Jabra Speak 710 UC Wireless Bluetooth Speaker

Once the remote working situation began in earnest, I began getting too many complaints from using the default microphone and speakers on my laptop, so I began researching a better microphone/speaker setup. I began the research thinking that headsets were going to be the only thing that would work for good sound, but I was really reluctant to spend the day wearing a headset. Further, there are some Zoom calls where my entire family will interact with people on the other end, so a headset would not have been ideal there. I ended up going with this Jabra 710, and it has been just wonderful over the past couple of weeks. It was very easy to setup (less than a minute to connect it via Bluetooth and begin using), easy to customize with the desktop software, and just really simple to use. There are easy touch controls around the dial, and they are very responsive when I increase/decrease volume or go on mute, and the lights very intuitively convey remaining on/off, battery life, sound levels, and mute status without issue. The Bluetooth has never dropped, though note that it is placed pretty close to the laptop. It has decent sound for calls. While certainly not concert worthy like my B&Ws, it is fine for background music and Youtuve videos, and great for voice. I am generally in a bedroom all day, with not a lot of background noise. I also keep this plugged in most of the time since I use it at my desk, though when testing the battery life was about a day and a half of work and I am in meetings nearly all day. I just keep it plugged in because I wanted to skip unplugging it and plugging it back in (especially when I was not really moving it anywhere). Overall, highly recommend for meeting-centric uses. Wish it was a tad more affordable, but at the end of the day I am happy with my purchase because I am never fiddling around with call quality issues on meetings with customers and colleagues, and that is meaningful to me. You can probably get equivalent (or maybe better) with a headset, but then you are limited to one person at a time on your end, and you have to wear a headset a lot of the day if you are in many meetings, and that wasn't for me.