Intro
The company behind Jawbone, Aliph, were founded by Stanford Alums Alex Asseily and Hosain Rahman in 1999 and they believed that creating a noise-free environment was most important in improving mobile communications. Through various partnerships and co-operation, they created the Jawbone. What many may not know is that the headset features a Noise Shield technology that was originally perfected with the Defence Advanced Research Research Projects Agency (DARPA) during battlefield applications for enhanced communications clarity.
When you think about that, you imagine that this headset could just be the one that you are looking for. If it was perfected for people whose lives relied on it, surely it must be more than good enough for your every day use right? That’s what I thought when I first heard about the Jawbone and this video by Aliph further confirms my initial impressions of the headset.
I was blown away when I saw that. It did look impressive, being able to cancel out all that noise to a minimum. But I was wondering if that was part of their marketing or was it what everyday users would experience. So I decided to gave it a try and this review is what the experience is all about.
What’s In The Box
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Before I proceed with the experience, I want to show you the package that the headset came in. The presentation of the package is the best I have seen thus far for a Bluetooth headset. There’s no hard plastic that you need to cut through and the way the items were arranged showed that this is no ordinary headset.
Headset
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The headset itself looks different from what you might be used to. Comments from one might look like a character from StarTrek to a nicely designed piece of hardware have been made about it. It will definitely stand out when you are using it, unlike many of the newer designs that tend to smaller and easier to hide. Personally, I find the design unique and stylish. Some headsets just look plain ugly but with the Jawbone, I wouldn’t mind showing it off. I’ll let the photos above speak for themselves.
Charger
The charger’s connection to the headset is rather unique so you’ll definitely want to handle it with care. The other end connects to your computer’s USB port for convenient charging or you could connect it to the supplied AC adapter to charge it from your wall outlet, which is much faster.
Ear buds
You get 4 of these, on top of the one that comes attached to your headset for a total of 5 ear buds. The 4 in the package are of varying sizes so you should be able to find one that fits you best.
Ear Hooks
There are 4 of these in total, 2 for the left side and2 for the right side which means there are only 2 sizes that you can play around with: Standard and Large. Still, it should be enough for most if not all users.
Manual
The manual is rather small and highlights all you need to know about using the headset, from pairing to how to charge the device to troubleshooting it.
Setup
To use the Jawbone optimally, you’ll need to get a perfect fit or something as close to it as possible which took me quite some time. I am a right-hander so I only played with the right ear configurations. It was really hard for me to decide which ear bud was right as I was rather torn between 2 of them so in the end, I opted for the larger one.
The thing about the Jawbone is that the voice activity sensor (the white tip that you see in the picture above) needs to touch your cheek so that it can work properly. As such, the headset is designed in such a way that the ear hook tends to push the ear bud out of your ear and the sensor into your cheek. It’s not as painful as it sounds like because the contact is rather insignificant (meaning you can’t really tell it’s there). So be sure to get the right ear bud for the job when setting up your Jawbone.
For those who are having problems wearing the Jawbone in the right position, here’s a video that might help:
Experience
Here’s where the fun begins. I brought the Jawbone out to use and I was rather happy with the experience. For one, my callers no longer complained about my voice being too muffled. In fact they could hear me loud and clear, almost as if I was indoors (and this was when I was outdoors). Suffice to say, the Jawbone did really well in terms of eliminating noise.
Really Noisy Outdoors
So you’re wondering right now just it sounds like right? Well here is me standing within 15 feet of a Greyhound bus that is just about to move off:
Pretty impressive don’t you think? Even though it does not eliminate all the noise like we saw in the advertisement above, it does lower it significantly while at the same thing, increasing the volume of my voice to make it the call even better than before.
Really Noisy Indoors
And here is another one, this time indoors, with the stereo turned up really loud. You’ll want to lower your volume because some really loud music will be playing in the background.
This time, the background noise seems to be higher than in the previous case and I suppose it’s because I was pretty close to the speaker of the radio which could have caused the vibrations from it to be picked up by the sensor? However, like before, the Noise Shield works really great and you could still continue the conversation under such loud background noise.
Windy Conditions
However, when it comes to windy conditions, the Jawbone users will suffer like most Bluetooth headset users will. I guess that’s because the Jawbone is not able to pick up the wind ‘noise’ and eliminate it from the background. As such, the conversation might not really go on smoothly. Below are 2 audio clips which I recorded, one using the Jawbone Bluetooth headset, the other using the Plantronics Discovery 640e Bluetooth headset. Both calls were made on my Eten Glofiish X500 and outdoors. In case you’re wondering, the weather forecast at the time I was making those calls had wind gusts over 50 miles per hour!
Aliph Jawbone in windy conditions
Plantronics Discovery 640e in windy conditions
The 640e appears to have a louder voice than the Jawbone and this could be because under such windy conditions, the 640e still stayed snug in my ear (thanks to the in-ear ear bud) whereas the Jawbone was being blown quite a bit during the call which resulted in the activity sensor not in contact at times.
Buttons
Aliph decided that less was more with regards to buttons and went with a 2 button setup, which I think is the least number you would find on any Bluetooth headset. They are rather well placed but required quite a bit of force to press and sometimes, you might press too hard and end up pressing the headset into your face. While this does help with preventing you from accidentally activating or deactivating certain features, I would have preferred if less pressure was needed to use them.
Sound Volume
Due to the design of the Jawbone, you will not be able to adjust volume in the conventional way. Instead, you will have to press the Noise Shield Button to increase the volume. There are 5 cycles and once you reach the maximum volume, it will cycle back to the lowest. The reason for this is because the Jawbone automatically calculates ambient noise and adjusts the volume for you accordingly so that you can always hear your caller clearly, be it indoors or outdoors. As such, you no longer need to control the volume but if you find it too low or loud, that’s when you make the changes.
The problem was, while I could hear my caller clearly indoors (and without any need for changing the volume), it was not so the case outdoors. Sure I could hear them but when it was really noisy, I wished that the volume could be much louder. This could be a limitation on the phone instead of the Jawbone but I think in-ear buds would have helped the Jawbone to make the sound seem louder in such scenarios.
However, when it comes to my voice, callers are able to hear me rather clearly as you can hear from the audio clips above. The interesting thing is I was actually speaking in a softer voice than usual because I wanted to see just how well the Jawbone could pick up my voice and it sure did a great job. Sure you could speak normally or even shout if you wanted to and it would translate into your callers hearing you even louder but that is no necessary with the Jawbone.
Call Quality
Some say that when you are using the Jawbone with their Noise Shield technology turned on, your voice becomes robotic. As you can tell by now, your voice does not sound as robotic. Sure it’s not your true voice but it’s not far from the original as well. If anything, it makes you sound like you are in an enclosed telephone booth: you can still hear the outside noise but its very muffled.
If you were to ask me to choose between hearing a caller’s true voice with a lot of background noise or his slightly modified voice with minimal background noise, I, and am sure many if not all of you as well, would chose the latter.
Comfort
Those who rely on Bluetooth headsets know that the best of headsets would not be great if they cannot use for long periods of time. Thankfully, the Jawbone does not disappoint in this area. Sure it may look bulky and big to some but once you wear it, you’d hardly know it’s there. It feels really comfortable and I could go a whole day wearing it and it still wouldn’t hurt. Just make sure that you get the right fit for your ear so that it stays as snug as possible when you are on the move.
Battery Life
With a touted 200 hours of standby time and 6 hours of talk time, the Jawbone can definitely go the distance. Translated, that’s about a whole day’s of talk time, if you talk almost non-stop, which none of us would have to do to begin with. However, what’s listed on the box is usually different from what one experiences. In my case, I could use the Jawbone for over 3 days based on my light-to-moderate usage and sometimes even stretching it to 4 days if there were not too many calls. I even used it to make Skype calls and they lasted longer than 2 hours (the length of the Skype) call. So all in all, I think the Jawbone does have exceptional battery life.
What I Like
There is a lot that I like about the Jawbone Bluetooth headset:
- Noise cancellation technology is awesome, the best that I have ever encountered thus far.
- Design of the headset is really nice and stylish.
- Good standby and talk time. I consider myself a light-to-moderate user of phone calls and I manage to get over 3 days of talk/standby with the Jawbone.
- Works great with my laptop through a Bluetooth connection; Skype calls can now be wireless
- Automatically reconnects with your phone in the event that you are out of range and then later come within range.
- While it may seem big and bulky to some, once you wear it, you hardly know that it’s there. It feels really comfortable once you get your fit. I could definitely wear this the whole day and it would not hurt like other headsets.
- You can charge the headset through the USB port on the computer which makes it convenient to do it from just about anywhere.
What Could Be Improved
While the Jawbone Bluetooth headset is a great piece of hardware, there are some areas that can be improved to make it even better:
- Dedicated buttons for volume up and down.
- Louder volume for those really noisy conversations.
- In-ear buds for a better, snug fit.
- Multi-point technology to be added for pairing and linking to more than 1 device.
- Upgradeable firmware so that those who bought the headset earlier can upgrade to the latest when it comes out.
- A notification for when contact with activity sensor is not optimum.
- Buttons were rather hard to press at times.
Conclusion
The Jawbone Bluetooth headset is really the headset to have. It’s got a great noise-cancellation feature built-in (it’s military grade) and it feels comfortable for all-day wearing. Certain issues might hamper it’s use such as the volume of calls in really loud places but this is small compared to the overall package. Why would you want to take or make calls in such very noisy environments anyway? If you have been looking for a Bluetooth headset for some time now, be sure to check out Aliph’s Jawbone Bluetooth headset. It may be pricey but it’s definitely the best that I have experienced so far.
Where To Purchase
For those interested in purchasing the Jawbone, there are quite a number of places selling it like Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Verizon and AT&T Wireless Stores as well as from Jawbone’s website itself. Those located outside the United States can get their set from Car Phone Warehouse (Europe), O2 (UK), Rogers Wireless (Canada) as well as the Jawbone website. I am sure they are also available elsewhere so if you have problems locating them, you could try one of the bigger online retailers as well. The MSRP of the headset is USD$119.00.
For your convenience, I have also set up a price watch below which shows you the current low prices:
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