FP2: speech quality: peer callers often do not understand me properly

Help Fairphone 2
, ,
1

I’ve repeatedly experienced bad speech quality during phone calls: peer callers often do not understand me properly.

Initially, I was hoping this to be some temporary thing (regional network reception?), or at least a FP2 software-issue (might still be the case).
However:

  1. I have not had any complaints for years with my previous phone (same provider), but
  2. I have had many complaints with my FP2 during the last 1,5 months already.

Since it does not seem to be a temporary / regional issue as it has started the day when I got my FP2, this is becoming a problem to me obviously.

Behaviour:
Peer callers complain about not understanding me properly - complaints are mentioned about every second, third or so phone call.
As far as I know, my speech is heard as varying, dull quality or “scrambled” partial speech. Today I was asked whether I had a bad network reception.
Setting up a new call does not always help either, it seems. (As I use FP2 for profesional phone calls as well, I do not want to ask in these situations to help track down an issue with my phone.)
Sometimes, I also do not understand my peer caller properly - yet this seems to appear less often.

Problem appears intermittently - I do not know yet how the problem can be reproduced consistenly.

The phone has been updated to 1.2.6RC, problem persists.

I will try to use my bluetooth headset mainly from now on, let’s see if this helps in the investigation.
Any other ideas?
What are your experiences with sound quality during phone calls?

(I raised a ticket with support - curious if they can track this down somehow…)

2

Maybe a stupid question, but are you sure it’s not about how you’re holding your phone? While, for example the FP1 has its microphone on the left side and I have to hold it more or less vertically, the FP2 has its mike in the center, to the right of the USB port, so I have to hold it almost horizontally. Sometimes people complain about not hearing me well, but when I change the position of my phone, everything is ok.

1 Like
3

@Irina_Spitznagel, thanks for your reply.
FP2’s microphone is located at quite the same position as the microphone of my previous phone (Galaxy Nexus). Thus I don’t think this should pose a problem. I will keep it in mind though and test this explicitly next oppurtunity I get.

4

I really like the FP2, but peers report the same problem with bad sound quality. The workaround solution I use is to work with a headset, either fixed or Bluetooth. Then the problem goes away, as you are using the mic of the headset.

As I have worked a lot with electronics companies, both from sourcing and product development perspective, my suggestion is for the redesign or next FP to specify/source a microphone with higher audio quality.

1 Like
5

Hey there I have the same problem too. Comparing the call quality to my old phone the fp2, I lost a lot in stability and quality.
I guess in my case it’s related to the fp working and dealing with calls within the 4g network. If I am within the 4g network my calls are pretty bad and I often have “hols” or an complete end of the call out of the blue. It looks like the phone is switching from 4g to 3g to edge to get the best connection, but this causes the problems.
If I receive an call with my second sim card,which is limited to 2g network the calls are just fine.
I am going to test it for the first sim card too and write again.

In which network ia your phone when you have a bad connection?

Update: after switching to 3g or 2g I don’t have problems anymore.
Maybe the build in modem can’t handle “volte” (Voice over LTE ) in the best way.
But having Set the network mode to 3g all the time is not really an atractive option due to lower Speed at surfing etc.

6

@kblack, I haven’t checked yet, will try to do so next time I have the possibilty to analyse.

However, I doubt that my problems is related to the network connection, as I have experienced the behaviour on both my SIMs: SIM1 is configured to use 3G/UMTS, which most of the time is case as far as I can tell. SIM2 must be configured to use 2G/GSM anyway, so there’s nothing that the 2G-connection could “fall back to” which might lead to a connection problem here.

Lately, I’ve been using my bluetooth headset more and more for phone calls. So far, no problems - if this really persists, this meant that the microphone, default speech processing or whatever are part of the behaviour. Not sure, yet.
I guess this will be a long-term study for me, trying to figure out what might cause the issue. (Perhaps the Fairphone crew is faster with tracking down the behaviour and could provide with an fix/improvement? Don’t know if they investigate the issue at all, though.)

7

@amers hope so too, an solution would be very good. Calls are an pretty vital feature for an phone :slight_smile:

8

Just for record, I have often the same issue with my fairphone 2 also !

9

Ok here I am: same problem! People I call can’t hear my voice well and this is terrible since a phone should be made for… calling… :cold_sweat:
The trouble came up after the last update: big big big noises on the microphone so I must use earphones and microphone or I wouldn’t be able to call… Please, boys! Answer about this: it can’t be possible all our microphones are broken… :frowning2:

10

This has happened to me too. Any one who know how it can be fixed?

11

What happens if you record audio? If you have the same noises in the recorded audio then you probably have a hardware issue with the microphone. In that case I’d first check the connection, by disassembling the phone, taking out the sound module, carefully cleaning inside and putting everything back tightly.

12

Then I get no sound at all. And now the noise has all but disappeard,
instead they don’t hear anything, and the recorder dosent pick up any sound
at all. The weird thing is that it doesn’t work even if I have my head
phones plugged in, and they have a mic, so it shound’t be sound module,
should it?

13

Maybe it’s the headphone pin then? Maybe there is some dirt that lets your phone believe there is a headphone+mic plugged in even if there isn’t (so input is set to headphones) and when the headphones are plugged in the dirt keeps them from working properly.

14

And, to make it even stranger: I have perfect when I record videos. And
people can hear me if I have them on speaker phone, but not regular, or
hands free.

15

AFAIK, speaker phone and normal phone use different microphones - at least that is what I’ve read somewhere in the forum a while ago.
Apart from that, sorry, I guess I can’t help you with your issue, it seems to me that it is something different from what I am experiencing.

BTW: even with update 1.4.2, I still get the complaints of peer callers every now an then that they hardly understand me. However, I’ve never got this response when using my Bluetooth headset. To me it seems to have something to do with the microphone or the software that processes it’s data.

16

I’ve tried to clean it now, but still nothing, except when it’s on speaker.

17

Hello, my phone had the bottom microphone module not working well so I had to change it with a new one and now it’s working great. You need to ask info to the FP support :wink:

3 Likes
18

Just want to add myself to the list of those who get complains about the audio quality from people they are calling. This does not seem to depend on the way I hold the phone and also happens when I use my headset.

19

Hi, so I am having the same problem. People cannot understand me in calls due to some weird noise. Has anyone found a solution. Would really appreciate some help!
Thank you!

20

Same problem here. Just to add that to my ever growing list of distressing issues of my FP2… sigh