Anne De Santis
GBSound lag/first few words sound underwater I am a Washington State Court Certified Spanish interpreter. Snohomish County District Courts have been using the owl in their courtrooms for hearings. The sound quality is so-so at best. There is a lag and the first couple of words sound under water and then the rest of the speech sounds normal. This happens with every speaker in the courtroom but not with the other Zoom participants who are not in the courtroom. Because of the lag, if another speaker begins before the audio comes through from the last speaker then you can't hear anything. One of the judges stated that I had a bad internet connection. However, I don't have this issue with other courtrooms and providers that don't use the owl. Also, other Zoom participants have stated to the judges that the sound from the courtroom is choppy. This is very frustrating since I am legally bound to interpret everything that is said to assure due process. I have given feedback to the interpreter coordinator and court clerks. I don't know if the courts bought the wrong size Owl or what is causing the issue. Please advise. Thank you.
Paul
IEWe love our owl! We love our owl! for years we i have struggled with making meetings productive with external participants. Those joining remotely could never really participate properly as they couldnt hear or see what was going on properly. The owl solves this for us. Now our remote participants feel as if they are in the room! Fabulous product.
Mike
GBGreat Idea, Poor Execution We bought two Owls for our conferences between offices. They were great to start, but we quickly found that the audio quality was almost unusable. Lots of pieces of conversations were dropped and we surmised it was due to some overzealous attempt at blocking out background noise. Great idea and the hardware seems good, but the software is not there yet.
Roldan Descamps
BEVery low quality customer service I'm amazed by the poor quality of the customer service. We have an Owl 3 + extended mic in our conference room for about 2 months. Everything worked fine, then stopped working. It happens, I sell connected hardware too, I know how it can be. I contacted the customer service that first sends me to the troubleshooting section. I did all the procedures patiently. Then they asked for photos and audio samples under different conditions. I followed instructions and made all the different tests (different settings, different computers, different rooms, different conference software, etc.). Almost 2 hours later, I had a pretty convincing case: the device was not working in any configuration. Their answer ? "The problem is the room". Well, I tried it in 5 different rooms, some without any echo, and the problem is still there. When I insist that it cannot be the room, they answer "that they cannot do anything and are sorry if I don't like the product". I insist, quite amazed by the answer. Now they're going with "let's wait for the next firmware update in a couple of weeks to see if it helps". Seriously? You sell a 2000$ device that breaks after 2 months, and you give me that crap of excuses and service? You're not even considering that there might be a malfunctioning device? I'd advise anyone I know to stay away from Owllabs - probably the worst product and service I've ever bought.
Angel
GBPart of the team Honestly I really love our Owl. We've been mostly working from home, so I usually end up in the office alone unless we're doing a conference call. There's something oddly comforting about the cute little 'hoot' the Owl makes when connecting. It's like having a useful pet/coworker there, even when I'm alone in the office. On a more serious note, I love being able to wander over to the whiteboard without worrying about staying in frame or whether or not I'm speaking loudly enough. It's sleek design fits in nicely with our the design of our conference room and ends up being a conversation starter for guests.