Sony Ericsson announces HBV-100 Bluetooth VoIP kit

Sony Ericsson has ventured into VoIP territory before with its Bluetooth headsets, but in that case the headset had the slight drawback of only being compatible with Sony's own VAIO BX laptops. Now the company's finally seen fit to give other PC users a break with its latest Bluetooth VoIP kit, although Mac users are, unfortunately, still out of luck. The headset in the kit is Sony Ericsson's existing HBH-PV705 model, available in blue only, and promising the same 12 hours of talk time and 300 hours standby time as before. It gets paired with a USB Bluetooth adapter, which means that you don't have to worry about having a PC or laptop with built-in Bluetooth, although its not clear if you can take advantage of that if you do -- probably not, since there's apparently no software or drivers involved here. Sony Ericsson hasn't announced how much it'll cost just yet, though it should be available before the end of the year.

[Thanks, Alex A.]

[Chris Merchant @ Dec 5th 2006 7:26PM]

Just what we need, more proprietary hardware.

Chris

[Mark @ Dec 5th 2006 8:13PM]

I think I'm missing the point here.. How is this better than my standard 25 euro logitech BT headset, if you need a computer for using it? Or maybe not even better; how is it different?

[V @ Dec 5th 2006 8:30PM]

any1 knows if the bt adapter can be used with other bt devices like mice, etc...

[Kamalot @ Dec 5th 2006 10:15PM]

I don't understand.

I've been using a bluetooth headset with VOIP software on my PC for years. That includes both bluetooth-enabled PCs and those that have a bluetooth dongle.

Why would anyone need to buy a special headset/dongle for VOIP?

[Castle @ Dec 5th 2006 10:49PM]

>>Just what we need, more proprietary hardware.

RTFA

It ain't proprietary, basically a bluetooth headset that is PC-compatible, even comes with a USB Bluetooth dongle in case you don't have BT. Connects to any PC/laptop. Its a BT headset you can use for your phone and then use for VoIP (like Skype).

[mvip @ Dec 6th 2006 12:00AM]

Well, as far as the Mac-support goes, we don't really need it. Setting up a BT-headset on a Mac is not really complicated (in contrast to Windows). Therefore we don't need any combo-solution.

I've been using my SonyEricsson headset with my Mac and Skype (and Project Gizmo) for quite some time now, and it works like a charm. However, a while back I tried to offer my Dad the same solution to his Windows laptop, but ended up giving up. Sure I were able to pair the device fine, but every time before making a phone-call it took about 3-4 minutes to get everything set up. On the Mac, the bt-headset automatically connects upon an incoming call (if Skype if configured to use it).

[Mark @ Dec 6th 2006 8:07AM]

Ok, so that's why I didn't understand the use of it. I'm using a Mac.

[Hitesh Sawlani @ Dec 6th 2006 5:23AM]

Not all bluetooth dongles accept "audio devices", so the one they bundled makes sure its the right one