Jawbone ERA Bluetooth Headset - Shadowbox - Retail Packaging

READ MY UPDATE BELOW FOR THE LATEST:The talk button constantly gets stuck and causes my volume to cycle.Went to update firmware using Jawbone updater on website. It got halfway through and failed which "bricked" my ERA! It doesn't work at all now. I went on Aliph's forums and many others have had this problem. The only solution seems to be to send it in to Jawbone for replacement. Weak. The customer service is rather slow to respond, taking about a day or two to reply to each email. It's been dead for over a week now and I have not received an RMA.Aggravating. Perhaps doesn't even earn 2 stars.On the plus side...the incoming volume is loud but not as good as the jabra Extreme. One volume button really stinks as I hate waiting for the volume to cycle up and down and get it where I want. The noise cancelling is the best out of all BT headsets I've tried. It works with the windows down on the highway, standing at a busy intersection, washin dishes, etc. The people I'm calling never hear any background noise. Amazing.However, the sticking button and broke software updater really spoil the experience. If you can live with not updating this thing and the volume know, this might be the unit for you.I will update if Aliph ever gets back to me.UPDATE: July 2011I did get a response from Aliph and they were somewhat helpful. They explained it would be faster to return it to the retailer. I wasn't really crazy about dumping a bad product on the retailer to deal with. Anyway, I got a new one, and even bought a second one to have as a backup (swap when battery is low). I'm a really hesitant to try the firmware update again for fear of bricking the new one. Tech support did offer to walk through it with me but I'm not sure what that would accomplish since I followed the directions the first time around.Also, the button on the two new ones doesn't stick like the one I returned.Voice recognition - OK compared to the Jabra Extreme, voice recognition on the iPhone 4 iOS 4.3 for the purposes of dialing is horrifically bad, 80% failure rate for the Jawbone ERA. Mind you this is with BOTH my ERAs so it's not the phone. Also in a dead quiet room. This is really hard to believe because just the opposite is true for voice calling over the ERA. How can it be so bad at figuring out who I'm trying to call when the Extreme (with it's bad "noise-cancelling") get's it right 98% of the time.I am more happy than not with this headset now. But I can't stand that I can't reliably call using voice dialing. Perhaps I'll try firmware upgrade one of my ERAs and see if it improves. I'll update again soon with the results.

First off let me say that the build quality of the ERA is fantastic for how lightweight it is. I bought this unit as well as he blueant q2 with the intention of returning the loser. The ERA is a great piece of hardware but Jawbone really needs to step it up with their mytalk software to give users more control to unlock the potential for this headset.JAWBONE ERAFirst the bad:1. Accelerometer; For now its just a gimmick. I mean really, why are there 3 ways to answer the phone, shake shake, tap tap, button on the back of the ERA. that is just a waste and with proper software users would be able to specify their preference for answering which leaves other options open for more functions. also tap tap is ONLY for answering and hanging up which is a waste of a feature when not receiving or on a call, for example when listening to music or podcasts taptap does nothing when it should pause/play. with a simple update the uses of taptap could be expanded. shake shake is useless because unless you want to give yourself a headache and look very weird you will not be shaking this thing while on its your head, Its cool for pairing but thats it.2. NO MUTE; neither the blueant or the jawbone has a mute button which I find unacceptable when working from home. being able to mute while; talking to your kids, bathroom, dogs start barking, etc jawbone should let you customize the button functions (I personally would use the button to answer hangup and taptap to mute/unmute when on a call.3. My Talk; being able to change the voice in your ear is a great feature however I found that was the only good thing about mytalk. there are apps available but you can only run one app at a time and it requires you to give up voice dialing. Why voice dialing is an app when all it does is activate voice control on your phone is beyond me. a better function would be to use the button and then tell it the name of the app you want it to load so you can have voice dial and the apps to read and send text/emails at the same time. Mytalk does not provide the custom-ability the ERA deserves and the forums are full of requests that seem to fall on deaf ears.4. Caller ID; The ERA does do caller ID by name but is limited to 20 names and must be setup manually. While this should work for most blutant's Q2 downloads your contact list automatically and can do up to 2000 contacts vs ERA's 20.THE GOOD:1. Noise cancellation; Noise Assassin is by far the best compared to plantronics 975 and the Q2, during testing I was able to hold a conversation on the freeway @ 70 with windows down, AC on and Radio at a medium level. I was told it was crystal clear when i wasn't talking and when I did talk they could hear a little buzz in the background but my voice was clear and no distorted. The Q2 failed to even maintain its connection to my phone when the windows were rolled down at 70mph incoming and outgoing would instantly cut out. even at lower speeds the blueant Q2 could not match the noise cancellation of the ERA.2. Speaker; the speaker on the ERA is very nice, especially after tuning it to your liking with the volume control. It does not get as loud as the blueant's for conversations but it has a much better sound and wider range for music and podcasts. the only drawback is you cannot have volume control and noise assassin control active at the same time, its one or the other but who would actually want to turn noise assassin off?3. Quality; quality feel very good on the ERA compared to the blueant, ive read many complaints about the mesh wind guard of the blueant coming unglued after a while or anytime its left in the car on a hot day.4. FIT; the ERA comes with more ear options to find the perfect fit and for me at least the ERA felt more secure in my ear than the blueant but I did not have comfort issues with either I did prefer the solid feel of the ERA when it was in my ear.5. connection; the ERA had a slightly longer range than the Blueant before distorting and did not unpair form the device as easily as the blueant2Conclusion:Both the ERA and the Blueant are great headset and I would recommend both depending on the situation they will be used in. For quiet environments the blueant excells with great call quality for office settings. If however you are a field tech or require noise cancellation that actually works the Jawbone is your only option. the era could also be improved 100% with some firmware updates to add features like pause/play and mute features as well as the ability to load more than one app at a time. I give the Jawbone 3 stars. minus 1 star because other than noise cancellation there isn't much to set this apart from other headsets, and if you dont need noise cancellation there are better options. minus 1 more star for jawbones lacking software which keeps this unit from having very important features like mute. Jawbone seems to like to push new products for you to spend money on (ICON HD) instead of updating and improving on their existing products, and for $130 retail customers deserve better support and updates.