Item: Cisco Headsets
Rating: 9
Author: Adam Eberhardt

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is currently being used and evaluated in the IT department to determine its efficacy in helpdesk and remote worker applications. We are testing it for long-term comfort, ease of use, and intelligibility for videoconferencing. We are currently pleased with the 500 Series headsets and may roll them out org-wide.

Pros and Cons

Comfort
Audio quality
Long-distance range of signal

Noise cancellation
Mute sync with software

Ease-of-Use

Activation for the Cisco Headset 500 Series has been essentially plug and play. I connected it to power, and my computer's USB, and I was good to go. I have never had to do any configuration, and the deepest I have had to go into any setup at all was selecting the headset as my speaker and selecting it again as my microphone in our videoconferencing software.

Audio Quality

In a remote work situation, having incoming audio going into my headset, rather than through external speakers has been absolutely critical in its impact on my day-to-day calls and meetings. Additionally, having a headset-mounted microphone by its nature helps in outside noise rejection and getting a better quality of audio input for calls and videoconference, which decreases frustration on both ends of the call.

Customization

We have not implemented the mobile app in our organization.

Alternatives Considered

The Cisco Headsets were chosen based on their interoperability with other Cisco products that we already have in our organization. Specifically, the interop with Cisco Control Hub is very useful for the administration of the headsets, their users, and firmware upgrades. While others might function similarly to the Cisco Headset, this interoperability is important to our organization.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Headsets delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Headsets's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Headsets live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Headsets go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Headsets again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Cisco Webex Meetings, Cisco Webex Board Series, Cisco Webex Room Series

Likelihood to Recommend

The Cisco 500 series headset seems well suited to an application like a helpdesk person, anyone who is on the phone but needs mobility, and remote workers, particularly those who do a fair amount of video conferencing. The audio quality on the microphone and the speakers is top-notch, so it does well in all of these applications. Being a smaller headset, it may not be well suited to high noise applications since it does not completely enclose the ear, and it has no active noise cancellation.

Support Rating

I have not had to engage with support, but based on past interactions, I imagine they would do well.

The Cisco Headset 500 Series is good!

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Headsets