do you have a recommended brand/model?

I'm using a SteelSeries Arctis 1 ($69) and I like it overall. Only minor flaws: the battery life is good but not exceptional (magnetic charging helps), the charge port is micro USB (despite the fact that the dongle is USB-C), the wireless range is good but not exceptional, the shape of the dongle is wide and tends to block nearby ports, but the biggest flaw is the power button which you have to hold down for an eternity to turn it on or off. Everything else about it (functionality, sound, comfort, reliability, compatibility, etc) is perfect for me.

you could get a usb extension cable and mount the dongle anywhere.

It comes with one. But I'd rather have a smaller dongle than an extra and much larger piece to carry around and lose. But like I said, minor flaws.

OP says the dongle is USB-C, and USB-C extension cables don't really exist.

Quoting OSTz on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_d...):

> Direct USB-C to USB-C extensions are explicitly forbidden for safety and performance reasons because they defeat built-in safety mechanisms.

> All USB-C to USB-C cables should support 60W charging, but there are also cables that support 100W and 240W. USB-C chargers and devices identify a cable's capabilities by reading what's known as an electronic marker (e-marker) inside the cable that explicitly reports >60W charging and/or 5Gbps or faster data transfer capabilities. A USB-C charger will first read a cable's e-marker and adjust its power output based on what the connected cable's maximum charging capacity is.

> The problem with extension cables in general is that they don't (and can't) have an e-marker, since by design, normal cables only have one addressable e-marker. Therefore, neither the device nor the charger is aware of the presence of an extension. If your USB-C to USB-C extension only supported 60W, and you connected it to a charger/device combo that could do 100W or more, you could start a fire. This failure is particularly insidious because it can potentially lull the user into a false sense of security; everything might work as expected until they change something, like upgrading the charger, and then it could fail catastrophically.

> Another reason extension cables don't work well is that the signal integrity requirements for USB-C's higher transmission rates are very strict. Believe me when I say that cable makers would make longer cables if they could.

Those power buttons have a tendency to pop out just ouf of warranty. A few of my friends have them and its 50/50 as to whether theyve survived 6 months longer than warranty

I believe this. I have two and I guess I've been lucky because it hasn't happened to me.

It's a pity. it's a great headset for all the reasons above, they just didn't last for us.

I own SS Arctis 7 (2 gen) and can't really recommend them. 4 out 5 at most. Despite claiming increased ear space they still hurt my ears after prolonged sessions, and rubber headband is also not comfortable over long time. Another minor thing is that low charge notification is raised very late and while it is on it can't be suspended and very annoying. Dull sound, if understand correctly it's for bigger bass response, but for me bass is irrelevant. Controls and features are nice though. Microfon and it's controls are very good. Personally I would not buy Arctis series again, not because it is bad, but because it is not a compelling offer for this price.

I swear by my Corsair Void Pro headset. I have recommended it endlessly and everyone is extremely happy. Good price (less than $100 usually), great battery, great sound, the mic mutes itself if you flip it up... Best thing is that they are quite hackable, and when the battery life starts decreasing you can just change it for a bigger LiPo and be done with it.

logitech g pro x wireless

Logitech Zone Vibe 100 Bluetooth headset.

Came here just to mention magnetic charger adapters!

I bought a cheap set off of Amazon, and then realized I also wanted non-USB-C tips as well. While the brand I bought wasn't selling them, turns out that the same factory manufacturing them also manufactures for other brands, and so on like the third page of Amazon results I found another product using the exact same tips, but this time also including other types!

>Also, some of those magnetic USB charging cables to keep them charged without fiddling with plugging in cables.

I've had MacBooks for two decades. Until my recent purchase of an Apple Silicon model, they all used proprietary power connections (first barrel, then MagSafe) on one side of the computer. Since I needed a power supply in two different places, this always meant obtaining a second Apple charger.

My current MacBook is the first I've owned that also allows charging from any USB-C port. For the first time, I can

* use a small USB charger I already owned (A 27W unit in my case. Yes, the computer does charge under use, albeit slower than with the Apple charger)

* charge on the opposite side of where the Apple charger goes (which is very useful for my aforementioned multiple-location usage pattern)

* still have an auto-detachable connection by, like you, using a magnetic USB connection (<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BCJVL7CD/> is what I use)

Can you recommend some models for the gaming wireless headphones? Are you using Kleer?

Seconding the magnetic adapters. I use one to quick switch my keyboard between my work mac and gaming machine.

Magnetic USB cables are a godsend for young kids with tablets.

I've been thinking of buying a wireless gaming headset too. How good is the Linux support on the dongles?

Perfect for mine. I think they usually don't need special drivers.

They almost all show up as a standard USB sound card to the OS, sometimes two on particularly fancy ones allowing you to separately balance chat and game, so you should be fine.

Same here. My Logitech gaming headset works great in Linux. I do have to use some third party thing to adjust the goofy LED colors and side channel volume, though.

https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl

I use wired. No hassle with charging or dongles. It's not as if I am going anywhere in these since the mic arm is quite awkward looking (but provides unbeatable sound quality).

No dongle? The whole thing is a giant dongle hanging off your computer. Headphone cables are far more annoying than mouse cables IMO, and they even affect the sound because it's quite audible when they hit or rub on stuff. Plus I find it surprisingly useful to be able to get out of my chair to grab something while still listening and/or talking. I can even go to another room.

Or take a shit. And then worry that you didn't mute properly even though you triple checked it before walking out of the room.

I once moved to the couch while wearing wireless headphones and accidentally fell asleep at an important meeting. Thankfully I didn't need to speak anymore (I think). A wire anchoring me to the desk isn't the worst idea...

That's equally on them for running a boring meeting.

Sometimes you gotta do boring meetings, and sometimes everyone has to be there.

Most of them could be better, have fewer people, be more focused, etc. -- sure, no doubt. But you can't make every meeting into an action-packed saturday morning cartoon.

Like, these compliance forms ain't gotta fill themselves out, and each team has to be there. These JIRA and code-review meets are gonna be lame, but we gotta do em...

true but additionally the meeting was boring to me, and I was more or less a nobody. I am sure it was not boring to others.

Haha fair enough!

I distinguish between a casual voice chat and an important meeting/presentation, casual I often take on the go and use whatever is the most convenient option (definitely not a proper headset... bone conductors more like it). At an important meeting I usually don't walk to another room.

And if you specifically mean the cheapest possible models, yes wired will have cable noise, but wireless will have horrible connection and battery issues, so let's assume we are talking about a good above-average model and in that case you can expect no cable noise.

It's just the typical wire vs no wire trade-off combined with personal situation/preference. I see your perceived disadvantages and advantages, none of which I have had ever issues with which made me want to fix something in my particular setup, and think: as long as I don't ruin the cable my headphones just work on my external soundcard and with my music player (and with every device which has a 3.5mm jack), and I don't have to charge them. Good enough for me. And this might depend on culture or particular job, but if I'm in a meeting I can just say 'brb gonna grab something' and no-one cares.

edit oops there was already a whole comment thread lower on the page essentially saying the same things, sorry about that

I find it nice to not be tethered to my desk for hours when I'm at home. But I guess it depends how long you spend on calls during your day.

For a casual chat I wouldn't necessarily use it. It's when sound quality is important, and then it's also important that I pay attention to what's happening anyway

I just use my wired headphones with my smartphone when I want to walk around the house / yard and still attend a meeting.

Using laptop mic’s fixes bluetooth issue and massively improves audio quality

Then it sounds like you are playing the bongos if you type during a meeting.

And like you're in an airplane hangar when the laptop gets a bit hot.

Yeah it's better than Bluetooth but a mic next to your mouth works far better than a mic in your laptop no matter how good it is.

You obviously never tried recent macbook...

I have a M1 MacBook Air and what I said is still true. It's a matter of physics.

Really depends on the laptop. On my work laptop, the microphone is located next to the fans (instead of for instance next to the webcam). You can imagine the audio quality.

This also depends on what service you are using. I have done video calls over Jitsi where nobody reported any issues, but immediately after a switch to Discord my voice got apparently drowned in so much noise nobody could understand me and people could only continue talking after I muted myself.

Don't use magnetic USB adapters. They run a decent risk of frying your device. The USB-C spec was not designed to have the connection broken in that way. You will have no issues 99% of the time, but you will eventually have that time when your device gets fried. It takes a very precise design and a lot of clever engineering to have a high-current power connector with tiny pins be able to break without having the ground be the last connection to be broken.

It is also easy for the magnetic connector to short the power into a data line, and because it doesn't connect in the proper pin order and has no 'mid-plate' it has no mitigation against arcing. See this picture:

* https://imgur.com/a/bMvYtfy

Notice how some pins are longer than others? They are designed that way so that they connect first and disconnect last, so that ground is always established before and after other pins connect. This prevents connecting and disconnecting a cable from frying your electronics.

"The mid-plate shall be connected to the PCB ground with at least two grounding points. The mid-plate shall be designed such that plug pins A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, and B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9 do not short to ground during the connector mating process with an effective 6.2 mm receptacle shell implementation." [1]

[0] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Figure 3-13, Page 65.

[1] USB Type-C Spec R2.2 - October 2022, Section 3.2.1 Interface Definition, Page 43.

* https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-c...

Thanks for the heads up. This is a useful warning, as the magnetic adapters seem attractive, but they are not worth it if they risk frying your device.

They're worth it if the risk is small and the device is relatively cheap and low power (5v charging). I'm not going to use these on my MacBook or phone with fast charging but I'll use them on my gamepad and headphones no problem. And I use them for charging only, not data.

I use some magnetic tips, but only for all my non-USB-C.

Almost everything I have now uses USB-C. The few micro USB and Lightning devices hanging around don’t have the same high current concerns.

I stopped using magnetic USB adapters when I noticed some sort of interference from them was causing other USB devices from being properly connected. Windows wouldn't recognize or detect the devices.

It could've also been the USB hub I was using, but the problem disappeared once I changed the USB cable with magnetic adapters to a cable with ordinary connectors.

A power-only (2 wire) magnetic USB-C cable will be as safe as prior generation magnetic USB cables (it won't be more likely to damage your device)

I’m comfortable using the round two pin charging ones for things that only use the port for charging, not data, like mice, headphones, radios and speakers.

The data ones are almost universally sketchy, as they expose pins (and sensitive internal circuitry) that should absolutely be kept away from the outside world.

There is an emerging range that reduce the exposure somewhat, but I’m still wary.

Sure, it will be safe because it won't be able to go above 5V 3.0A (15W) at absolute max since it won't be negotiating PD. Most likely it won't have the proper termination resistors on the CC line and will get a whopping 900mA@5V = 4.5W

* https://i.imgur.com/n3IjcQE.png

I encourage everyone to actually read the USB 3.2/C/PD spec sheets.

15W (and even 4.5W) sound like enough for charging stuff like controllers, headphones and whatever other small battery-powered devices one has. (Also, do devices like that actually respect that 900mA thing, assuming they're capable of pulling that much power?)

Aside from that: It's obviously not enough for a laptop, but what other devices do you really need that much more for in your day-to-day life? I think I haven't used a USB charger capable of outputting more than 10W in a while (aside from my Nintendo Switch and its charging brick, but because of the dock it wouldn't make much sense to use a magnet adapter anyway). At home, there's always a charger nearby, and when I leave the house my phone usually has enough power anyways, or the trip is long enough for me to throw a powerbank in my backpack no matter how full the phone battery is.

And if you end up in a situation where you really need to quick-charge something, there's nothing stopping you from just taking the plug out for a short while.

The thing is that USB-C was designed to be the universal connector, for both high and low power devices, for charging and data. Should there be a qualification: 'use the specification and standards violating magnetic adapters IF your device is X and not Y or else your macbook might get toasted and btw your warranty is now void for using it.'

Or, just 'don't use shady spec violating components that don't exist in spec for good reasons'?

> Also, do devices like that actually respect that 900mA thing, assuming they're capable of pulling that much power?

USB-C will not 'give it' power unless it conforms to certain parameters like having a resistor on the CC line. This is the reason that crappy devices which merely changed the physical ports from micro-USB to USB-C and come with a USB-C (device end) to USB-A (charge end) will not charge with a USB-C to USB-C cable. The device never got updated to request the power and the USB-C port on the charger just ignores it.

Among the neurotic optimizations I’ve made to my cable setup - retracting USB-C cables and normal cables of any length, adapters for any and all devices I own - I have avoided magnetic adapters for the above reasons.

How did you make retracting cables?

You just buy them. I wouldn't trust them for high-power or high-drain devices, personally, but you can just search amazon and see what they have.

As the other poster said, I just buy them, but I’m in Japan and also pick up these cable organizers for the cost of an American candy bar (¥190): https://www.amazon.com/MUJI-Cable-Smart-Phone-Stand/dp/B097R...

I fried a hub, a wall charger, and the USB ports on my monitor before I identified my magnetic USB-C connector as the problem.

I use wired headphones (ATH-M50x) with a boom microphone cable, no worries about batteries or dongles.

But how do you get up and walk across your house to your fridge to get a snack in the middle of a meeting without missing any of the meeting?

Headsets with a mic arm that auto-mutes also have the benefit that you can go to the bathroom, use the kitchen, etc. on mute, but still respond quickly if someone addresses you.

That sounds risky

Well... I still do a stealth pee + deferred flush in those scenarios.

Unless it's a Logitech headset, in which case 90% of the time the functionality of the mic-arm-mute breaks at the software level requiring various troubleshooting dances before anyone can hear you again. How they can be such a leader in the peripheral space but still produce absolutely the worst garbage software will never stop being annoying.

I found out, after a full year-and-a-bit that Teams did not respect my Logitech G930 push-to-mute.

How no colleague ever informed me, I can only speculate.

G930 got me too. If it's powered on while connected to external power (like a USB battery) it works as an audio device but none of the inputs work, including the mute command.

It seems like the mistake there would be implementing the mute in the software instead of a proper hardware shutoff.

Wow, I have a semi-old Sennheiser PC 320 G4ME (with a cable) and the hw mute has never let me down, also I'm pretty sure it's actually in HW, so how would the software fail?

When you're a leader you can just coast on your brand name!

You'll want to be very confident that it actually mutes in hardware.

I thought my old headset (Logitech G930) did, until I found out the hard way that it was in fact just sending a software command to mute the mic at the system level, and that if the headset was turned on while plugged in to external power it would not properly communicate any inputs to the host system.

Audio still worked perfectly, but volume controls, the "G Keys", and most importantly mic mute did not work in this state. The red light at the tip of the mic would come on but nothing actually changed and audio was always being transmitted to the host PC (which I guess was always true, but the host PC now wasn't muting it either).

I found this out during a lunch break on a multi-day training session, where I let out a Barney Gumble class belch with my mic in the up/off position and the background chatter in the conference call fell silent until someone commented about how my lunch must have been good. After figuring out what happened I then wondered how much had been heard on previous days, but never got around to going back and listening through the session recordings to figure it out.

I live by the principle where I just won't say anything incriminating or extremely embarrassing if there is a mic or phone that could possibly be active. Little embarrassing stuff is fine, but for everything else, I assume the mic is hot even if I just muted it and I can see the mute indicator.

In addition to protecting against technical failures like you describe, I also don't get in the habit of saying stuff that one day I could accidentally say on a blatantly hot mic or in front of someone else.

The only mute button I really trust is the one inside my head.

I didn't say anything problematic, but I certainly might have used the restroom thinking I was muted.

A rite of passage!

This is a real MVP of the work from home life. Some of them, like the Arctis I have, will present two devices to the computer, so you can have music playing quietly under a meeting, but still have voice for calls at a good quality and controlled independently.

Odd, I went the opposite way -- a full blown high-end Bluetooth headset. I'm also a field warrior as well part of the time, so on-the-road audio is important to me and my callers.

The Blueparrott B450-XT is an amazing headset. Did I buy it at a truck stop? Yeah. But I've been on an audio call where I literally stood in front of a box fan with my face against the fan and nobody could hear the fan in the microphone at all. The noise cancellation on the mics is downright amazing and everyone heard me loud and clear over fans, datacenter environments, the works.