Long Range Bluetooth or 900mhz ?

[ob2s]

My company has eliminated 'dial in' for meetings, now audio is only via Skype/Teams via computer audio. What this means to me, who works at home (since 2000) is that I can no longer leave my workstation to participate in meetings. I have a non negotiable agreement (with self) that I won't eat at my computer. I often have meetings back to back 6AM-2PM. I like to eat sometimes while I am on a call that I once HAD on speakerphone (cordless 900mhz). I am struggling with a solution. Bluetooth doesn't have enough range to go between my office and the kitchen. I can't even go to the bathroom now (mute of course!) during meetings. I was looking for usb to wifi audio solutions, but to no avail. No, I cannot use my cell to attend meetings, only company issued computers running the custom vpn client. So I thought maybe one of those cordless (900mhz) phones that do bluetooth would work. I thought maybe I can put a bluetooth usb dongle in the computer and then have a nearby cordless phone base station for the bluetooth to cordless bridge, but this solution seems to be tightly integrated to a cellphone with bluetooth, not a computer with bluetooth. I think plantronics makes something that would work, but it is $286. Does anyone have any cheaper ideas ? Thanks

 

[EndlessWaves]

Do you have a mobile? I know there are apps like WO Mic and Droidcam that allow you to use the microphone and camera of your smartphone over wi-fi so I'd guess there's something similar enabling you to use it as a handset, although my chosen search terms weren't revealing it to me.

Although if there isn't you could likely use WO Mic and send the audio back the other way using a different utility.

 

[oneman]

Odd, MS, Cisco and pretty much everyone else have public facing portals for corporate users that you can sign in with your company ID. In fact we are encouraged to use that method as using VPN means traffic goes onto corporate network via proxy and back out again on proxy to get to cloud meeting hosting.

Anyway, you might have a problem with WiFi if you are on VPN as it will problem only allow IP connections from corporate network. So higher range Bluetooth is probably going to be your best bet. I known plantronics aren't cheap but generally their products are top notch and will pay themselves back over time.

 

[oneman]

Do you have a mobile? I know there are apps like WO Mic and Droidcam that allow you to use the microphone and camera of your smartphone over wi-fi so I'd guess there's something similar enabling you to use it as a handset, although my chosen search terms weren't revealing it to me.

Although if there isn't you could likely use WO Mic and send the audio back the other way using a different utility.

WO mic is the right idea, it creates a virtual mic on your PC which is connected to phone mic but no speaker support and as I pointed out above the VPN almost certainly blocks any local network traffic. It's why you can't use local printer for example while on VPN.

 

[noiseboy72]

Have you tried running teams on your phone? There's a good chance it will work, even if the company uses VPNs.

Same with Skype, although you might need to use the web interface, as Skype of Business is very hit and miss on mobiles.