Bluetooth Speakerphone - eMeet M2 Max Professional Conference Speaker and 4 Directional Mics for up to 15 People Business Conference Calls High Volume Noise Reduction Daisy Chain Dongle Home Office

I purchased this item specifically as a voice to text solution. I am hard of hearing, and one context that is extremely difficult to communicate in is group conversations. Any group conversation… People tend to talk over each other, and who is speaking changes faster than I can look for facial expression cues and face reading (as opposed to lip-reading). In these situations I can't follow the conversation without the help of technology. I use voice to text apps to help, however, the microphones I currently possess have a very short pickup range (this is a good thing), useful for when I only want voice to text from whoever holds the microphone, or wherever I am pointing said microphone. However, I needed a microphone that would have a long distance and 360 degree sound pickup range, that could inteligently filter out background noise and background chatter. Conference microphones seemed to fit the bill, but I knew from what I was reading that they would only work for small tables. I kept looking for something that could work flexibly for small tables as well as larger tables.I saw a comment on a different emeet product that this unit, the emeet 220 was coming out soon and that it would allow for daisy chaining two units together. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent me a manual, mind you, this was before the product was released, I was really impressed that they were willing to do that. Looking through the manual I decided this product was worth a shot considering it's flexibility and AI features.Emeet has a different product, the N1 which has it's own software and cloud storage and processing capabilities to do voice to text including labeling speakers as in "[name] [message]" automatically. It looked cool, but I am subscription adverse, and the speaker labeling only works with two speakers, and would require training for each session. I already have a couple voice to text solution that I am comfortable using and didn't really want to deal with hardware that was tied into a subscription based service. Also, I felt that with this new unit, the hardware and AI would probably have newer/more refinements.I recieved the E Meet 220 the evening before a local TedX Talk in my city. I decided to take it with me and baptize it by fire. I used it during lunch break, they had a huge conference hall with many tables, easily 20+ tables there were easily in excess of 400 attendees. So this was a very challenging environment for any microphone, and I have to say, I was really impressed with the emeet 220. It picked up people impressively well around my large 8' circular table. I was only able to use one that day, I wasn't able to turn one unit on for some reason, I'm not sure why, but even then, it worked impressively well. I had mounted it right on top of a glass vase that had nothing but rocks in it. I was able to participate in a group conversation in that type of environment for the first time in my life. Prior to that, I had only ever been able to hold one on one conversations in noisy environments like that. The AI on these microphones did an exceptional job of massaging the audio input making it possible for the voice to text applications I use to translate the speech to text much more accurately. I have since used it during a potluck with extended (chosen) family. My house has a very large living room, and terrible acoustics. I placed the two units as centrally in the living room as I could, (picture shown) and I was able to pick up everybody in the room very well. I was especially impressed that it continued to work well even when someone was talking squarely in between the two units, I was worried that there might be duplication of audio or strange audio effects, but the voice to text software showed no such effect. I will have to record audio in the future to verify this, but so far it's been a dream to have access to group conversation, and relatively pain-free since I don't have to try to impose one speaker at a time rules when using the other microphones I have that only really work on one person at a time. I was very impressed at the Bluetooth connection. I was on the other side of the room as the transmitting Bluetooth Emeet 220, and did not notice any connection drops. That being said, I probably wouldn't know if it was the Emeet or if it was the voice to text app or the internet connectivity if it did happen. So, more testing is upcoming, but first impressions have been stellar.I have yet to test the conferencing features, but I will update this review once I've had the opportunity to do so.

Great sound on an initial test, will test it in a annual meeting and give more feedback

I like this unit a lot actually even though I have a couple of problems with it. It is not a phone, but it does extend the use of a smartphone via bluetooth. Design is very modern with flat touch style controls and audio / light cues to confirm button choices. It even has light that moves around to indicate the source direction of microphones being detected in use in the face to face meeting. And unit holds power very well. It is not small but not bulky or too large either, about the size/diameter of an average Frisbee and about 2 inches tall. And bluetooth is easy to connect. Directions on how to use could be much better I believe. But the speaker that delivers callers in voices to the face to face meeting members is very clear and natural / pleasing sounding. I did buy two other units from different companies for comparison and this unit by eMeet is the best I could find. I have a couple of problems with it which I state below.The way I use it is I bluetooth to my cellphone, and too I then call into a conference line with that same cellphone and that is how any conference line callers are heard in our face to face meeting, thru my phone into this unit so that my cellphone's speaker and microphone features are switched from my phone to this unit.My biggest complaint is that when I use it for a smallish (10-15 members) weekly meeting of folks, anyone sitting 5 or 6 feet away from the unit, and/or who has a soft or not loud voice lets say, can be fairly difficult for callers in to discern the words spoken. I found that having it on a large table is best to not only come as close to the chest or face of the face to face member speaking but also to allow the voices of those in the face to face meeting to bounce off the table on their way to the 4 mics the unit has built in all around the perimeter of the design shell.My solution on the soft voices would be for the manufacturers to have permanently connected by high quality wire, a couple of spider mics that could extend from the base in two directions say for maybe 4 feet? Or offer 3 feet and 6 feet lengths of extension something like that. But make them permanent or at least can be easily clipped back onto sides of main unit for compact storage. Because soft or low or further away speakers are just plain hard for a single center of meeting table microphone or microphones to really pick up.Also this unit does not come with a carrying case; this unit is like others designed to be portable / charged in advance which means it will be being carried somewhere by someone yet there is no carrying case provided. Even if this were a separate purchase I would have bought it. I had to end up sizing and pricing a case that has turned out to be "ok" but was not designed for this item exactly so that while protective some, it is not as good as a manufacturer making a custom application to their unit type effort. I basically bought a small pocket fabric case that has some soft material inside, one that is meant for a tablet. This speakerphone unit is about 7 to 8 inches wide so it fits ok. Also there is a light that blinks when charging, then it goes solid light but I think the light going out would be a better indicator that is is fully charged.Overall the quality and ease of use I think are very good. I just wish the soft voice thing would have been considered more and solved as I say with mics that could be distributed a few feet from base for better voice pickup of those in the face to face/unit room. We literally pass the unit around the table some to make sure the callers in hear our voices but that is exactly the kind of fussy over control that kind of ruins the whole interaction on some level as the moderator and some face to face meeting members become focused on where the unit is rather than what they are sharing or what the meeting / interaction is all about.Lastly I have some thoughts on price I express in a moment but I still like the unit and it is very easy to charge and use and much better than others voices heard on the speaker of the unit itself. As for callers in hearing face to face members, if folks in the face to face room can be instructed to speak up some that does help a fair amount. I would recommend to a friend definitely in spite of any less than ideal results I detail here.Now, about price: the price at over $325 was a bit much for some of these missing pieces I experienced and too the price went up after I bought it so high dollar is not the end of the world if the product really is tested and solves all that I speak of here but with some overlooked quality issues, I and I believe others will find the investment is a little steep. I think some folks might be tempted just pass around their cell phones in a meeting as the microphone and speakers of most modern phones are very good and certainly this option would cost next to nothing for those already with phones. But to ask a group to cough up $350-$400 and then have some legitimate drawbacks after that investment is what some folks will not appreciate I believe.But to me, if they added the option of extra extendable mics, improved the directions and allowed those directions to be downloaded in advance of a sale, made a good carrying case available or part of the price, and kept the price competitive, they might just sell many many more of these as I believe there is a market now for sure more than ever for such devices.