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There has been a flurry of work from home enablers in the past few months. Not all of them are new, but they are certainly coming into the limelight now for obvious reasons. The latest to hit our radar is the beyerdynamic PHONUM, a Bluetooth speakerphone meant for those like me who are jumping from one call to the other, but more than often crying out to be heard.
The beyerdynamic PHONUM is a slightly large but compact disc-like device that can sit on your desk. It uses a USB-C cable to charge and can be connected to your phone via Bluetooth –- it did not show up on my MacBook though for pairing.
The round speaker mesh is surrounded by touch buttons for volume control, paring and mute. Once you are connected on a call, new buttons light up letting you disconnect the call when needed. If you tap on the volume buttons you get a good audio feedback.
I was hoping to use the speaker on my Zoom calls, but this worked for me only via the phone. The Phonum lights up the same way on all sorts of video calls which is good. All the remote buttons on the device work well with all sorts of call, though I could not unmute a zoom call from the device.
So I had it connected to my phone on the desk all the time and I could just keep working on the desktop as my calls happened in the background. Also, this worked very well with my habit of walking around the room on long calls. Usually, the other side complains that I am not audible at all times as earphones work differently in different parts of the room. With the Phonum, as long as I was in the same room, everyone could hear me clearly without me having to raise my voice.
The Phonum uses Gecko 360 Voice technology with three microphones to get this part right. So whichever side of the device you are seated, the voice will be clear and balanced.
However, my small grouse with the device is that the speaker is not as loud as I expected it to be. So if I was in another part of the room, it was at times a struggle to hear what was being said. But the Gecko Downfire sound technology ensures the audio is sharp and neutral whatever be the call quality.
The beyerdynamic Phonum works on battery, which means if you are making a rare trip to office, you can carry this with you. The battery is good to last about a day, with intermittent calls.
Priced at Rs 24,999, I am not sure the Phonum will make sense to a lot of individual users. However, if you are a team lead who conducts hub calls once in a while with a team which cannot always be in the same room as you, the device could be a worthy investment. I would suggest this as a good buy for small startups trying to come to grips with a remote, or hybrid work environment. Individual users can get a good speaker will call quality for half the price.
