Call quality and noise cancellation (regular calls, handsfree, Signal voice messages, Microsoft Teams video calls)

What do you mean exactly with palm rejection in this context? They refused to recognize the problem?

Look at this post : Palm rejection not working

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I did a test with Jitsi, the quality is much better in that app. I’ll need to do some more testing. But Jitsi seems to work as normal.

I noticed that Jitsi uses the microphone at the top of the phone, while Signal uses the microphone at the bottom.

The builtin voice recorder also uses the bottom microphone. Perhaps the bottom microphone is only for normal voice calls?

And the top microphone is used for loudspeaker calls, which also applies to video and voice messages (because you hold the phone from the same distance from your mouth in that case).

In that case the fix would be to use the top microphone for audio recordings and video calls.

Anyone else experience that people complain about poor audio quality when you make a call from home ? I am aware that this can come down to many things, but I often have people saying that the sound is pooor or choppy at their end. Putting aside the signal strength - which is fine - and how I hold the phone, are there any other things I should be aware of ?
Thanks in advance.

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Yes, I made a topic as well, see below. Please voice your concerns with Fairphone support. Maybe it’s something they can improve/fix.

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Got a reply from Fairphone support.


Main microphone

You’re correct that the bottom microphone is used for calls - regardless whether normal phone calls or via an app.

Top microphones

During a call, the top microphones capture ambient noise. That is then used for noise cancellation.
During loudspeaker and video calls, the top microphones should be used for the bulk of input.

I tested my device with a phone call and an app call (via Messenger) and at least in these cases, it works as intended. How and when the microphones are used is a setting that’s different for different apps. That explains why in some cases it works normally and in others you’re quiet.

I’ll bring this to the attention of our developers and they’ll adjust the calibration for Signal and Voice recorder in upcoming updates. Please keep in mind that there’s a lot of things they’re currently working on and I can’t say when the fix will be released, but you can keep an eye out on our community forum where we announce each update.

I hope this answer is satisfactory. Let me know if you have any other questions or need help with anything else!

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By the way that is the same on FP3s, so glad to know.

I updated the support ticket with some more information. For example video recordings with the native camera app but also YouTube record audio with the correct microphones, but still with low volume. I also pointed out that Jitsi seems to be the only app (as far as I can tell) that properly captures audio. Below is their response.


Thanks for bringing additional cases to my attention! I’ll forward these details to our developers which may help resolve the issues quicker.

As I said in my previous email, which microphone is used and how much can be configured on an app-by-app basis so this can definitely be fixed via a software update. Our end-goal is to make all recordings and calls as loud and clear as possible but it will take some time to fine-tune everything. If Jitsi works well, we can definitely use it as a reference point.

Thank you for your patience and continued support!

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Why not add an option for each app using the microphone to choose the microphone with a default to the best option, but allowing to change in case it’s needed? Would it be a valid proposal you could make them?

As far as I understand there are only 2 modes. Handsfree and regular calling. The handsfree mode should be used for video recording/calling, voice messages and other uses where you won’t have the phone close to your mouth. Both modes need some tuning, but mostly the handsfree mode (together with noise cancellation).

So the choices are not that broad and in general doesn’t need user interaction. Choosing the different setup would also not make sense, because then you cannot record audio properly. Making this “idiot proof” would be the best I think.

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Any news on this issue? This was one of the rather annoying bugs of my FP2. Kinda surprised to see this behaviour with the FP4.

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I haven’t heard anything, probably it’s best to #contactsupport so that they might increase the priority if more people complain about it. They might also improve their QA, so that less bugs are introduced with updates. I’m fine to wait an extra few weeks for an update if that doesn’t add more bugs.

Also bought a FP4 just 2 weeks ago.

When calling in hands-free mode, the other person has a really hard time understanding me and complains about hearing an echo of their own voice.

When I switch from hands-free to a normal phone call.

Stock Android, stock Dialer App. No root, no Custom ROM.

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Welcome to the forum! To make sure Fairphone makes this a priority it will help to #contactsupport and notify you also experience this issue.

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A temporary solution may be to disable Google from having access to the microphone if you use search function you will see quite a bit of info in regards to your issue

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Thanks, I’ve raised a support ticket. Unfortunately, they want me to return the device to the reseller Galaxus where I’ve ordered the phone. As I currently have no time for reconfiguring the whole device again in order to use it as a daily driver, I hope to find another solution on software side first.

My suggestion is to ask the support person to double check if this is really needed. Because many other people experience this issue and we didn’t get the request to return our device. Maybe he/she is not aware of this and it would probably be better for support to forward the issue to development. Because I hope it’s a software issue and not hardware. Because many people should return their device then.

You could perhaps send the link of this thread to support to show it’s not just you.

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Thanks for your help. While removing the permission for microphone and telephone did not change anything, completely deactivating the Google App did. Since I don’t use Google Assistant, it seems to be a sufficient workaround for me personally. Scary though that the Google App seems to interact with the microphone hardware somehow, although permissions are removed. I’ll tell the support how I fixed it and that this seems to be software related. I’ll also link this thread in order to raise awareness of other people also experiencing this issue.

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Deactivating the Google App was one of the first things I did after getting the FP4. Still, I have the feedback/echo issues when videocalling in Signal.

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Does any of you have experience with installing an other telephone dealer or caller. I have downloaded the dealer from Lineageos but not installed it. What do you think guys, is there any change it could solve our problem?

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