How To Get Better Bluetooth Range Using Blue Beacon Range Extender for Bluetooth Headsets - Jabra

[00:00:00] Rolando: And welcome to another session of Teck One-Two. I'm Rolando Rosas, the founder of Global Teck Worldwide, and today you're in for a treat as we explore Bluetooth and how to get the best possible range when using Bluetooth devices. If you look through all of Amazon and you focus in on any Bluetooth headset, including some of the best selling ones or Bluetooth headphones, you'll find that there's many one-star reviews, even the best of them.

[00:00:45] And the biggest reason is that people can't connect. They can't get the ranges advertised or the connection is dropping. It's all centered around the connection. I'm going to show you today how to get the best possible range when using a Bluetooth and some pointers on how to solve that problem. Alright, so as we get into it, we're going to jump into our own products that we have featured today on Amazon.

[00:01:11] We've got a series of products that we want to show you from a Bluetooth perspective. To also to highlight how you can go about solving this issue. So, Orey why don't you go ahead and throw the Blue Beacon to what we're talking about here. Now, we've got a product called the Blue Beacon Range Extender.

[00:01:31] This is for your Bluetooth device when you are using it with a computer. When you're using any Bluetooth product with a computer there's something you should know. We've done some extensive research and we've looked into this and we've found a research paper that was published just recently by the Intel Corporation.

[00:01:49] They make all the chip sets for the mobile devices as well as a lot of the laptops, and what they discovered is that many of the USB ports on a laptop are not shielded, and that causes interference and causes some problems. Bottomline is there are some issues when using dongles such as these, and I'll bring it here on a closeup.

[00:02:09] You could see that, and these could be from any manufacturer, any of these, dongles, they're more than likely to get some interference, and we're going to show you with this Blue Beacon and how to solve that problem. The other problem that people run into, if you're not using a computer and you want to use your Bluetooth device, whether it's headphones or some other with your mobile device, I've got a mobile device somewhere around here. You got a real old one, but it's still the same thing to show you. When you're using it in the native form, essentially connecting a Bluetooth device, a headset, or headphones to your Bluetooth phone, the most important thing here is line of sight.

[00:02:45] Can this device, can this headset actually see it literally? Is there a straight line of sight? But if you've got this mobile device and you've got something in the middle, let's say I've got it over here and maybe this microphone or even my own body or it's books or a monitor, somewhere in the middle, it is going to have a problem.

[00:03:05] Why? The reason is that Bluetooth is a very sensitive, very low power type of signal. And because it's low power and it is a very sensitive signal, it doesn't take a lot of interference either in the way of something physical or in the case of electronics to get in the way like another wifi signal or multiple wifi signals.

[00:03:27] So when you have those conditions where your headset sees your device and it's got a direct line of sight, whether it's this way, vertically, horizontal or some other way, you're going to be fine. But the moment maybe you start putting your smartphone in your back pocket or goes in your purse or somewhere slips underneath the car, under your car seat or something like that, or you move to the kitchen when you walk around, you may find that the signal will drop. And you're probably asking, "Well, what's the whole purpose of Bluetooth if I can't use it?" Well, it's really meant to be a very short range type of signal for you to communicate with your mobile device. And over the years there's been some tweaks, but the principle of Bluetooth still remains the same.

[00:04:11] The ideal situation is short range, less than 30 feet, so that you can have some cordless freedom around your mobile device. Now, let's go to the computer side, which is where this Blue Beacon that we've got today and that we're featuring comes into play. With so many people working from home and many more returning to office having bought many Bluetooth devices over the last 18 months, many of our customers are coming to us and saying, "Hey, I want to use my Bluetooth headset with my laptop, or I want to use my headphones at work or even a Bluetooth phone." All of these are going to have the exact same problems because it is using Bluetooth when you start using your devices with another Bluetooth device.

[00:04:59] So one of the things that we found in doing some research was that to solve the problem of interference with USB ports, as well as to solve the problem of connectivity, what you really need is a better way to get line of sight. Now, there's a lot of different tricks and tips on how to do that, but what we essentially do is we have an adapter that you will plug in this case, I have the dongle here. I'm going to plug the dongle right into the one end of the adapter and the other end is the USB end. It's going to plug right into your USB port. So what we're going to do is essentially give you three feet. You can't really see it because it's out of camera, but three feet that you can take this particular adapter and stick it on a monitor. You could stick it on the back of a laptop anywhere. Oh, thank you for that shot. That's exactly what I want. So I want to show you the concept here. Think of this like a cell phone tower, a cell phone tower for your Bluetooth device. So if I've got this up here, anything down here, where in this case I've got let's see. I've got these headphones. I've got direct line of sight because there is nothing interfering. But if I were to bring this down here where most people have their laptops, though again, the dongles over here, and maybe we plug it into a laptop over here that's in front of me or behind me. Now you see where I've got all these different things around me.

[00:06:27] I've got my headphones here, but I've got a speakerphone here. I've got my keyboard here. I've got all these other objects that are laying right at the same level. These objects are all going to cause interference. All of them, and all of them will reduce the range that you can get on your device. And instead of getting the 30 feet as advertised, you're probably going to get 10.

[00:06:49] And I could tell you from my environment right here, that's exactly what I see. Right here, and I've got my laptop behind me. And you know what? On some laptops, the USB ports are in the back. So it makes it even worse. The problem becomes even more magnified when that's the case. Or you've got the laptop and the USB port is kind of below its inset, below the laptop that's also going to magnify your problem.

[00:07:13] So now if I were to take this, again, same thing. I were to take this adapter and I just put it behind here. I'll move to the side. I've got it here so that you can, okay. Okay. Alrighty. So, I've got this here and now I've got the adapter plugged in into the laptop wherever I go around this office all of the clutter that's down here, all on desk level, that interference has gone away.

[00:07:47] As well as I've separated some distance between the USB port that may be causing some mute interference and the signal that's coming out of this dongle. So that's why this is important. Orey, are you still hearing me clipping, or are we good? You are. So let me turn this down. How about now?

[00:08:06] Is that better? Did that take care of it?

[00:08:12] All right, so I'm being told by my producer here that there's a little bit of some strange noise out of my microphone. So if you could bear with me, I'm going to make a slight adjustment on my end. Okay. Audio, let's see. How about that, Orey?

[00:08:37] All right. We still with the issue or did it go away?

[00:08:45] Okay, well, let's just go on Reddit. Okay. All right. So, hopefully maybe it'll clean itself up. You know, when you're live, you'll run into these things and that's happened before. So let's keep going. Orey, the people want to know what is going on with this stuff, so we'll power through.

[00:09:04] Okay? And hopefully the people will stick with us on this. Alright, so we're talking about this, uh, and you can't really, why don't we just turn it around this way? So, You're probably asking yourself, Hey, is this problem something that I'm going to see on the most expensive devices? Yeah. You go out and look at the reviews for Bose or any well-known Jabra.

[00:09:28] I've got a Jabra here. I've got a Voyager Focus 2, the latest and greatest from Plantronics right here on my desk. And guess what? When you use these devices and you're using Bluetooth, you're going to experience the same issue that I just outlined before. They're both prone to interference, even among the best devices.

[00:09:49] And the way to reduce that is with that Bluetooth adapter that we call the Blue Beacon. All right? So a lot of people don't complain about it, but when they do, you'll find that it's always the connection. And it's a really simple solution to use, especially when you're on your computer. And I'll just give you also a little story.

[00:10:08] When we got these here in the office and we finally finished production on them, and I took it home with me. I found that with both of these, I could normally just go around what you're seeing here in my environment. That's as far as I could go before using this. And when I would walk over to the kitchen to grab something to eat, or if I'm on a conference call, I would, as soon as I hit the kitchen area, boom, the signal would drop.

[00:10:35] After using this Blue Beacon adapter that we've been talking about, I could not just go into the kitchen and grab a bite to eat. I could go to the front door and my office is at the back of the house, and obviously the front door is all the way in the front. So I can actually go out to the front door, pick up a package when Amazon or some other delivery guy would come, or somebody, Girl Scouts, or anybody else, knock telemarketers.

[00:10:59] Oh, we get all kinds of stuff around here. So, I could actually go, so it increased the range in my environment. It increased the range by at least twice the distance that I was getting before, and that's because all we did was eliminate the interference. So on my monitor you can't see it. It's off to the side here.

[00:11:18] I would be like about here where my hand is at. We're right behind my monitor is where I would have, I normally have my blue beacon, so it's up pretty high. So when I get up the headphones, if they're on me, they're here. They're eye level, so normally they'd be down here where your USB laptop is or your computer.

[00:11:41] Or even worse, if it's down below. And if I stand up now, my line of sight has changed, but it still remains where you see my finger pointing? That's where my finger was pointing up here when my finger was pointing up there that's where the new line of sight would be established with that Blue Beacon.

[00:11:57] And so as I move away from here and go into the kitchen or go into the living room or go out to the front door, I would still have line of sight. So problem solved. All right. Yes. Okay. So let's see. My producers tell me, we've got some questions here. Why don't you feed them to me, Orey? Go ahead. Tell me what, okay. Hey, Sonya, thank you very much. Where, if you are still on the chat, let us know where you're tuning in from Sonya. So thank you, Sonya, for, for tuning in today. Let me know what's your favorite headphones that you are currently using, or if you have a question about your particular one, I'd be glad to answer it for you.

[00:12:41] Who else is on there, Orey? Hey, Chino. What up? What up? What up? What up? What up, Chino? Thanks for tuning in today. What does Chino say?

[00:13:02] Alright, well if I miss, just feed them into my ear and I can go ahead and just relay that, that's all. Just relay that bad boy. So thank you Sonya. Yeah. Hi everybody that's on chat. Let us know if you've got some more questions. My producer was going to help me, answer those for you. Because it's hard to keep track of these two screens sometimes and keep the noggin.

[00:13:24] You know what? The TV people make it look so easy. They do make it look so freaking easy. But I will do my best to answer your questions too. Any other questions? Are we good? Okay. We were talking about the Evolve 75 and the Focus 2. Both of these are really good headsets. I've used them both.

[00:13:43] Right now I'm really using the Voyager Focus 2 a little bit more because it's a newer one. And I've had a lot of good experience using it. By the way, I've been in this industry for over 20 years, so I've used hundreds of headsets, hundreds of headphones along the years.

[00:14:00] And the stuff actually keeps getting better, even though there are some issues that I talked about earlier, like Bluetooth, the quality, the craftsmanship, the features on what's coming out from these top manufacturers, Jabra, Plantronics, Sennheiser. All of these companies keep getting better products out to the market.

[00:14:24] Products that can connect both to your mobile as well as to your computer, which way back in the old Bluetooth days, you only had one type of headset you use. It was much heavier. But these keep improving. I want to let you know, Orey, why don't you go to our listing on the Blue Beacon. If you could, let's show the folks where if you've got questions and you're watching this live or maybe after the live and you want to know, I've got a specific question, how can I get you or somebody on your team to help me?

[00:14:56] Well, there's an area on every one of these listings on Amazon where you could submit a question and it goes right to us. And we look at every question and well, we don't just provide you yes or no responses. You type it in. There may be a question already in there, and if not, you just submit it, it goes to us and somebody on our team will get a response to you that is fitting for the question that you have.

[00:15:22] So I just want to point that. All right. So let's talk a little bit more about these headphones. Yeah, right there. You're right here. Exactly Orey. Right in there. Go ahead and submit those questions. So, let's talk a little bit more about the Blue Beacon and the technology behind Bluetooth and why it's so weird.

[00:15:40] I actually read the paper that was published by the Intel Corporation. And for those nerds, you'll want to listen to this. Those nerds like myself that are into the engineering specs and all that. It was a really long research paper. But let me spare you of some of the boring details.

[00:15:56] The bottom line is, it turns out if you have a computer and you're using USB 3.0 on the computer, so inside of every computer's USB port, there's either 2.0 or USB 3.0. The 3.0 standard is what's being rolled out more and more. And more computers have 3.0 and here's what Intel the Intel Corporation found.

[00:16:18] They found that USB 3.0 laptops and computers have what they call unshielded ports, meaning the USB ports emit radio frequency RF. And that RF, that signal, guess what? It's on the exact same frequency as Bluetooth. Go figure. Why I, I couldn't tell you the why that was done, but it is. And the effect of it is that you as the user, the moment you go plug something in, sometimes on one particular USB port, it works fine and somehow you're just moving things around and you put it on another USB port, all of a sudden it stops working or it works for a while and it drops, or you're good for a few days and then you realize the connection just doesn't stay as the way it should.

[00:17:09] This is the main reason why. Check your USB specs on your laptop. If it's 3.0, there's a high probability that that port may be unshielded, and if it's unshielded, you will experience problems with the USB port. The Blue Beacon Extender that we've got will help you in that regard so that it will separate the distance between the port and the dongle.

[00:17:36] Another thing that we get questions all the time. All the time. Why do I need a dongle in the first place? Well, let me tell you why. When you use Bluetooth on your mobile device these devices have been made and designed for just that connectivity with Bluetooth devices and to do conversations in two ways: in and out.

[00:18:01] The PC is not a communications device like the mobile device and Bluetooth audio, especially if you're talking about conversations, you will see some issues depending on the laptop. There is no uniform. I wish I could tell you there's this website that tells you these are all the laptops that are good and these are the laptops that are no good.

[00:18:22] It doesn't exist because every manufacturer, Apple, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba, all of them handle the Bluetooth audio piece a little bit differently. That depends on where they put the antenna for the Bluetooth device. How much power do they have dedicated to that? How is the software and firmware being used and applied when all of these things are working together?

[00:18:46] And here's what we found. When you're on and when you're using Bluetooth and maybe you're using Bluetooth keyboard, for example, it may work fine. You go to Bluetooth headphones and you're listening to music. That may work. Okay. But now with everybody being online and using the communication side, like Microsoft teams like Zoom, and many of these other applications where your voice or face are going back in full duplex and in real time when you add the audio component over Bluetooth, a lot of these laptops, including the latest ones have issues with the native connection using just the regular Bluetooth on the laptop itself. Go figure. And something else I'll even throw in one on the Android side, what we've found, there are some apps and inside of Android that don't use the Bluetooth audio piece. So if I were to use this headset, let's say I'm gonna throw example like zoom.

[00:19:47] And I know this is not the case with Zoom. I have Zoom on here and I have a Bluetooth headset and I want to use it on Zoom. Well, that may work well on Zoom, but you may have some other apps that may not use the Bluetooth connection. So Bluetooth can be tricky. It is tricky because you're wondering why is it that it works for some and it doesn't work for others, and that's because on Android, there's so many different, there's several manufacturers and there's different iterations that there's a lot of things where the developers that make apps don't make the exact same app the same way when they go ahead and make it for Apple, which Apple owns everything they make all the devices, they make it.

[00:20:25] They own the entire infrastructure. So it's very uniform, it's very easy as a developer, not so on Android. So hopefully that helps if you have some other questions about Android and mobile devices and Bluetooth. Okay, so let's go and let's talk a little bit about the devices that we have here, Orey. Let's go to one of the listings.

[00:20:44] Doesn't matter which one, the 60, the 75, or the Focus 2. Surprise me. Alright, so let's go to the Focus 2. So on the Focus 2, you've got a device that is a newer device on Amazon. You've got a device that can go and work on both your computer, it can work on your mobile. If you've got a Bluetooth phone, like a desk phone, it will also work over that.

[00:21:11] And you will be very happy with the ANC that is inside of this device. That is amazing that you get at several levels. So this 75 has ANC but it only allows one level of ANC or active noise canceling, whereas the Voyager Focus 2, it's got an amazing capability that's called a hybrid active noise canceling and no noise canceling. So if you want to turn that feature off, you have a button. But on the back of it here, where'd it go? Right over here you've got a button. That allows you, let me see if I can bring it up. If the camera will focus, can we get it to focus? You know what? Thanks, Orey for reminding me it wasn't set to auto focus.

[00:22:01] So we have a lot of challenges today with the cameras. Okay. So we'll just keep it here. So on this device you've got multiple levels of ANC and that will allow you to essentially either make sure that you don't hear the person around you or that you wanna still hear. Maybe you're at home and you have a little one and you want to hear them cry.

[00:22:21] So maybe you have the active noise canceling off because you want to go. You want to know when they're crying or maybe you don't, maybe you're tired of them crying and you go ahead and turn that puppy on all the way to the max. So you don't hear that. I don't know, I don't know your situation, but you can use it either way.

[00:22:39] Or you're in that office. I know that for me having been in an office and sometimes there's chatter around you and it's so distracting. I've read not too long ago an article that talked about distractions in the office and with more people going back to the office, this is going to become a big topic again, which is how much distractions you have around you and all the different things that are going on there because maybe the office is being reconfigured to adapt for this new environment. Well, an active noise canceling headset like this one, lets you put different levels on it and allows you to make sure that that person, that Suzy Q or that Johnny Smith that's always chatting about something or has got some noise going on in their cubicle over there you just boom, turn it on and they're gone.

[00:23:22] Or most of I should say, most of what they're saying is just not going to bother you anymore. So that's the beauty of something like this. You've got a very comfortable headband so that it rests on your head some really good sized ear cups and something that's designed for the business user, which is not the case with a lot of headphones that are on the different places on Amazon, eBay, wherever you go to shop for headsets.

[00:23:49] You may not find business grade headsets that can also perform well. I listen to YouTube on this, and it performs really well on the YouTube videos. I hear that very clear. The music, I listen to music on them, just an all around great headset. It's not the cheapest thing, but as I've said to other folks that we deal with you're making an investment in your self.

[00:24:11] You want to go with something that's going to pay some dividends. And if you have other coworkers or you are somebody that is buying this stuff for other teams, what you want to do is make sure that from an investment standpoint, you're getting what you're paying for. And with both of these, you're getting just that.

[00:24:31] You're getting business grade quality audio so that you could do the job well. That's what I would say. Do the job well and efficiently. Alright, Orey, go ahead and let's go to the Evolve 75 listing. All right, so let me tell you a little bit about the Jabra Evolve 75. If you don't know who Jabra is, they're out of Denmark.

[00:24:54] They're a Danish company. Their parent company is called the Great Nordic Company out of Copenhagen, and they've been around and have changed their name over the years. You know what, let me step back a little bit. Let me say something about this. The folks over at Plantronics merged not too long ago with Polycom, and so what you're gonna find is on the headsets.

[00:25:19] They may not say Plantronics anymore, they'll say Poly, and that's the new name for the company. Poly is the new name that is the result of Plantronics and Poly getting together. So Poly will be on a lot of the boxes. I actually have one over here I can show you. You know what, let me show you this. This is a different product, but as you can see, that's what they're rolling with Poly.

[00:25:42] And you'll see that on the box and as well as on the products. As more and more of the products go through the sales, and their warehouses, the Plantronics stuff that's stickered. Plantronics will go away and then you're going to see more and more Poly. All right. So enough on Poly. So Jabra, this is a headset that's been out for a while.

[00:26:00] This is the Evolve 75 series. This is a tried and true headset. You've got some really comfortable, cushions on this thing. It's Bluetooth. You're going to get some good talk time out of this particular headphones. You've got a very good noise canceling microphone. All right. One little thing that this does that is really an awesome feature once you start using this.

[00:26:25] So when you're using this, Orey go back up to the shot of me here. All right. So I'm using the headphones, all right. And let's say I'm on a headset. I'm talking to, I'm on Zoom. I'm listening now all of a sudden I want to go grab a cup of water. I don't want anybody to hear me.

[00:26:42] Or maybe I got the munchies. I got to eat something. Well, as soon as you flip this up, it mutes. As soon as you flip it up, you mute yourself so that nobody hears you. So I can go ahead and grab, I can go grab that sip of water if I have some snacks or whatever. And then when you're ready to start engaging or get back into the conversation, just flip that bad boy down and now you'll be heard.

[00:27:10] No, you don't need to scramble for a mute and figure out where is it this button? Is it that button? There's a lot of these headphones have buttons everywhere. Sometimes they're virtual and so you got to hold down and press for, you don't have to do any of that. You don't have to worry about it just up from mute and down.

[00:27:26] You're talking again. I think that's one of the best features that this Evolve 75 has is the ability to mute the conversation so easily. The Voyager Focus 2 that I showed you actually does the same thing. It actually has an additional level of mute. You could do the exact same thing where you're flipping up and down, or it has a button as well where you can turn on, turn the mute on and off.

[00:27:51] Both of these will announce to you when you're muted and when you're not muted, which is just as important. And I want to remind you on both of these, there's a free downloadable app you want to take advantage of using the free downloadable apps for both. Why? Because you can upgrade your firmware at any time.

[00:28:14] Believe me, having used many of these, you want to take advantage of the latest firmware. Sometimes they release things maybe Apple comes out with Apple 20, iOS 20, and now some new bugs are introduced when it comes to the Bluetooth connection. That happens or certain apps don't perform properly.

[00:28:31] That happens. So you want to download in either the app stores, the iOS app store from Apple, the Android app store. These companies both also have a PC version as well. If you're more of a computer person, download the PC app on the Plantronics side, it's called the Poly lens, L-E-N-S, Poly Lens app.

[00:28:57] On the Jabra side, it's called the Jabra Direct app. Either of these will help you out. You can also do some additional configurations, some advanced settings. We have tons of videos on this, on our YouTube channel, about how to do some of this stuff. If you're interested, you can check out our channel, it's called What The Teck where we have many, many more tutorials on how to get this done.

[00:29:21] Otherwise, you can also send us a line on the comments. And we'll be glad to help you there as well. So highly recommend you do that. Orey, let's go ahead and show our homepage here. If you have questions about any other products. So we've got speaker phones, we've got headsets, we've got webcams.

[00:29:39] We have a homepage that features many of these products. It's right on Amazon, so it's set. So amazon/globalteckworldwide, all one word. amazon.com/globalteckworldwide. We've got many other products on our store that we feature that can do the job. And if this is just too confusing, again, just get a hold of us.

[00:30:02] We'll be glad to talk to you. We'd love engaging with our customers. Or do we have any, speaking of customers, do we have anything on the chats that I have missed? Alright. Okay, wonderful. Alright, so this is just showing you our website. We feature many other products on our Amazon store that are not necessarily part of the broadcast today, but we'd be glad to provide you if you have a need for them.

[00:30:28] Alright. Orey, did we hit them all? All the pain points today? I think we got it all in today on today's session. We go live every Wednesday on Amazon right around this hour. Don't know what time zone you're watching and if you're watching on the playback, join us during the live. We also have a live that we do on YouTube on Tuesdays and we talk about topics like this. We talk about office topics, tech, basically tech for the office. That's what our focus is. Tech for the office, and we that's on YouTube on Tuesdays at 1:00 PM Eastern, 10:00 AM Pacific. All right. I want to thank you for joining me today on this session of Teck One-Two where we've talked about Bluetooth, how to avoid some of those problems and how to use some of the devices for your mobile device or your PC, so I will see you next time.