Plantronics BT600 Network Adapter (205250-01)

As a Linux user you always have to be mindful of compatibility and whether it will require significant work and hacks to function. You are wasting your time if you attempt to connect a plantronics headset to Linux. This dongle is perfect and works out of the box. The color coded bands really help while lecturing my class on Zoom. It even changes color when earpiece is on mute. It is expensive, but nothing else will work as well. Also, the charging case has a slot for the dongle. Excellent design.

Wasted hours trying to get a Plantronics Backbeat Sense headset working on my windows 7 laptop. My laptop DOES support bluetooth audio & headset profiles, but the Plantronics headset did not work with it, presumably because of lousy drivers. I finally got this device and it made the headset work perfectly the minute I installed this. In addition to finally making the headset "just work", it has a nice light. - The light is blue when the headset is on, so it's easy to see if you forgot to turn off the headset (and it's not near your PC). - The light is red when you have muted your mic in the headset during a call. That light is surprisingly helpful. Basically with this dongle sitting in your laptop, the headset communicates with the bluetooth radios inside this dongle rather than with the radios inside the laptop. It has good range - I can walk 2-3 rooms away around corners and still get reception, and as far as I can tell does not interfere with anything despite other bluetooth/wifi devices in the house. Would have returned the headset if not for this.

I purchased this li'l device ahead of receiving a set of Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2 Special Edition wireless headphones that I finally pulled the trigger on. It sat in my desk drawer, waiting for the headphones to arrive, while I set up my computer with a number of sound output options and bluetooth adapters to test the headphones with, once they got here (integrated motherboard sound, USB soundcard, PCIe sound card, and several types of analog input bluetooth transmitters). D-Day arrived, and I charged the headphones, and used a 26.5 minute .flac file for the musical selection to test-out direct connections to each different sound hardware output that I had configured on my machine. Good sound--darned good--particularly in rounding-out the low-end of the audio spectrum. The headphones are definite keepers. The sound processors that I have configured with this computer all produced very good sound, and the stack ranking falls out with the PCIe card leading the pack, and the USB sound card coming in just about neck-and-neck with the motherboard integrated sound; with the nod going to the USB sound card, which is 5 years newer than the sound hardware on the motherboard. With my baseline established, it's onward to the testing of the various means of routing sound through some bluetooth audio transmitters... I disabled my motherboard sound hardware in BIOS setup, and bootstrapped the OS (Debian Linux 9.4), then plugged the BT-600 into a rear USB 3.0 connector. After logging-in, I found the BT-600 detected by the OS as "Plantronics BT600 Analog Stereo". 'LSUSB -v' delivers more information than most folks want, but I saw what I wanted to see at Bus 010 Device 005: ID 047f:02f7: Debian was more than well acquainted with the device, and knows what to do with it. Suffice it to say that it is detected as a USB-connected soundcard, and the bluetooth interface is external to the OS entirely--your bluetooth receivers are the only things that have to worry about listening to what comes out of the soundcard. I skipped testing against the motherboard sound hardware, as well as the USB soundcard, and stuck with using the PCIe soundcard, routed through the various bluetooth transmitters that I had lined-up for comparison. This made it easy for me because, all I had to do was to pair the headphones with one transmitter, then with the BT-600, and switch between the two in my Master Channel Selection pane. I went through all 8 devices (7 bluetooth transmitters plus the BT-600) and was surprised to find that the BT-600, talking to the Plantronics headphones, was nearly on par with a direct connection between the PCIe soundcard and the headphones, and blew every one of the bluetooth audio transmitters that I tested it against out of the water. The .flac that I used for testing / comparison is a very full-range composition that contains melodic vocal performances in Sanskrit. Poor performance from audio hardware usually means that the nuances of the language are lost. In such cases, it's easy to mistake the exact pronunciation of the words in the performance. With this device, I am pleasantly surprised to find that all aspects of the sung words are perfectly reproduced, leaving no mistake as to the content of the performance. I honestly am VERY impressed with this little thing, and will be getting more to pop into the other computers that I use on a daily basis. Now, the BT-600 is not supplied with the specific headphones I purchased (Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2 Special Edition) but functions exactly as it is supposed to, offering red, blue and violet indicators, as appropriate to the mode of operation at any instant. For those wishing to obtain additional documentation on this product, you may want to visit the Plantronics website and search up the Getting Started guide for this product (Amazon won't permit me to post the link to help you out finding it, but it does exist).

I reluctantly spent the extra money and bought one of these to use with my Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2 Special Edition - Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones. But now that I've been using it for several weeks, I do not regret spending the extra money. This product is designed specifically to enhance the signal strength range and overall performance of Plantronics wireless products. I know the price seems high for such a tiny little device, but it's not about how big it is or what's inside. It's about what it does for you that really counts. Once the money is spent and you see how well this little guy works, you'll forget about how much you paid for it. Just buy it, be happy about your decision, and don't look back.

Works nice on my office laptop. Sound is good only the reach is not as strong as I expected. That’s why I didn’t give the full score.

Ordered to be able to link Polycom plantronics earpiece to my PC which does not have Bluetooth card. Works great. Just like usb dongle for mouse and keyboard. Connected to earpiece right away, but I don’t find embedded software to choose other devices or control the link. I guess it lets my pc onboard software pick it up(?)

I paid about $60 for this so my Plantronics Voyager 5220 headset would properly interact with Microsoft Teams (like it says it will). It doesn't. Even when I download the Plantronics Hub app to ensure it is synched with the headset, the Mute doesn't work, I can't disconnect a Teams call using the button on the headset, and.... most importantly to me... When I record a Microsoft Teams video call/demo/etc., it does NOT RECORD ANY SYSTEM AUDIO!!! Only my microphone. So... I attend a meeting/training and am responsible for recording the video call, and all you can hear is me occasionally saying "okay", "good point", etc. It does not record the actual system audio (people on the call, speaker, other people's questions, etc.)!!! What a complete waste of money!! I want a refund ASAP.

I lost the USB connector for my headset and this one is exactly the same as the one I had before. It was very easy to resync, just pushed a tiny button on the side of the usb and put the headset in paring mode, worked like a charm!

Allows me to use my voyager 5200 on the laptop effortlessly

Amazing device to connect plantronics with laptop.

A pesar de que muchas computadoras tienen sistemas de Bluetooth, el problema es utilizar todo el software de comunicación de la computadora con los manos libres de Plantronics. Este pequeño transmisor-receptor permite utilizar Skype, WebEx y demás herramientas de video y audio conferencia de manera integral además de vincularse también al teléfono celular. El rango aumenta de 3 metros para el Bluetooth normal, a 30 metros, por lo que es posible tener la computadora en el escritorio mientras se realizan otras actividades y se atiende una llamada al mismo tiempo. Se debe usar también el software de Plantronics en la computadora para recibir actualizaciones y asegurar la integración de todos los componentes. Este no es un producto para todo el público, está orientado especialmente a aquellos que cuentan con una oficina móvil y necesitan integrar sus comunicaciones a través de la computadora. Es necesario comprar también un manos libres como el 5200 de Plantronics. Una característica interesante es que el estuche del 5200 tiene un compartimiento integrado para almacenar este adaptador. Me gustaría que fuera más pequeño de manera que se ocultara en el puerto USB, sin embargo hay que recordar que es una antena y por tanto no es posible reducir su tamaño hasta ese extremo. Un excelente producto que recomendaría sin dudar.

Easy to setup, pairs quickly using instructions. Distance isn't great but connection is decent

Works well but, you must do the footwork of keeping up with the updates.