Entered CNET Catalog: 12/02/2005
SKU: 0856553000338
Manufacturer: Anycom, Inc.
Manufacturer description
The ANYCOM Blue Stereo-Headset BSH-100 is intended to give you many applications: listen to music in digital quality, use it for chat or gaming, and switch over to talk hands-free on your cell phone. You can connect to your favorite MP3 player, PDA or entertainment center. Its ergonomic, lightweight design enables the user to wear it for long periods of time - perfect for jogging and traveling. Connect to your music device! More and more devices like MP3 players and SmartPhones will be able to send MP3 files over the Bluetooth A2DP profile to the ANYCOM BSH-100 stereo headset. The music device can be controlled by the buttons on the headset for volume, title selection and pause. With the attachable microphone, the ANYCOM BSH-100 will also work as a Bluetooth headset with your mobile phone. When a call comes in it will stop the music and resume it after hanging up. The ANYCOM BSH-100 can also be used for popular applications like online gaming, chat or Voice-over-IP telephony.Product summary
The good: Anycom's BSH-100 Bluetooth stereo headset works with cell phones,
portable audio players, and PCs, and it includes an audio-transmitter
module for devices without integrated Bluetooth. It also supports the Bluetooth A2DP audio-streaming protocol and features removable rechargeable batteries and a comfortable folding-neckband headset design. It includes a low-profile removable microphone.
The bad: The Anycom BSH-100 Bluetooth stereo headset is susceptible to audio dropouts and interference, and it can't play very loud without distorting. There's also a delay between answering a cell phone and establishing an audio link with the headset. The box includes only one power-outlet charger. Plus, the transmitter module bulks up workout gear, and the headphones have a relatively short battery life.
The bottom line: The Anycom BSH-100 is comfortable and works OK for phone calls, but constant interference and high-volume distortion make the headphones unsuitable for music listening.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 02/16/2006
The BSH-100 has a lightweight, folding-neckband 'phone design and soft leatherette pads that sit on top of your ears. We wore the headset during a one-hour workout on a cross-trainer machine and found it perfectly comfortable. The removable mic is approximately 1.5 inches long and plugs into the USB port, which is located on the headset's right earpiece. With a diameter of approximately 2 inches and a height of around 1.75 inches, the circular transmitter module is reasonably small, but it's nonetheless an extra component you may not welcome having to carry around with a portable MP3 player. The module has a stereo minijack input, and Anycom supplies a cable for connecting the device to the headphone jack of your MP3 player.
Anycom provides two identical removable rechargeable batteries. One snaps onto the outside of the headset's left earpiece, while the other snaps onto the transmitter module. The headset and the transmitter module can be charged either via the included USB cable or with the included power-outlet charger, but there's a catch: neither the power-outlet charger nor the USB cable can simultaneously charge both components. So if the headset and the transmitter module both need recharging, you'll have to charge one at a time or connect one to the USB cable and the other to the power adapter. In our tests, the power adapter charged a battery in around 3 hours, but the USB cable took nearly an hour longer to finish the job. While mostly listening to music, we got approximately 9 hours out of the batteries (rated play time is 12 hours; standby is up to 200 hours). After unseating the battery from the headset, we had to reseat it a few times to get the headset working again. Our best advice is to avoid removing the battery altogether.
The headset's controls largely consist of a multifunction button that establishes Bluetooth connections, mutes and unmutes music, answers calls, ends calls, and redials. In addition, the headset has volume buttons and a power button. All the controls are mounted on the right earpiece and arrayed logically enough that the headset becomes fairly easy to operate once you acclimate to it. In theory, if used with a Bluetooth MP3 player that incorporates a compatible control protocol, the headset's buttons should allow you to play, pause, and skip tracks; however, we know of no such player available at this time.
The Anycom BSH-100 uses the Bluetooth A2DP protocol to deliver stereo audio. With music, the overall sound quality was marginally acceptable despite noticeable wireless crackling. What's more, the headset couldn't play very loud without distorting. With the transmitter module in our pants pocket or set in the cross-trainer's cup holder, dropouts were fairly rare. On average, they occurred a couple times per hour but lasted only a second or two before the connection was reestablished. The headset successfully paired with our Siemens S66 cell phone. Voice quality on the headset was good, but one caller on the other end said our voice sounded like it was coming through a speakerphone. When we clicked the button to answer a call, we consistently experienced a delay of a couple seconds between the time our cell phone answered and the time we could hear the caller through the wireless link.
In the final analysis, the Anycom BSH-100 is a cool product that's nonetheless hampered by enough minor kinks that we might sit this one out and wait for a next-generation device.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7out of 7 user reviews
Excellent product!
Pros: Sound quality treble and bass are very good, connects to most a2dp bluetooth devices.
Cons: Doesn't compensate for lousy a2dp applications.
out of 7 user reviews
it's good - for a short time
Pros: as with any wireless device, you are not tied to the PC
Cons: stops functioning
out of 7 user reviews
Don't buy if you have vista
Pros: look nice and functional
Cons: vista is broken
out of 7 user reviews
Excellent sound, good battery life, great VoIP use
Pros: Fairly comfortable, good for hours of use at a time
Cons: No noise cancellation, long charge time.
When I get a good VoIP connection, the other end is surprised at the excellent microphone quality. In a noisy area...not so well, mic is too sensitive to everything else. The removable mic is cool, unless you misplace it....
I did not get the range I had hoped for... I use an USB dongle. It often seems because of the WiFi units in the area, since I have gotten fair coverage at the beach. I have not used it with any cellphone. I bought it for the stereo operation capability. I lost the charger in Peru. So, I use the computer USB port to charge it. Anyway, I also have another 5V charger, with USB port.
out of 7 user reviews
Middle of the road. Some good, some bad.
Pros: Pretty good for hands-free phone coversations. I really like the fit and feel, plus the fact that they tend to block other noise out.
Cons: Audio quality is adequate to poor most of the time. It crackles and has other audible artifacts of the Bluetooth audio compression.
The usable bluetooth range is weak, just a few feet. The audio quality is much too poor to stream audio. My MacBook Pro can stream iTunes music to these guys, which is cool and all, but the quality is bad, and it crackles if I turn my head or lean back away from my laptop.
Use them for telephone and videoconferencing. Don't kid yourself about streaming audio.
out of 7 user reviews
Good Sound, Clunky Music/Phone Interface
Pros: No cables, great sound, fun for listening to music
Cons: Phone calls knock out the music connection, and after the call I've been left with a disconnected headset, requiring restarting my PPC
out of 7 user reviews
very satisfied with them for music
Pros: no wires and great sound, controls on the headset
Cons: design seems delicate but has performed well so far
