If they're using external speakers, the only reason you're not hearing echo is because it's being software-cancelled. Different systems are better or worse at this software-cancelling; phones are good, Apple computers are good, otherwise YMMV.

I assume it also depends on if they are using the laptop speakers or some standalone ones. I'm guessing the cancelation tech is tuned for the onboard speakers

This depends. On my (dell) laptop, the mic is basically right between the two speakers, below the lip of the laptop. It’s possibly the worst placement you could come up with for a microphone, because it barely picks up voice, and picks up all the typing, desk noises and speaker echo in the world. But I suppose that’s not surprising from the company that thought that a webcam beneath the laptop display would be a good idea...

I really thought they had some clever software or leasing to make the picture appear as if you were looking into it because of the placement but nope...just a nose cam.

Yeah that would make sense

Teams is good, Slack is good, Zoom is good. Which ones are bad?

Google hangouts is the worst in my experience. Bringing external people in who aren’t used to google meets are always surprised. We buy everyone nice microphones and our meeting protocols are you unmute you talk then remute when done. We have a bunch of parents so this has been a good practice no matter what.

Those are all good until they’re not. I’ve had echo and other room audio problems crop up intermittently in all three of those platforms during calls.

The most common problem I see is not echo, but software audio ducking that happens as a result of using onboard speakers and mic.

Some people have a hard time realizing that they're interrupting someone else because that other person's audio is getting ducked while the laptop prioritizes mic input over speaker output - with the intent to reduce echo.

Almost. The laptop of the person being interrupted is essentially muting its mic temporarily to avoid sending an echo of the interrupter. You could say it's prioritizing its speaker over its mic.

Basically, of all the ostensibly unmuted mics, only the one with the loudest human is truly unmuted.

It's closer to half-duplex than full-duplex. Full-duplex with no artifacts requires no echo cancellation which requires headphones.

What does the term "duck" mean in this context? I'm not sure what you mean.

“Ducking” refers to lowering volume so that other audio can play on top of it. When an announcer speaks over a song in the radio, or when Siri lowers your music so she can talk over it - that kind of thing.

Try talking while they are also talking. You'll see the problem.

It's easy to have conversations with friends on discord where 3-4 people are talking at once all with headphones. However this has never worked on a zoom or hangout with less techy family members or work colleagues using ext. speakers.

That may be part of it. On calls that I'm on people generally don't talk over each other.

After having used both Webex and Zoom extensively for the past year, it seems that Zoom had much more aggressive echo cancellation up until recently. It feels like Webex has tweaked theirs recently so it's not quite as bad for those people who insist on just talking at their laptops with no external mic or headphones. Still, any of them with laptop speakers/mic sound worse than any other of them with a halfway passable headset.

I'd say if you're dealing with difficult people who really don't want to do more than point at an icon on a screen and go, the most bang for the (effort) buck is to ask if they have a set of headphones. Most people still have some earbuds around from when their phones still had headphone jacks. Just getting rid of the speakers makes a huge difference when folks refuse to mute while not speaking.

I was lucky enough to have an old Shure vocal mic and a cheapo XLR-USB interface sitting in a box of electronic stuff, so I typically put on my headphones and speak into the mic (on a desk stand). For camera...I tried the phone thing and while it does look a lot nicer, the phone gets warm and has to run for an hour or two at a time. Eventually just got a Logitech C920 once they dropped back to non-scalper prices.

A couple of clamp lights with parchment paper clipped over the end made more of a difference than buying a mirrorless camera would've (and they were way cheaper). My DSLR doesn't (and wasn't meant to) run for hours as a video cam so I didn't bother with that.

Also, using OBS and its virtual camera plugin means I can tweak and color correct the cam feed without having to dig into the OS webcam configuration. Plus, real chromakey beats crappy Zoom/Webex background removal when I do just want to goof around with cool backgrounds and overlays.

> don't care

Until you spend 1/2 hour talking to a certain family member, the one who calls from Burger King and sits right next to the soft drink machine so you can hear the ice being dispensed, you haven't fully lived.

I live next to a U.S. Marine Air Station. Until you get to share the full force of F/A-18s buzzing your place at full throttle, you haven't lived. Seriously - very loud.....

When Moffet Field was an operational Naval Air Station we would get P-3s, both going out to/returning from patrols, and circling around for touch an go landings for training, also C-5s and C-17s, and some fighters. The fighters were of course the noisiest, so you've got some serious loudness going on.

It's probably just related to crappy laptop hardware. Macbook speakers/mics are great and I never hear any feedback from them. When it happens, and you can hear your voice echoing on everything you say, it gets quite annoying.

> In fact, those with headsets will sometimes be worse because they're making a lot of mouth sounds close to the mic.

Yes this also freaks me out. Also when people use headsets in a room with lots of background noise, it sounds as if they use an open mic.

I'm also quite convinced that the Mac with just the internal mic/speaker is quite good for most cases. But I definitely want to look further into the issue. Also I certainly don't want to use a dedicated external mic, that seems total overkill to me.

Depends strongly on where your colleagues are. If they’re in a dedicated office at home the chances for background chatter are low.

I care, but not enough to ask people to QA my setup.

I don't know of a way to check how I sound without bothering anyone.

I mostly use Zoom and Webex, but both have an option (usually accessed via a little arrow next to the mute button) to open settings. Both give you the option to choose which mic/speakers you want to use and both allow you to do a test record for a few seconds and then have it played back to you.

I know in Webex you get this option before you are connected to the actual meeting, but Zoom may have it somewhere else I haven't bothered to look for. I make a habit of testing my mic every time I connect to a meeting, just in case I mucked something up or there's some other issue I wouldn't have known about. It's a minute of checking to save several minutes of embarrassment and delay later on.

Using the Zoom "record in the cloud" feature should roughly correspond to how people hear you BUT it does not let you know if eg your setup echoes someone else's voice. Bother someone, find a friend, ask your manager, geek out about audio, something.

There's a way to launch a "test meeting" where you can hear yourself as others would: https://zoom.us/test

Just listen to your own audio? In windows there is a checkbox for this, and most call apps have a settings page where you can listen to your own mic.

Not really. Zoom applies lots of noise canceling and other filters, so your raw audio doesn't correspond to what you actually sound like to other people (unless you use "original audio").