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!
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
I sometimes record audio messages in Signal. But to have an audible recording, I basically have to speak really close to the bottom mic to make the visual audio bars in Signal register my voice.
Can someone reproduce this? To listen to my own recording, I have to put the volume of the speakers to the max and then it still sounds far away.
You probably did, but just to make sure: Have you checked if this problem exists when recording yourself in other apps, too? You might already know the hardware tests that you can go through when dialling * # * # 2 8 8 6 # * # *
The builtin audio recorder is also not great. It also seems to compress the audio a lot, the quality is worse than on Signal. But the volume is low there as well.
Recording a video however seems normal.
The hardware test seems to confirm all 3 mics are working. I use the official case from Fairphone, when removed it doesn’t seem to make any difference either.