Customer Reviews

Cellular Innovations Over-the-Head Professional Hands-Free Headset

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this online from another seller at twice this price a year ago. I love it. It is comfortable, works really well, everyone understands every word and I hear clearly with it even in the car. Unlike the over ear hanging on one ear styles so popular this one does not make your upper ear hurt after use and does not interfere with glasses either. I broke mine packing it carelessly in luggage on a plane trip so I am buying two this time, one for home and one for travel. My hubby teases me I that I look like Madonna in concert with it on, that doesn't bother me at all. It lasts long on one charge, works well, and my ears don't hurt after wearing it a long time.

I bought this headset because I wanted to have a Bluetooth headset that's not stuck in my ear, crammed over my ear, or hovering in my neck (either might work great for some people, but definitly not for me - after a few minutes either option starts to annoy me, up to the point where some of these options even start to hurt).
For the past 10 years, I have been using one and the same super light Plantronics headset, to make calls using my cellphone or cordless home phone.
I wanted to same, now with Bluetooth (it's a pain when the cord gets stuck somewhere).

This headset is doing just that.
It's very light, has good sound, people understand me very well, etc.
It also comes with 2 spare microphone foam covers, and the padding around the speaker is not the cheap foam stuff that degrades after a few months.
Pairing went quickly, and I managed to get it to work with my iPhone, Uniden cordless home phone, MacBook, and Mac pro (Windows 7, XP, and MacOSX 10.6), without any issues.

The only downsides I would can come up with are that initially the headset feels a little different, but one gets used to that very quickly (after a few seconds I forgot I was wearing it).
The other downside I can come up with is that the charger connector is a proprietary connector - where a mini-USB connector would have been much easier - specially when you're not having the charger cable with or when you lost the charger cable.

Tip for those who hear their own voice echo during a conversation; aim the microphone below the corner of your mouth.

I would (and actually will) recommend this headset to friends for sure!

Died in October after eight months of use... :( But it is such a good headset, I will probably buy another.

Review, updated after seven months of use.

The good things about this headset, after one month of use:

- It's much lighter weight compared to the similarly-styled headset with a boom microphone.
- Volume is good.
- The sound quality both ways is good. No scratchiness. I didn't see mention of noise canceling in the item description, but people on the other side cannot hear background noise. And I do NOT sound like I'm in a tin can! LOL.
- Charger chord breaks in two, so you can charge your headset using a USB port on your computer.
- I've never had the battery run out. I'm not a heavy user, and I do tend to charge it every day... but still, a lot of batteries would be showing their age at seven months.

The bad things about this headset:

- Sometimes it gets persnickety and keeps dropping and then hooking up to my headset, but this happens mostly when the headset is in my purse with the handset. It's never dropped a live call. I turn it off and on, and then it is fine.
- That's about it!

ALSO: I highly recommend this seller, Cellular Innovations. When I had a problem with the headset battery right after I wrote this review, Cellular Innovations said "We'll send you a new one and you can send us the old one back." They even paid for shipping both ways!

Was bought for Husband and HE LOVES it. Works wonderfully well in his Transfer Truck with Great Ease of use and easy to understand.

I bought this because we use Microsoft OCS at work and I wanted a comfortable hands free headset. The problem is that this doesn't work with a blue tooth enabled laptop so it wasn't much use. What I did find interesting while looking for drivers and trying to resolve my issue was that they don't have a web site and the whole operation seems to be pretty hokey - I'm guessing somebody is just redistributing this stuff out of their garage and once you open the packaging, there's no way to send it back.

So ... if you want to use it with a laptop, it won't work and if it doesn't work for you out of the box, don't hold your breath for any type of post sales support.

I bought this bluetooth headset for the wife, who likes her headsets to be very secure on her head (unlike those little headsets). I can hear her very clearly on it, and she likewise can hear people when they call her. I suspect that the large boom mike extending all the way to the mouth accounts for the superior sound. Yeah, I may tease her about looking like a telemarketer, but if she's happy, I'm happy. 'Nuff said.

FINALLY, after years of a wired headset while driving, somebody has made a BT version that WORKS. I've owned the little cyborg doo-dads that hang on your ear, I'm done with those. When I'm driving I must be hands free and I want that mic right next to my mouth. This guy works (so far, had i almost three months). The audio quality is good, and I can actually make it too loud in my ear which is nice, no straining to hear. AND, it works with the iPhone's Voice Dialing and the Dragon dication app, very important.

I have one gripe, not a showstopper: it's small, and I have a big noggin, wear a 7-3/4" hat. I realized that if I extend the adjustable headseat "clamp" out too far that it would break in no time. Instead, I only extend it out two clicks, so the rubber T sits high above my other ear. It does feel weird at first because you want to have the T near your opposite ear, but you get used to it. I wish it was bigger and a little more solid feeling, but I treat it gently when putting it on or off, and thus no probs so far.

I read other reviews where people stated that they have to keep the phone on the same side of their body that the earpiece is on. I don't have trouble with that at all, at least with my iPhone 4. I keep the earpiece on my left ear and throw my iPhone onto the passenger seat, again no probs.

One thing I also like: the mic has a small foam windscreen, and it works. I can crank the A/C in the van and have it blow in my face and the other caller doesn't even know it. Even better, you get two extra windscreens in the box. Nice!

I don't like the in-ear/over-ear BT sets (hurt my ear and/or interfere with my glasses, also have to speak VERY LOUDLY on many calls)... I bought the HFBLU-H1 about a year ago and very quickly fell in love with it. Unfortunately, the honeymoon only lasted about 3 months; the main function button started to get very, very picky about how hard I pressed it and by the time we hit the 6 month mark I had to be very careful to press it only on the edges because pressing it dead center had no effect. Over the next few months, added several new unfortunate behaviors: intermittent functionality of the main button; difficulty turning on or off; a need to be re-paired with my phone every few days; random beeping; and even turning itself off at random times... and somehow in the interim the price went up, too.

A couple of days ago the headset simply refused to communicate with my phone at all so it's now wrapped in a plastic bag in my basement and I'm looking at several competitors' products.

Bottom line: it was great for a very short time, just OK for a while longer, and a royal PITA for several months. Its lifespan is much too short and the annoyance factor much too high for me to ever consider this product again. In addition, if my headset is an example of quality control & product longevity, I'll be thinking twice about buying any other Cellular Innovations products in the future.

Chose this product after reading the many reviews and can say it works fine in a normal envoirnment. Of course many others also work fine. I bought this one because I'm in a noisy truck cab all day and cannot hear a phone conversation. Come to find out, I couldn't hear one on this thing either. People hear me fine but I can't hear them. I couldn't recommend this over something that fits snugly in the ear.

I thought this would be a great purchase, but it was not. As soon as I open the package and set it on my head and it over head part snapped off... very bad product.
Returned immediately for full refund.