Ergotron, a global movement company that designs and manufactures applications and products that help people thrive, has today announced the availability of the CareFit™ Pro medical carts, designed to promote the wellbeing of caregivers with uninhibited mobility and personalised features to help deliver better patient experiences and life-changing care.
The CareFit™ Pro is a fully-featured design that enables untethered caregiver productivity with long-lasting, dependable power to navigate each shift. Personalised height and screen adjustment with intuitively placed features support caregiver well-being to keep the focus on patient care. Integrated technology also streamlines cart monitoring and service, and thoughtful finishes complement a calming environment of care.
Key features also include internal cable management and easy-to-clean surfaces, combined with optional UV Angel automated pathogen reduction (coming soon as an accessory), helping to combat hospital-acquired infections and create a hygienic workstation. The infinite brake mechanism, plus neutral-angle grip design, create easy height adjustment.
Industry-leading load and cycle testing serves as the foundation of a professional-grade design built for endurance and longevity. Ergotron’s eKinnex™ proactive fleet management streamlines service to help increase uptime and reduce power anxiety. Premium, five-inch casters support unprecedented mobility and untethered productivity as caregivers move between rooms and floors. Multiple ergonomic height adjustments, numerous accessory options and a user-friendly touchscreen support efficiency and comfort.
“The caregiver and patient experience is closely interwoven, making nurse wellness, workflows and health and safety key aspects of quality care. As more organisations aim to offer warm, healing spaces to align with the “resimercial” trend, they need fully-featured medical carts that soften the noise of patient rooms, while enabling caregivers to thrive,” explained Paul Zuidema, Managing Director EMEA at Ergotron. “In light of the evolving global health situation, this new product serves the growing demand for mobile medical carts with a hygienic, easy-to-clean design that supports infection control.”
Plantronics, Inc a global communications company that powers meaningful human connection and collaboration, today announced the latest addition to its Blackwire line, the Blackwire 8225, which offers new hybrid ANC capabilities. This premium corded plug-and-play USB headset is an extension of the popular Blackwire 3300, Blackwire 5200 and Blackwire 7225 series, which combines advanced audio features to significantly reduce background noise, further enabling today’s need to work from anywhere.
The Blackwire 8225 is easy for IT to deploy and manage and is designed to drastically reduce the noise and distraction that comes with every style of workplace – from the home office to the traditional office. Three settings of advanced hybrid active noise cancelling (ANC) technology allow users to adjust to fit their work environment and seamlessly tune out distracting household noises such as vacuum cleaners, or workplace chatter from colleagues. A noise-cancelling microphone enhanced with Poly Acoustic Fence technology ensures users sound crisp and clear from wherever they work by automatically reducing distracting background noise, like nearby talkers or dogs barking, so that the only sound heard on the other end of the line is clear, premium audio of the speaker talking.
Blackwire 8225 Teams USB-A VVX450 Situation
Blackwire 8225 USB-C Laptop Situation
“A consistent complaint we hear from our customers across various workspaces is the challenge of dealing with noise and distractions that can make you less productive,” said Roger Ogborne, global solutions marketing at Poly. “The new Blackwire 8225 joins our extensive suite of headsets, designed for everyday wear, with the latest acoustic innovation so IT leads and end-users can feel confident in their experience, no matter where they are.”
For IT managers looking to outfit their workforce with the right devices to drastically reduce distraction and noise, the Blackwire 8225 series is an easy to use, plug-and-play solution. Along with its intuitive, stylish design, the Blackwire 8225 delivers exceptional enterprise grade audio performance – even in the noisiest environments. To oversee and improve workforce fleet deployment, IT teams can remotely manage the Blackwire 8225 with Plantronics Manager Pro, a software as a service solution sold separately.
For Microsoft Teams users, Blackwire 8225 offers a Microsoft Teams version to support an easy collaboration and communication experience. A dedicated Teams button provides instant access to the Teams desktop application for a seamless call, meeting, or collaboration opportunity.
“Today, more than ever before, workers are desperately in need of tools that allow them to concentrate during calls and meetings, block-out background noise, and enable one’s ability to work and communicate, effectively,” said Alaa Saayed, information and communications technology industry director and fellow, Frost and Sullivan. “Poly’s Blackwire 8225 uses Acoustic Fence technology to shield any sounds besides the speaker’s voice, and its hybrid active noise cancellation technology provides the user with a much more advanced noise blocking experience, leaving both the end-user and the far-end with a premium audio experience.”
For more information on Blackwire 8225 and the Blackwire headset portfolio, please visit: poly.com/Blackwire-8225
Plantronics is a Brand Synonymous with call centres throughout the world in small office and reception areas and those that use telecoms equipment. The Plantronics Voyager 3240 is geared towards the office user rather than the full-time receptionist allowing connection to a variety of phones/laptops and telecoms equipment with an abundant of voice prompts to ensure clarity. This is suitable for those on the go in a busy environment, drivers, office staff that have to make/received allot of calls and require handsfree,
The unit comes with only 1 headset which allows you to be aware of your surroundings, most of us will be aware of people with 2 earphones shouting on a call unaware a full office can hear them unaware of their surroundings.
Main features
In-ear design provides a wearing style that’s easy to put on or take off
Precision tuned triple-mic with enhanced DSP delivers superior noise cancellation
Smart sensors answer calls by simply putting on the headset
Dynamic mute alert senses and alerts you when you begin to speak while muted
Up to 98 feet/30 meters of wireless range from supported Class 1 Bluetooth devices
Portable charging case provides up to 10 hours of additional talk time
Specifications:
Listen/talk time Up to 6 hours plus up to 10 extra hours with charging case
(available in select bundles); up to 7 days standby time
Range Up to 98 feet (30 meters) with Class 1 Bluetooth enabled device
Audio performance Triple-mic DSP noise-cancelling technology, mobile wideband
compatibility up to 6,800 Hz; echo cancellation, proprietary DSP,
A2DP, mobile wideband compatibility (HD Voice-enabled)
Hearing protection SoundGuard®: Sound leveling for listening comfort and acoustic
limiting for protection against sounds above 118 dBA
Firmware Update firmware and change language settings using Plantronics
Hub for iOS/Android
Connection:
The connection is standard to most phones using the Bluetooth option to your phone/laptop with no issues found. The NFC option works easier and faster.
Charging:
The unit comes with a micro USB cable which is disappointing in terms on modern phones for the last number of years have migrated to USB C resulting in another cable to be carried around, it takes approx. 90 minutes to fully charge the headset. The status of the charging can be seen/heard via voice prompt/headset LEDs / phone app,
Charge case:
The charging ( open style ) case does as it states, charges the headset but as a design having the charging connection on the bottom leaves it prone to liquid ingress when placed on a wet surface, the case gives minimum protection when carried from place to place, ( whereas the Plantronics BackBeat Pro 5100 True Wireless Bluetooth Headset, aimed at music lovers case is ideal offering protection and charges the headset ) the belt type clip again leaves allot to be desired with little practical use. The charging case gives 10 additional hours on a single charge, giving you up to 16 hours of combined talk time between a fully charged headset and charging case.
The app – Plantronics Hub
The Plantronics Hub has a variety of useful features but again is different to the Plantronics BackBeat Pro 5100 Blackbeat app. The manufactures appear to have 2 completely different designs and technology which would be great to have one standardised one. The app gives a clear view of the battery time left, allow you to locate a misplaced headset, customise calls, mute calls, auto-answer, headset sensors and a variety of other features to personalise your experience. This also has a reset option in case a mistake is made during setup. The app has got 4.3 out of 5 on the play store out of near 30,000 downloads which is good, the app worked as required and can’t fault.
Voice alerts:
The unit has a variety of useful voice alerts
Voice alerts list
Following is a list of common voice alerts. You can use Plantronics Hub to customise some of
these alerts. Download Plantronics Hub at plantronics.com/software
“Answering call”
“Battery low”
“Redialling last outgoing call”
“Incoming call”
“Mute on/mute off”
“No phone is connected”
“Pairing”
“Pairing incomplete, restart headset”
“Pairing successful”
“Power on/off”
“Phone X connected/disconnected” (my personal favourite feature)
“Recharge headset”
“Smart sensors on/off”
“Battery high”
“Volume maximum/minimum”
Call quality:
The Plantronics Voyager 3240 as expected has excellent call quality, quoting noise-cancelling technology which is far superior to most headset tested in the last year. This does not mask out all sound from the call as on tests walking close to a radio / TV, the caller can hear the sounds albeit lower than many other brands. When used to listen to Spotify / Google play music. / Amazon music quality is average been distracted with 1 earpiece and the highs and lows not as pronounced, again this is not designed for recreational music listening but will work perfectly on your voice frequencies.
Conclusion:
Plantronics is a great brand with quality products, with my favourites being able to connect numerous phones/laptops at the same time, and able to make or receive a call from any device. This is a feature not seen on many earphones. This Bluetooth multipoint technology enables you to pair and connect your headset to two different Bluetooth audio devices at once with audio prompts to advise what is connected. The brand as an office technology has a compatibility guide which you expect to ensure if the connection to a specialised device the guesswork is taken out of the interface connection, this may include Desk phone, Softphone, Mobile Bluetooth, Mobile corded Gaming and Landline.
The headset when sitting on a desk can easily be seen to connect to a phone when lifted to your ear but states not connected ensuring when you decide to take a call you can use the headset or traditional holding your head to the phone. Over the years I have had numerous earphones connected via Bluetooth only to find the audio was via the earphone, not the phones when required.
Overall the unit is a lightweight, solid build, comfortable to wear for hours, and allows you to be aware of your surroundings with superior call quality. There are a few niggles in the charger style given limited protection and micro USB charger while minor in the overall scheme. The multipoint technology allowing multiple units connected at the same time is a must for those that carry 2 phones or take skype/teams calls from laptops etc. The Plantronics Voyager 3240 has an abundance of features and personalise options in the app given a great experience overall.
Global communications company Poly has launched the Trio C60, a smart conference phone designed to bring people together to collaborate in meeting spaces of any size.
The Poly Trio Conferencing Series is flexible and with the introduction of the Trio C60, this goes even further. The Trio C60 can stand on its own as a high-quality conference phone, or, it can be used to control other endpoints like the Poly Studio X Family or G7500. Additionally, the Trio C60 will support a variety of the leading open SIP and UC&C services, allowing for flexibility of platforms without the need for multiple endpoints. This makes it easy for Administrators to standardize on the collaboration experience throughout your organization and also gives you peace of mind that should the organization’s needs change, your endpoints can change with it.
Along with a striking new look, the Trio C60 has a number of key features including:
NoiseBlockAI technology which enables speech to flow uninterrupted and delivers native experiences at the touch of a button on its gesture-based touch screen
Can be used to control an increasing number of video endpoints, offering a consistent user interface from room to room
New hardware and operating system give the Trio C60 up to 4x better performance than its predecessors
For wireless deployments, the C60 features 2.4-5GHz WIFI with multiple-in multiple-out (MIMO) — a technique for sending and receiving more than one data signal simultaneously to ensure a more reliable meeting experience over Wi-Fi
To learn more about the Poly Trio C60,check out this blog
Jabra today announces its Evolve2 range, the next generation of the Evolve range, its best-selling and market leading UC headset to enhance productivity in the office. The range consists of the Evolve2 85, Evolve2 65, and Evolve2 40 and is engineered to transform concentration, collaboration and flexibility in the workplace. By blocking out more noise, providing better voice clarity, bringing distributed teams together, giving people the power to work from anywhere, and monitoring data to enable intelligent decision-making, the Evolve2 is the new standard to elevate office productivity to new heights. The headsets work with all leading UC platforms as well as pending certification for Microsoft Teams.
Since Jabra’s Evolve range first hit the market in 2014, office work has changed significantly. Tasks are increasing in complexity and are creating a higher need for collaboration which makes people spend more time in collaboration mode compared to concentration mode. This causes an increase of distractions and noise in the office. As a result workplace productivity remains a constant battle for businesses globally.
But not only our office environment has changed. In today’s society where our work and private lives overlap regularly, it is important that tech solutions can support every scenario. Jabra’s no-compromise Evolve2 headset range offers features that suit every element of life – whether at work, at home or on-the-go.
Future-proofing with monitoring and analytics
Besides elevating concentration, flexibility and collaboration, the Evolve2 range tackles another key reason for the continued productivity problem: the need for monitoring and analysing the entire UC ecosystem in the company to secure stable and high UC call quality. Evolve2 will integrate with leading software/monitoring vendors to allow IT Directors and other decision-makers to analyse the performance of every Jabra headset and quickly identify the root cause of poor call quality, whether it’s due to Wi-Fi router, UC infrastructure, or the individual user’s headset settings. Moreover, the Jabra Xpress software enables easy and secure management of headsets, allowing for firmware updates and the implementation of new features whilst making life easier for the IT department.
As a result, businesses can advance their digital evolution by future-proofing their employees with the Evolve2 range, a solution built for all the challenges of modern knowledge workers: concentration in the office, remote collaboration, and the need for flexibility.
Leading sound and voice performance
Fuelled by 150 years of audio engineering excellence, Jabra has a proven track record in sound engineering. Compared to Jabra’s existing Evolve range, the new leading product Evolve2 85 is a purely digital headset that delivers 50% better noise cancellation via the Digital Hybrid ANC and noise isolating ear cushions with memory foam. The voice performance is powered by 40% better transmitted audio and double the voice distractor performance, which delivers a distinct focus on the user’s voice while cancelling distracting voices around the user. This focus is partly achieved via the 10 microphones that ensure both voice clarity and ANC – for speaking in even the nosiest environments.
The products within the range feature 360-degree visibility of the Jabra signature busy light on both ear cups to clearly signal concentration mode whilst working autonomously. Additionally, the wireless headsets in the range can be connected to all mobile devices. For these, the Jabra Sound+ App ensures a personalised and fully utilised audio experience.
The Evolve2 range includes three headsets:
The Evolve2 85 offers Digital Hybrid ANC and ten microphones in total, including two microphones in the fully integrated boom-arm and eight in the ear cups. Users can enjoy up to 37 hours wireless battery life, 40MM speakers for immersive music, and an integrated busy light with 360-degree view on both ear cups. The headset has been developed to take full advantage of the latest in audio chipset technology, enabling the Evolve2 85 to be one step ahead in battery life, solid connectivity and audio processing. Also, the sleek Evolve2 85 is designed with both the office environment and ‘on-the-go’ professional in mind, which ensures the headset can be worn regardless of where you’re working.
The Evolve2 65 has three microphones of which two are located in the boom-arm and one in the right ear cup. The headset offers up to 37 hours of battery life and three times better real wireless range than the existing Evolve 65.
The Evolve2 40 is a corded variant and offers the same comfort, durability and user experience as the Evolve2 65.
The Evolve2 85 and Evolve2 65 will include the Jabra Link 380, Jabra’s new BT adapter (dongle) that will be available in either USB-C or USB-A version.
The Microsoft Teams variants in the range have a dedicated Microsoft Teams button which allows instant connection to colleagues and meetings. For these versions the special status indicator LED on the headset can signal different issues, like missing a call or a meeting.
Holger Reisinger, SVP, Enterprise Solutions at Jabra, said: “The working world is changing. Advancements are being made across all sectors, but productivity isn’t improving at the necessary pace. Instead, distractions are growing in the workplace. Collaboration is on the up, but so is remote working. This makes the working world a fairly convoluted space, something the Evolve2 range provides an answer to. Our headsets deliver productivity, pioneer the digital experience, and enhance concentration. We are confident that with the Evolve2 range we’re offering the best headset for concentration and collaboration, whilst also creating a new standard in headsets for the modern office worker.”
Pricing and availability
The Jabra Evolve2 range will be available from April 1st, 2020 in selected retailers. The Evolve2 85 and Evolve2 65 will be available in two colours: Black and Beige. The Evolve2 40 will be available in black.
Evolve2 85 STEREO MSRP £382 MSRP (£416 MSRP with desk stand for charging)
Evolve2 65 STEREO MSRP £178 MSRP, £249 (£212 MSRP with desk stand for charging)
Evolve2 65 MONO MSRP £169 MSRP (£203 MSRP with desk stand for charging)
The super folks at Plantronics have sent us over a few products to check out and there is something for everyone here. We have got the Plantronics Voyager 3240/5200 6200 UC and Calisto 5200.
We will be reviewing these over the next few weeks on our YouTube and will be heading that way with reviews going forward with real hands on tech reviews and a deep look into the products. If you have any questions feel free to ask there or below or on any of our social media and we will gladly answer any questions you might have.
Not so long ago we had the fantastic Jabra Move headset in for testing and they turned out to be pretty impressive to say the least.This time round its top of the crop for the office and we have the Jabra Evolve in for inspection so how did these turn out to be,lets find out.
First up is the packaging.
The Jabra Evolve come in a nice flat box but don’t let this fool you as to what’s inside,there comes a separate pouch which then contains the Evolve headset which is neatly tucked inside a black pouch with a nice fluorescent zipline,spaced between the cups is a piece of cushion to keep them from harm or rubbing off each other which could over time cause some abrasion marks.Also included is control unit which is conveniently designed for easy use and enables easy productivity.. this can be connected to your in house system or PC via USB,the headphones themselves have a fixed 3.5mm cable with ample length so there is room to move.
DESIGN
The headband is solid with a rubberized material on the underside which is comfortable on the head nor does it catch or interfere with your hair,this seems very durable also and should last a long time,the outer side of the band is plastic which seems very tough and flexible,again this would appear to have plenty of longevity in it.
EARCUPS
The cups are big,not typically something i would see in our office but these are top dollar,covering the entire ear with a soft flexible ear cushions these block out distractions,this is my idea of headphones be it for music or work,these are very comfortable,labelled internally on both sides its easy to dictate one side from the other,both cups have a job to do which we will go onto next.
The left cup houses the micro USB port offering plug and play options so connectivity here is good giving the user choice,also on the left cup there is an indicator to let you know there is power once plugged into your PC etc.
The right cup has some more to offer,this hold the ANC toggle, Active Noise Cancellation. There is a huge difference between on and off here making these more than just useful at the office,if your turn ACN on the sound is amazing,even if you just used these a normal pair of headphones these are impressive and give an amazing sound experience which leaves the distraction behind,you can use these for work or pleasure and get great results for both and in comfort too,to be honest i would have no issue using these as just normal headphones the sound is that good and the experience you get.Also on this side is the boom arm which can be simply moved up or down to turn on and off,so when work is done or you simply want to listen to music and move away from your workspace you can swipe up the boom arm and then connect to your portable device with ease.
Control Unit.
The control unit is a sleek design which offers easy management of what you want to do,the undersize has a rubber ring which keeps it from slipping around and then there is a light around the centerpiece to enable busy mode which actually looks quite nice especially in a darker environment.Its a simple design with large indicators to guide you simply to your chosen action.If you are on a call the light will appear as shown below or you can activate this to yourself which is quite handy if you want to be left alone,i like this idea..
Conclusion.
They are not cheap,£322.but in this life you get what you pay for, originally designed to make you more productive in your workspace these also act as a true pair or typical personal headphones so the price is worth it,they are comfortable,they do the job,they make life easy,especially in the office,they enhance productivity so infact you are getting quite more than your bargained for when you think of it,these big cupped headphones don’t suite everyone lets be honest but if i had these thrown my way from a company i worked for i would have no problem wearing them at home as well as in the office,beggars cant be choosers..There is other models available to form jabra which are smaller than these so again there is choice to suits ones personal taste along with the bosses.
For the full range of the Evolve series look over here at Jabra UK
