So I've been frustrated by wanting a headset that fullfilled the promise that I saw at some of the early BlueTooth(BT) conferences. I had in mind that I should be able to have a single headset that would work with both my laptop and my mobile phone. I first heard about such a device from Paul Humfries of Avaya and then made contact with Dan Race of Plantronics while at CES 2007. The Voyager 510 comes with a very lightweight utility (Windows only dang it) that will utilize the API for several softphones (Skype, Avaya, etc) and a large list of mobile phones. A nice touch is an interactive compatibility guide that compares your equipment with their ever growing list of tested devices.
I first tried to pair it with my Lenovo X41's internal bluetooth, but was convinced by Dan that I really ought to use the dongle so that I could get their "advanced" feature set. Thanks Dan, now I get a soft beep whenever I go in/out of range and when I first fired up my Skype client I got a prompt asking me if I wanted to give the Plantronics software access to the Skype API. Little features like Skype autodetecting my headset, being able to answer and hang up using the Call Control Button have made my move a pleasure.
Another enterprise feature I just have to point out is called Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) to allow the BT headset to hop out of the way of existing WiFi resources. I have to say that this is a piece of my kit that will travel with me at all times.
So as convergence rears its head in your organization, take a good hard look at the Voyager instead of the simple BT headsets that your mobile vendor is pushing on you. Just being able to choose the soft foam ear piece to better match the variety of human ears has made wearing this headset all day possible.
My only regret is that I should avoid bragging about this headset to my friends running Mac OSx...considering just how many Mac users do Skype and BT headsets, it seems like someone is ignoring a very fast growing market.
So now my only wish is that I could have multiple headsets able to use the same phone at the same time. A demo at a very early BlueTooth meeting had three headsets paired to a phone and we all got to use the same phone as part of the same conversation. So even in a noisy exhibit hall, the folks wearing the headsets were able to participate in the same call...might not be a bad feature for enterprise users or very definately the construction industry.
/brian chee
Addendum from Dan Race of Plantronics:
The Voyager 510-USB integrates with enterprise softphone software from companies including, Avaya, Cisco, Nortel and Skype, among others, to offer call notification and remote call answering via the headset.
The Voyager 510-USB is also compatible with consumer Internet telephony services, including AOL, MSN and Yahoo!, but remote answer/end and call notification are not yet offered.
