Best Home Office Headsets
Working from home has its perks. You don’t have to get up a couple of hours earlier than your shift. You don’t have to commute to and from work. You can choose to wear anything you want, and you can spend more time at home.
The downside is you spend more time at home amidst all the usual distractions – which can often get in the way of your busy schedule.
If you have a dog, children, noisy neighbors, or all the above, you can hardly hear yourself think. That’s when home office headsets can be critical. Whether listening to music to shut out the noise or help you have a conversation with colleagues or clients, you need a good set of headsets to give you the perfect office headspace at home.
A wide variety of home office headsets are on offer, but for a home office, you need one with excellent noise-canceling capabilities and sound quality. If your job requires you to wear it for extended periods, you want a comfortable one you can wear for hours on end. You might also want to consider wireless ones with a multi-point Bluetooth pairing feature so you can switch from one device to another if necessary.
Best home office headsets
We’ve put together a list of some of the best home office headsets you can find online. Some will be Unified Communications (UC) certified, which you will want if you use business communication and softphone applications.
Bose QuietComfort 45
If you have the Bose QuietComfort 45, you will have an excellent, distraction-free experience when making calls and listening to music or video.
The Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones are probably the most comfortable over-ear headsets available on the market today. The plush but light and not overly large cushioned ear cups are never too tight, it offers excellent wireless connectivity features, and the sound quality is also excellent – putting it ahead in three key factors.
However, the QuietComfort 45 has an extra feature it shares with all QuietComfort headsets; it has two modes of noise cancellation: Quiet and Aware.
Quiet mode blocks all ambient noise, essential if you need a distraction-free environment for work or while on a call. The Aware mode activates external microphones to allow in some ambient noise. This is useful if you need to hear the doorbell or phone or outside to give you some situational awareness.
The QuietComfort 45 has a total of six microphones, four for voice and beamforming. That means your voice goes over clean and clear. It also has multi-point Bluetooth so that you can connect to two devices at the same time within 30 feet or 9 meters.
You can charge the QuietComfort 45 on a PC or laptop with a USB-C cable. A fully charged battery will give you up to 24 hours with noise cancellation on. If your battery runs down, you can still listen to music, but with no noise-cancellation.
If you have the Bose QuietComfort 45, you will have an excellent, distraction-free experience when making calls and listening to music or video. However, the price might make you balk. It retails for $329 on the Bose site and Amazon.
Sony WH-1000XM4
If you’re a Sony fan, then the choice is simple. The headsets come in black, blue, and the new white version.
The Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless over-ear headset improves the WH-1000XM3, an excellent noise-canceling headset except during voice calls, when it seemed it would pick up ALL ambient noise.
The upgraded WH-1000XM4 does not have that problem, and it also comes with multi-point Bluetooth pairing. If a call comes into your smartphone while you’re watching a movie or listening to music on your computer, it will automatically pause if you pick up the call. The headset will switch to your phone automatically and switch back to your computer and resume the movie or music when you end the call.
The WH-1000XM4 is designed primarily for listening to music, equipped with its Dual Noise Sensor for noise canceling and Edge-AI. It also has 30 hours of playback with quick charging (only 10 minutes will give you five more hours) and Touch Sensor controls to control the volume, play, pause, skip tracks, and activate a voice assistant.
The Sony is WH-1000XM4, also quite comfortable, almost rivaling the Bose QuietComfort 45. However, it is slightly more expensive at $349.99 a pair on the Sony site and $348 on Amazon. If you’re a Sony fan, then the choice is simple. The headsets come in black, blue, and the new white version.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700
Overall, however, it is a strong contender for the best all-around headset for audio capabilities.
The wireless Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 is the successor to the QuietComfort 35 II model and the QuietComfort 45. It is a tad better than QuietComfort 45 in sound quality and has excellent noise cancellation, but while it performs well for voice calls, it is not as good as the QC45 and slightly less comfortable.
Overall, however, it is a strong contender for the best all-around headset for audio capabilities.
The durable 700 offers up to 20 hours of battery life and packs robust features such as multiple levels of EQ and noise cancellation. While the QC45 has two, the 700 has 11 noise canceling levels, allowing you to find the perfect level for your home office environment.
The 700 also has a total of 8 microphones, six of which are dedicated to noise canceling. It can also make voice calls and IP calls within a range of 33 feet (10 meters) from the source.
The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 is also available in the UC version, which comes with a Bluetooth link module for PC pairing and Microsoft Teams certified. The non-UC model retails for $379 on the Bose site and Amazon.
Poly Voyager Focus 2 UC
Poly (formerly Plantronics) has always had an excellent reputation for producing some of the best home office headsets, and the Voyager Focus 2 UC remains true to form.
Poly (formerly Plantronics) has always had an excellent reputation for producing some of the best home office headsets, and the Voyager Focus 2 UC remains true to form. It improves considerably on the popular Voyager Focus, providing stellar noise reduction with three user settings through Digital Hybrid acoustic noise canceling (ANC) technology. It uses two digital MEMS microphones and two analog ECM microphones.
The Voyager Focus 2 UC has a boom microphone that you can mute using the mute button or simply flipping it up, which improves the first Voyager Focus. It uses Bluetooth 5.1 and has an impressive range of up to 164 feet (50 meters) indoors. Voyager Focus 2 UC also has an extended battery life of 19 hours with ANC off, 16 hours with it on.
You can use the Voyager Focus 2 UC with your phone via Bluetooth and your PC using the USB dongle (included). You can also connect it to a desk phone. It answers calls automatically when you put it on and mutes when you take it off. It is perfect for calls in noisy environments.
You can choose to get the headset as a standalone or as a bundle with a charging dock. The Poly Voyager Focus 2 UC retails for $349.95 with the charging dock on the Poly site. You can also find it on the Poly store on Amazon, where the price is currently $213.99 for the headset alone or $206.88 site and with a charging dock for the USB-A and $206.88 for USB-C.
Jabra Elite 45h
The Jabra Elite 45h on-ear headset has been around for a few years and continues to be a favorite for the no-frills crowd that just wants great sound and durability from their home office headset.
The Jabra Elite 45h on-ear headset has been around for a few years and continues to be a favorite for the no-frills crowd that just wants great sound and durability from their home office headset.
The Elite 45 has 40mm speakers, which is the biggest in the market today. Aside from music, it also creates an excellent calling experience because of its sidetone feature. You can hear your voice as you speak so that you can modulate it in real-time.
The wireless Elite 45h has multi-point Bluetooth pairing for up to 8 devices and an operating range of 10 meters. It takes 90 minutes to fully charge the battery, which will give you up to 50 hours of talk time and music. That is not bad for a headset that costs from $93.62 to $99.99 on Amazon, depending on the color.
AfterShokz OpenComm
If you are not a fan of having your ears completely covered by leather-covered foam, no matter how comfortable, consider the bone-conducting AfterShokz OpenComm.
If you are not a fan of having your ears completely covered by leather-covered foam, no matter how comfortable, consider the bone-conducting AfterShokz OpenComm.
It has an integrated boom microphone that picks up sound through the cheekbone, so it leaves your ears completely open to the world around you. That is ideal in a home office setup if you live alone because it won’t isolate you. It is also much more light and comfortable than over/on-ear headsets and has multi-point Bluetooth pairing.
Open Comm provides excellent quality for voice calling because of its excellent noise reduction, but it is not ideal for listening to music because it has no bass. It is water-resistant, so that you can use it outdoors without worry.
A fully charged Open Comm gives you 16 hours of talk and 8 hours of listening time. However, the charging cable is proprietary, so don’t lose it. The AfterShokz Open Comm retails for $159.95 on the AfterShokz site and Amazon.
After Thoughts
All the headsets we included on this list are wireless because, let’s face it; no one likes being tethered to a device when listening to music or talking on the phone. Back in the day, wireless headsets had a nasty habit of running out of juice or having a short range, making them less than ideal for a home office setup.
