What Are the Best Headphones for Conference Calls when Working from Home?

As more and more people pull together by staying apart, there is clearly a need for the best headphones for conference calls. Whether you are staying in touch with colleagues or your family, being able to hear them clearly is incredibly important.

Many people will not have considered how to deal with conference calls when working from home before. This turbulent period might be the first time you have experienced this difficulty—and all the background noises that come with taking calls at home. Is your roommate playing PlayStation in the background? Perhaps there is even construction work or loud traffic outside?

On Sunday, nearly 600,000 people downloaded Zoom to prepare for working from home. In this deep dive blog, we are exploring more than just improving Zoom audio, or any conference call system for that matter. We will be looking at the best Bluetooth headphones for calls: those that have True Wireless technology.

Tips for Improving Zoom Audio

Certainly, one of the benefits of working from home is being able to take conference calls in your pajamas. But how do you improve your listening experience when connecting to Zoom or Slack on your laptop?

If you’re on this blog and you’re not sure what Zoom is, or similar products to this, then first things first: they are online meetings solutions, connecting many people at once via video or voice chat. They are usually more stable for larger conference calls than, say, messaging systems such as Slack or DingTalk. But with so many people online at once, bad audio connections can cause havoc and seriously delay meetings.

Tip One: Test Your Microphone and Headphones

Watch the video below about configuring and improving Zoom audio:

Tip Two: Use the Best Bluetooth Headphones for Calls

If you are looking to truly improve your audio whilst improving how you listen to music, the only way is to get the best headphones for conference calls. True Wireless headphones are the best for this as there are no wires to get in your way; your headphones sit in your ears, hidden, so you maintain a professional look.

To improve your connection with True Wireless headphones, you will need:

• A pair of headphones (we recommend TaoTronics SoundLiberty 79, but you can also check out SoundLiberty 53);
• A good Bluetooth connection with your laptop;
• Someone who is willing to call you before your first meeting, to test that your connection is good!

Tip Three: Enable Audio Transcription

One aspect of these online video conferencing systems you might not have realized existed is audio transcription. This is probably a last-resort tip for many, or might not be possible due to confidential discussions. But is something that might be worth considering, especially for important meetings you have to remember a lot of details for. At least if you can’t hear your colleagues properly at the time, you can check what they said and refer back to your notes afterwards!

Tip Four: Log In and Out of the Meeting

Sort of like turning your computer on and off again, this might make your audio connect a lot better to the software. We aren’t experts on the coding and so on for conference calls, but this seems to work when we have tried it.

A big downside of this? It can be disruptive and delay the start of your meeting. It also looks unprofessional if you are meeting new clients for the first time.

What Are True Wireless Headphones?

True Wireless headphones are exactly as they sound: headphones without any wires, either between the earbuds themselves or between the earbuds and your device. They connect to your phone, laptop, or tablet via Bluetooth connection, meaning they work with all the latest iPhone devices.

It also means they are more stable than wired earphones, because there are no excess connections that can get broken (like the bit of your headphones cable by your headphone jack that always breaks, cutting out your music).

Though True Wireless headphones became mainstream with the release of Apple’s Airpods in 2016, these earbuds are not specifically built for crisp call audio. We have looked before at a comparison between Airpods and SoundLiberty 53—and came up with some interesting results. For the best headphones for conference calls, try looking beyond the big-name brands.

Our Predictions for True Wireless

What’s more, we predicted great things for True Wireless headphones in 2019, that would far outstrip the capabilities of your standard headset. For instance, more and more earbuds would carry noise cancelling technology (blocking out the background sound so that you can concentrate on the voice in your ear). We also predicted superior audio thanks to a greater inclusion of aptX in earbuds.

Luckily, these predictions appear pretty accurate, at least for TaoTronics earbuds. Our True Wireless range, SoundLiberty, has incredible features including AI noise cancelling technology that provides you with crystal clear, HD audio.

5 Things to Look for in True Wireless Headphones

If you have tried every other way of improving your Zoom audio but need to buy new headphones, then there are five features you should be looking for in any pair of earbuds.

1.      Bluetooth 5.0

There have been many iterations of Bluetooth since it was bought to the mainstream by Dr Jaap Haartsen of Sweden. As we noted before, Bluetooth

works via similar frequencies used by microwaves and Wi-Fi. It uses frequency hopping between 2.402 GHz and 2.480 GHz to make it a more secure way of transmitting information. In fact, this frequency band is specifically reserved for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) devices as a result of an international agreement!

Bluetooth 5.0 is the best technology to have in these headphones because it is capable of handling life in a 5G world. It is twice as fast as Bluetooth 4.2, the previous version, and has 4 times the range (around 120 meters with no obstructions). This means that wherever in your home office/bedroom/kitchen you leave your laptop whilst you walk around, listening to your call, you should get excellent audio.

2.      An Amazing Charging Case

It sounds strange, but this is a vital part of having good True Wireless headphones. If your charging case is impractical or slow, you will either forget to carry it around with you or find it useless. The case should be small enough to fit in your pocket and offer at least 30 hours of extra charge.

3.      The Latest Noise Cancellation Technology

If you are serious about taking your calls from home, you will need earbuds that block out the rest of the world. This could be your kids or roommates playing in the background, as well as more mundane noises like the traffic or your neighbors’ music.

Finding headphones with the latest, AI powered technology is not just a good move for the next few weeks. It will come in useful as the world moves into 5G technology. Like Bluetooth 5.0 and future versions, AI is going to become a huge part of all the tech you own. It probably is already! Getting this tech will future-proof your audio for years to come.

4.      Dual Master Earbuds

This one is a bit more complex. A lot of True Wireless earbuds probably won’t state outright that they have this technology because most people, quite honestly, don’t understand it. Even more honestly, it is pretty difficult to explain the ins and outs of. Please, remind us to do a full blog on this one day.

Essentially, this technology lets you pick up either of your True Wireless earbuds and use them as the “master,” or the earbud that controls everything. This means the touch controls, audio, and so on. A big benefit of this technology is that you don’t have to think about which earbud you are choosing when you go to answer your calls. You also still have excellent audio streaming through both.

5.      Smart Touch Control

When you are trying to look and even feel professional, you can’t do better than Smart Touch controls. One tap and you have answered your call; just be careful, as it will be another tap to end it!

TaoTronics Recommends: SoundLiberty Series

Of course, we at TaoTronics have an incredible set of headphones that can suit your needs. Our popular SoundLiberty series is always ahead of the game, bringing you the latest technology with ergonomic designs.

TaoTronics SoundLiberty 79

Our latest release is TaoTronics SoundLiberty 79. These incredible True Wireless earbuds are absolutely gorgeous. They sport a professional matte black finish with silver edging, making them stand out in the crowd as they fit snug in your ears. With the charging case, they provide an unbelievable 40 hours of audio streaming, and up to 8 hours of playtime in one charge.

Even better? They are the best headphones for conference calls because they also feature our latest AI noise cancellation technology. This reduces background distractions by up to 96% with up to 40 dB of noise reduction, making your audio—and your voice—crystal clear. You can sound as if you are actually in the meeting room with someone. Although, as this is everyone’s home at the moment, that might not be welcome…

Buy SoundLiberty 79 on Amazon today!

TaoTronics SoundLiberty 53

Want something that looks a little more like Airpods? We’ve got you! Our SoundLiberty 53 earbuds carry a classic headphone look in a stylish matte black finish. They are designed with noise isolation technology, blocking out intrusive background noise so you can hear what’s happening online.

They’re also really practical for these weeks of staying at home, as they’re great for working out with. SoundLiberty 53 come with three different sized headphone tips, so you can find the perfect fit before removing the tips to clean them.

Learn more about SoundLiberty 53 here!

And remember – stay safe and healthy during this difficult time.