I Miss The Voice In My Head

This post is about the recent loss of a not-so-old friend and travelling companion. It’s sad when we lose a friend, especially when they’re still young and in their prime.

This past week I’ve been lamenting the loss of my Plantronics Voyager Pro UC V2 Bluetooth headset. After a year of steady use it recently met its demise by canine misadventure.

Yes teacher, my dog ate my headset. I swear its true. She chewed it up good!

It serves me right for leaving the little faux leather pouch within her reach.

It is a pity because I really liked that headset.

While Gwen found the Voyager Pro an amusing plaything, the headset did not suffer the events of that day very well at all. Here’s what I found when I arrived back home.

Of course, my wife was most concerned that Gwen may have ingested some portion of the device. Given what you see in the photo that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s all there, albeit mangled beyond utility.

That was two weeks ago. This past week I spent a couple of days in Chicago, then had a meeting in Austin on Friday. I was either in a hotel, airport or driving a lot this week. These are prime times for me to use a headset. Before I departed I was forced to scrounge through my little bin of older gadgets to find a headset for my weeks travel.

I found something suitable, but over the course of the week I was a little surprised at what I missed most about the Voyager Pro. I missed the synthesized female voice that announced the various states of the headset. The traditional, non-descript “beep” as an indicator is a lot less gratifying.

I also missed the A2DP feature. That’s the ability to use the headset for functions beyond phone calls. In my case that means hearing the Google Maps offer directions in my ear, and occasionally listing to podcasts via the headset.

In truth, the A2DP feature is a little frustrating to use with my Android cell phone. In use with Google Maps it always clips the first utterance of the directions. It seems that the BT radio shuts down to save power, then take a little time to wake up each time a new direction is presented.

It would be nice if it were possible to keep the BT link sustained. I really only use the GPS capabilities when I’m driving. When I’m in a car I always plug the phone into a charger. Thus battery life isn’t really a concern in such situations.

So it is that I may be shopping for another BT headset some time soon. It’s not clear to me if I should simply buy the latest in the Voyager Pro series, which I believe to be the Voyager PRO HD, or try something else completely.

I’m open to suggestions. Do you have any ideas?