof of concept unit to use.

Eug Wanker · May 17, 2004, 07:20 PM

Has anyone gotten the Sony HBH-65 to work with iChat? I couldn't get it to work when I tried it a few months ago.

jamesa · May 18, 2004, 08:16 AM

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Has anyone gotten the Sony HBH-65 to work with iChat? I couldn't get it to work when I tried it a few months ago.

Eug,

see my link above. it should be the same for the HBH's.

-- james

Eug Wanker · May 18, 2004, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by jamesa:
Eug,

see my link above. it should be the same for the HBH's.

I had tried all that back in February, but it didn't work. I'll try again later though.

Kevlar · May 19, 2004, 12:38 AM

Ok, I'm kinda confused... in the new Office X isn't there an option to include voice notes while typing in a document? Will the Jabra allow you to do this?

madmacgames · May 19, 2004, 09:07 AM

For anyone with a SE T608 phone, this headset does not work well with the phone. It works well with other SE phones but not the T608 and Jabra has no solution to getting it to work correctly with the T608.

Casper Crane · Jun 6, 2004, 10:57 PM

great review, thanks! i'm sold...

but one question. you described hooking up the headset to a windows machine as well. i was curious if speech recognition works in the windows envrionment over bluetooth headsets?

i ask because the speech to text applications are supposedly much better on windows (Dragon Naturally Speaking) and i have heard of using a windows machine for composition which you can then easily transfer to your mac (David Pogue).

does anyone know if speech to text is supported over bluetooth headsets in Windows?

thanks.