Windows Phone Thoughts: The Long Trek to a Jawbone review...

Using the Jawbone
There are only two multi-function buttons on the Jawbone and they are well hidden. (Did someone say 'function follows form'??). One is located in the black end, just under the embossed word 'Jawbone'.


Figure 8: The front of the Jawbone, showing the location of the two multi-function buttons.

When the unit is off, pressing and holding this button will put the Jawbone in discovery mode. When the unit is on, it will either turn on and off the notice-canceling circuitry, or adjust the volume. (The default is Noise Can celling On).

The other button is just under a small clear inset about ¼ of the way down the main body of the unit.

With the Jawbone off, pressing and holding this button for a couple of seconds turns it on. The nice thing about the Jawbone is that once it has been paired, powering it on automatically sets up the connection again. There is no need to go through pairing or exchange of PIN codes again. Once the unit is on, pressing this button once acts as either call pickup or voice dial activation, depending upon whether the phone is ringing or not. By pressing and holding this button for 3 seconds, you will shut off the Jawbone.

These functions take a bit of getting use to as a first time user, but are fairly standard for BT headsets. Generally, I found the buttons difficult to locate when wearing the headset and they needed more of a push than I liked. Especially with the unit touching my cheek, it really felt like I was making an indent in my face to get it to activate.

The Jawbone also sports an LED (a bar located between the two buttons) to show its current status. When turned on and paired, it will blink white every couple of seconds. (Why Aliph selected white instead of blue, I'm not sure). When it goes out of range of the master, a tone will sound in the earpiece and the LED will blink red. When you turn off the unit, the LED blinks red as well. When the Jawbone is in discovery mode, the LED alternates between red and white.


Figure 9: Location of the LED.

Generally, I've found the range of the Jawbone to be pretty similar to the better BT headsets around today – fully able to utilize the 10m (32ft) range of its classification. As noted above, if it loses connection, a tone will sound in the Jawbone to let you know.

The volume of sound produced by the headset is amongst the loudest I've heard. It would be even better if I could get the unit to actually sit inside the ear canal, but Aliph needs to produce a smaller earbud for me to do that. As far as quality goes though, I found it only mediocre. Voices carry through fine, but a lot of the lows and highs are lost, making it sound a bit like the pocket transistor radios of old. Callers report that the quality is very good, being actually better than using the microphone in the phone itself. I tried running music through the headset and found that while it was 'serviceable', there was no real fidelity or depth. My guess is that this is due to processing by the noise canceling circuity, which makes sense, since the focus is on getting the voice message through.

And how does it do in noisy environments? Pretty well, in fact. While I didn't have a weed-whacker nearby to test against (as per their ads on YouTube and the demo above), I did get calls a couple of times as I was riding around on my bike. If your caller speaks directly into their microphone, there should be more than enough volume for you to hear them, even with significant wind noise. All of my callers were able to easily hear and understand me as I continued to talk to them while riding.

Conclusions
So, bottom line – is it worth the money? The Jawbone is amongst the most expensive Bluetooth headsets available today, but it does do the job it is advertised to do, which is a big plus, especially for noisier environments. Having the adjustable earbuds and loops is a big advantage for me, since it lets me get a close fit to my head that doesn't feel like it's going to fall off as I ride around. If Aliph could develop an earbud which would fit properly in my smaller ear, and lighten up the switches a bit, it would be absolutely perfect.

Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and leader of its Enterprise Mobility Community. He's also careful to avoid people with weed-wackers when riding around on his bike. :-)