Plantronics Discovery 665 Bluetooth headset for Treo 700wx

[redhat]

Here's some more feedback for anyone looking into Bluetooth headsets.

I purchased a Plantronics Discovery 665 a week ago at my local Sprint store. It came in a logoed, yellow Sprint box with the words "Sprint Tested. Sprint Certified." on back of the box. The sales guy said "it works great with the 700wx." I didn't believe him for a minute, but I'm a sucker for new headsets, especially one with some new Digital Signal Processing software that should cut down the ambient noise.

On the plus side:

1) It's very light and comfortable.

2) The optional ear hook is a strong, thin wire that doesn't interfere with my glasses or get painful after a few hours.

3) It comes with three sizes of "Soft Gel Ear Tips" to accommodate different sizes/shapes of ears.

4) Sound quality, for both me and the person on the other end, seems better than my (many) previous headsets.

But on the downside:

1) The headset seems to get disconnected from the phone sometimes. Not unpaired, just not communicating with the phone I think. Randomly I can't answer a call with the headset call button. Just yesterday I was on a call with the headset for about 20 minutes with no problem. After hanging up I tried to make another outgoing call but the headset would not connect no matter what I tried. (Actually had to hold the phone to my head like way back in the 90's.) After finishing the call and investigating further I realized that the headset wouldn't even turn off. No matter how long I held the call button the thing wouldn't turn off. A little later while talking on the phone again I was playing with the headset and it did turn off, and then it even let me continue the existing call with the headset.

2) I hate the BRIGHT blue light that blinks on my ear every 5 seconds. I could use this thing to signal search planes next time I get lost in the mountains. Why does any manufacturer think we want to walk around with BRIGHT lights blinking on our heads??? If they really want a light why don't they make a subtle, small (elegant even) light facing the ear, or up so it doesn't illuminate the person in the passenger seat or make distracting reflections on car windows at night? Other drivers have been pulling over when they see my blue flashing light come up behind them. Sorry, had to rant for a minute there in case anyone responsible for this stupidity happens to be doing customer research.

3) The call and volume buttons are on the outside and hard to press. So you have to mash the headset into your ear whenever using a button. Why don't they put the buttons on the top side so we can use our handy opposable thumb to compensate for the pressure of pushing the buttons?

The manual gives a phone number for the Plantronics Technical Assistance Center. I had a knowledgeable sounding person within 30 seconds. She said two interesting things. First, that the Treo 700wx is NOT one of the phones recommended for this headset by Plantronics. She didn't know why Sprint would sell it for a Treo. Second, the reason it wouldn't turn off was probably because it was stuck communicating with the phone and the phone software had not released the headset. Not sure if that's a reasonable explanation, but I had already decided that it wasn't simply a bad switch.

So the bottom line is that I'm going to keep it for a few more days to see if I can find a pattern to the connection problems. If there's a pattern to its behavior maybe there's a way to live with it. Then all I need is some black paint to fix the blinking light.