Updated. In the recent years, calls and online meetings have become an integral part of most employees’ daily work. We’re connecting with people at different times of the day from different locations. However, not all headsets are fit for this purpose. And when not using the right headset for the right purpose, your technology might be the biggest disruptor in a meeting. No one wants to be that person. Someone whose sound unwittingly disrupts online meetings. 

Nobody wants to be an unmeetable colleague who interrupts and disturbs during meetings. So, when you’re choosing your next headset, how can you figure out which one is built for your needs? To help you make an informed decision, we highlight here some of the key differences between consumer and professional headsets.

Engineered for different uses

A consumer headset and a professional headset are not made for the same purpose. Consumer headsets can come in many forms, but are engineered primarily to maximize the music, media and call experience in our everyday lives. Some consumer earbuds are also specifically engineered for an active lifestyle for example providing water or sweat resistance to accompany you even on the toughest run.

Professional headsets, on the other hand, are engineered to ensure the best possible professional experience when in meetings, taking calls or needing to focus. In a hybrid world where we work between the office, home, and other places, they enable us to transition seamlessly between places and tasks to maximize our productivity and flexibility. You can make office calls in the morning, listen to a podcast on the train home at lunchtime, and deliver that important presentation from your home office in the afternoon, all with one headset.

Sound quality

Many of us are in and out of calls and virtual meetings all day; this has become a standard of the modern professional’s daily routine. And because these calls take up so much of our time, we need a device that can deliver clear audio, lower our fatigue, and give our ears the best experience possible. Just as you invest in an ergonomic chair and a height-adjustable desk to take care of your posture, it makes sense to invest in a purpose-built audio device to protect your ears. Sound quality has a major effect on how exactly we can do this. Speaker size, form factor (in-ear, on-ear, over-ear), and noise cancellation are some of the most crucial features contributing to sound quality.

While consumer headsets are designed to deliver an immersive and enjoyable audio experience for listening to music, podcasts or watching videos, high-end professional headsets still provide best-in-class audio. Professional headsets are engineered to give a clear and natural sound while minimizing background noise and interruptions to ensure effective calls and meetings. It’s often also much easier to mute and unmute yourself with professional headsets. While ANC has almost become a standard in most headsets today, you might still be having different noise cancelling needs whether you’re listening to podcasts on the train or presenting at an online meeting from the café.  

Call quality

With the rise of hybrid work, very few locations are completely silent. Whether it’s at the office with a colleague next to you speaking loudly, or the construction site outside your home, no workspace is without it’s background noise. The diversity of possible working locations has brought flexibility and well-being benefits, but it has also brought a variety of noise distractions.

While you can certainly make calls with consumer headsets, a professional headset is much better suited for your different work environments. Professional headsets are engineered to deliver exceptional clear call quality, ensuring that you’re always understood clearly – no matter how many barking dogs you have in the background. With noise-cancelling microphones, advanced voice processing algorithms and often adjustable boom arms, professional headsets optimize voice pick up and minimizes ambient noise. Microphones to pick up your voice are often much better situated in a professional headset directed at the mouth and focusing on the sound they either have to tune in or out. And with more seamless control over the call experience (boom arm answering, multiple mute functions, easily accessible volume control), you can be more confident and perform better in those situations that really require clarity and precision.

Connectivity

Staying connected is essential for knowledge workers in a fast-paced hybrid work environment. Whether we need to receive a delivery at the door or prepare the kids’ lunch before the school run, we need to trust that our devices will be there for us.

Many headsets, both consumer and professional, are able to connect to two separate devices at once, and the connection range is increasing with every innovation in Bluetooth technology. Consumer headsets often prioritize seamless connectivity between a wide range of devices such as smartphones, tablets, wearables, and laptops to cater to diverse entertainment and communication needs. Meanwhile, certified professional headsets are designed to give you a reliable and versatile multi-connectivity across a wider array of brands and devices. This allows you to switch seamlessly from a meeting on your PC to a call on your iPhone, or run to the front door for that package, without worrying about dropping your call. And when using a professional headset with a dongle, you get added integration with computer softphone and software support from Jabra Direct and a stronger and more reliable Bluetooth connection. With a dongle, your connection will be so reliable that those awkward moments in online meetings where your connection is dropping or falling out are in the past.

Connectivity also means compatibility. Professional headsets are often certified to maximize the experience with different UC platforms, such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom. So, if you expect to use your headset for online meetings, UC certified devices will give you the best collaboration experience possible. To learn more on how certified devices deliver an elevated professional experience, read this article.

Of course, there are other features to consider when searching for your next headset: battery life, aesthetics, fit, comfort, and many others. But first, you need to know whether you want a pair of consumer headphones, or a professional headset. And to figure that out, the first question you should be asking yourself is: “What will I be using it for?”.

If you want to know more about choosing the right headset for the right purpose, read more here.