Sennheiser Presence Bluetooth HD Headset Review

Earlier this year Sennheiser released Presence, a Bluetooth headset geared towards business professional’s on-the-go, and Technology X got the opportunity of taking one for a test drive.

For those of you who are not familiar with Sennheiser, they are a German based company that has been producing audio electronics for the past 70 years. Their focus ranges from aviation headsets to consumer earphones, and Sennheiser’s products have even gone as far as winning the Philo. T. Farnsworth award for “significantly impacting television technology and engineering”.

PACKAGE CONTENTS AND SPECS

In the box, Presence comes with an ear-hook, four ear sleeves, a car charger, a USB charging cable, and the Safety Guide. Presence also comes with a Quick Guide, which describes the basic procedures for setting up the device, the meaning of LED indications and the functions accessible by the main multi-function button. It is important to note that different variants of the unit do not include the USB dongle or the carrying case.

Presence is equipped with Bluetooth 4.0, which is the most recent version of Bluetooth technology. It is much less depriving of precious battery life, and supplies over-achieving performance as compared to previous versions. Bluetooth 4.0 is backwards compatible with previous versions of Bluetooth. This technology allows for the Presence headset to have up to 100 meters (300 feet) in distance between a smartphone and the headset. Additionally, the USB dongle allows for 25 meters (82 feet) between Presence and the dongle, giving you plenty of space to travel around the office.

We found battery life of the Sennheiser Presence to be substantial. The unit has the capabilities of 10 hours of talk time and 14-day battery life on standby, and Presence only requires 1 hour and 20 minutes to fully charge. The Presence headset also includes Sennheiser’s standard two-year warranty to cover any manufacturing defects.

FEATURES

Sennheiser has included their HD Voice Clarity Technology within Presence, this enhances the clarity of the sound for all participants within a voice call. A very interesting feature of the Presence headset is that it is built with three digital microphones, and utilizes Sennheiser’s Speak Focus technology. This feature allows the unit to intuitively detect your voice and will filter out background noise to ensure the quality of the sound is as clear and natural as possible. With Sennheiser’s WindSafe technology, Presence actively reduces wind noise in outdoor environments. This again emphasizes the focal point of clarity and natural sounding voice calls.

Sennheiser has even gone as far as protecting your hearing while wearing the device. Sennheiser has incorporated ActiveGard, which monitors the audio output from Presence for sudden sounds and noises that could potentially be hazardous and dangerous for your hearing. Essentially, ActiveGard will recognize, compress, and dissipate the energy that is emitted from the acoustic burst. An example of an acoustic burst could be that of the high-pitched frequency created by dialing a fax machine number. I encourage you to hear the difference by visiting Sennheiser’s website and trying their demo here.

The Presence headset works seamlessly with Unified Communications and Microsoft Lync. The USB dongle makes set-up quick and easy, it really is as simple as plug-and-play. Presence allows for multi-connectivity as well, so you can have the unit paired to your smartphone as well as the USB dongle. Essentially, this allows the user to move from home to car to office, and never have to worry about the telephone connectivity of Presence. Business professionals can now rest with ease that they will not miss that important phone call.