Need a speakerphone for Skype?
Conducting a business meeting and one or more attendees are not in the boardroom but are availble via Skype or SkypeOut? If so, you have the perfect application for a speakerphone.
Maybe you have family members in a conference setting? Again a perfect application for a speakerphone.
In my experince, most calls using a boom microphone and speakers are not of good quality and often result in echo.
I just tested the Radio Shack MV 100 $39 speakerphone with JP White, a Skyper in Nashville, TN. I was very impressed. Even when he walked twenty-feet away I could hear him clearly. Same when he turned his back to the microphone.
Best of all, no echo.
No big surprise. The MV100 is a USB device using DSP technology.
I will pick one up tomorrow while I am in the Bay Area meeting with Stuart and Phil. Radio Shack closed all their stores in Canada.
Thanks for testing with me JP!
From J.P. White
- At my end of the converstaion with Bill using the MV100 speaker phone, I found that turning the volume up too loud caused bad distortion of Bill's voice. I had to maintain a volume of about 1/2. I would have liked for it to go a bit louder but, at the price, it is ideal for a small conference room or home application. All volume adjustments and call initiation/answering are done on the PC.
Being a speakerphone you have to be cognizant of background noises that can interfere with the clarity of you own voice.
It can't rival a Polycom speakerphone but they cost many $100's and connect to POTS lines not PC's.
Shop: Froogle, eBay, Amazon, Radio Shack.
Comments
At my end of the converstaion with Bill using the MV100 speaker phone I found that turning the volume up too loud caused bad distortion of Bill's voice. I had to maintain a volume of about 1/2. I would have liked for it to go a bit louder but at the price it is ideal for a small conference room or home application. All volume adjustments and call initiation/answering are done on the PC.
Being a speakerphone you have to be cognizant of background noises that can interfere with the clarity of you own voice.
It can't rival a Polycom speakerphone but they cost many $100's and connect to POTS lines not PC's.
Posted by: JP White | August 27, 2005 08:59 PM
If you have one of these speakerphones and you also have a headset, how easy is it to switch between the two devices. Like if there are certain calls I want on my headset, and certain calls I'd like to speakerphone with. I suppose a Skype plugin could solve this, is there such a program?
Posted by: jeffothy | August 28, 2005 07:58 AM
The Canadian Radio Shack operation, Intertan dba Radio Shack Canada, which had split off as a franchise of Radio Shack/Tandy was acquired by Circuit City a year or so ago. In the spring Tandy US obtained a court order that effectively meant Intertan had to cease all use of the Radio Shack name. The stores are all still there; as of July 1, 2005 they are called The Source by Circuit City.
More to the issue as shown by the comments, somehow this industry needs an "audio hardware controller" that allows one to access one of multiple modes of using a traditional headset, a Bluetooth headset and external speakers/microphones.
(And I own a Polycom "speakerphone" that plugs directly into my PC audio jacks but it no longer appears in their product line on the website.)
Posted by: Jim Courtney | August 28, 2005 11:18 AM
Bill,
I wrote up the MV900 after seeing it at Von in San Jose. Here's the post. http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/archives/2005/03/mvox_skype_comm.php . It's a little more expensive than the $40 RRP for the MV100. Then it uses bluetooth.
I've had effective conference calls over a laptop just stuck flat in the middle of the desk. However that doesn't always work and volume is often limited.
We could provide them with the plug-in which could do some pretty neat things. Before long, voice activated dialing will be possible on Skype. If they don't do it themselves third parties will provide the software.
Posted by: Stuart Henshall | August 28, 2005 09:45 PM
Hola donde puedo encontrar para Skype un aurilulares con micrófono inalámbricos y que no sean bluetooth sino por infrarojos o RF.
Gracias Antonio
Sevilla, España
Posted by: Antonio Bravo | December 23, 2005 02:52 AM