Poly Voyager Free 60 -- Really bad problem with microphone noise cancellation

[PolyFan]

After a new firmware V5039 was recently released, I gained new hope and repeated my test series.

• In brief: the microphone noise cancellation has actually improved when making calls. But it still isn't really good.
• So my assessment has been confirmed, with changes to the firmware you can get some more performance out of the Poly Voyager Free 60.
• The improved algorithm now apparently recognizes your voice better and tries to play it back in isolation.
• But background noises such as car traffic can still be heard quite loudly, but in many cases the person you are speaking to can still understand your voice.
• Nevertheless, there are still situations such as the noise of a passing bus that completely overshadows your voice and and the person you are speaking to can no longer understand you.
• What still happens, albeit less often, is that background noise is amplified to create a terrible sound like something out of a horror movie.
• I still find the effect interesting when you leave one ear bud in your ear and hold the other ear bud 10 cm in front of your mouth, i.e. using the ear bud as a directional microphone.
• Then your own voice will always be heard as dominant for the person you are speaking to, while the background noise fades into the background.
• But even in this situation the background noise can be heard loudly from time to time, because the car traffic is still being recorded due to the 3 other microphones in the 2nd ear bud (in your ear).
• And this is worse if the 2nd ear bud is in the ear facing the car traffic.
• This test shows what could be possible with the hardware of the Voyager Free 60.
• The new firmware showed me that the microphone noise cancellation can be improved with an improved algorithm.
• But you can't tell whether it will ever be really good.

Still hoping for a miracle,
PolyFan.

[Jroback]

Thanks for the detailed update!   I excitedly upgrade the firmware on my 60 and 60+ tonight and..... same problem with ANC.    Turn it off while listening to music and the drums and other bass just disappear.  It's really strange that this isn't getting noticed during internal testing.   I really; want to like the Free 60's but for now it's back to my other earbuds.

[PolyFan]

After I definitely determined after all my tests with traffic noise as background noise (and I created more than 200 test recordings) that the Poly Free 60 are completely unusable with traffic as background noise, I tried to focus on the use cases that I thought would work with the Free 60.

The reason for this: firstly, I can no longer return my Poly Free 60 (I would have done it if I had still been able to do it) and secondly, I'm actually a Poly fan (I still love my Voyager Focus 2).

So, I started using my Free 60 in home office only. This worked surprisingly well at the beginning. I was always heard very well during my video or phone conf calls in quiet situations.

But as soon as typical home office situations occur, and I'm not talking about anything particularly special, but something like, I go into the kitchen, bite into a chocolate bar, wash my cup and make myself a coffee, the person you are talking too experience hell with the Poly Free 60 again. When you unwrap the chocolate bar from the foil, the person you're talking to screams into the phone, "All hell is breaking loose with you, I have to hang up". Or I just wash the coffee cup and everyone in the call ask, "Did you start your circular saw?" And while using the coffee machine everyone screams, "Is a jet just taking off at your place?" With the Free 60 there is basically no background noise cancelling, there is only background noise amplification.

And then a word about the Bluetooth range of the Poly Free 60: after just 7 m from my PC to my kitchen, the Bluetooth on the Poly Free 60 breaks off and you can only be heard completely chopped up by the person you are talking to. Needless to say, the range is significantly better with other headsets. And I'm talking about small in-ear headsets and not big over-ears.

Unfortunately, after some weeks of daily use, I discovered that the Poly Free 60 are even in situations completely unusable, where is no loud background noise like in a typical home office scenario.

As a Poly fan, this was a complete shock to me. What use cases are still left for the Poly Free 60? Sure, listening to music in noisy environments where ANC is needed. But is that truly the scenario for the Free 60? There are at least 3-4 much better headsets on the market that have significantly better ANC and also better music playback quality. When you look at the quality of a Voyager Focus 2 or a Legend, aren't video or phone conf calls actually the home of Poly?

In any case, I could no longer ignore the poor quality of my Poly Free 60 in almost all the use cases that I need in everyday life and so I looked around for other in-ear headsets.

And finally I found what I was looking for from another brand. Of course I won't write about another's brand headset in a HP/Poly forum, so I won't mention the brand name here. But I have definitely found an in-ear headset that is slightly smaller than the Free 60, and it definitely doesn't have a boom microphone that is located directly in front my mouth like the Voyager Focus 2.

And what do I have to say: this in-ear headset from this other brand have exactly what I was looking for: an ingenious microphone noise cancellation. I can always be clearly understood by the person I'm talking to in all situations, such as traffic noise, even in the kitchen washing my coffee cup and also in a noisy restaurant with many people.

After these weeks of hell with the Poly Free 60, I have now arrived in heaven. What I have now found out is that it is actually not impossible to implement all of these very typical requirements in a small in-ear headset.
Then only the final question remains: why couldn't it be the Poly Free 60 that makes me happy?