Looking to integrate your WebRTC solution with Plantronics? Check out the Get Started guide, JavaScript Tab >>.Many of the enterprises that have already adopted WebRTC think the real benefit of using this audio and video service is in its simplicity. With its one-click nature exposed at the application layer, WebRTC-based voice take the hassle out of setting up and launching sessions, unlike other conferencing services that require the installation of a client on the users system.
The first thing to note is that Web audio calls sound dramatically better for both you and everyone else on the call when you use a Plantronics headset. Plantronics has a greater than 50 year history at delivering superior transmit and receive audio experiences for a variety of Enterprise and Consumer use cases that will enhance all of your WebRTC interactions. When you just use your computer's built-in microphone and speakers, you'll often create an echo on the call as the sound coming from your speakers goes into your microphone and gets repeated. Sometimes, this echo can be really bad, rendering the call unusable for the group. A headset with a microphone protects the call from the feedback that creates this echo. A Plantronics headset also provides noise canceling on both the transmit and receive channels to further enhance the users experience and ensure the best experience possible for all parties involved.
As mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets also increasingly penetrate the Enterprise, audio quality can become a bigger challenge in noisy environments outside of the office. In order to keep the device and your WebRTC applications in front of your eyes, and the audio in your ears, a Bluetooth headset from Plantronics is an ideal way to increase call quality and comprehension for both parties, ensure privacy, and keep you from getting tangled up in corded ear buds.
One of the main audio benefits of WebRTC is that users can access to their own system audio settings to optimize their audio experience. WebRTC relies on the users system audio settings to adjust microphone volume and switch audio devices in a way users are familiar with. While generally receive audio is on by default and users can hear audio without any updates necessary, In some cases users may be prompted to grant microphone permissions to invoke browser microphone permissions in the browser. Once complete WebRTC phone calls will work as normal in the browser. Once the microphone is enabled, if users need to adjust microphone volume, they simply use their system audio settings as they would for any other application.
WebRTC runs in a number of browsers today and is currently supported in over a billion installed browsers globally, across a range of platform OS and devices. Now, Plantronics, the maker of best-in-class communication devices, extends its leadership position in communications with support for WebRTC, and Plantronics products are WebRTC-ready today. Right now, our headsets work as an audio device on a variety of platform OS natively. No device updates or other software are necessary for the native support of transmit receive audio with a WebRTC technology deployed. All Plantronics USB audio devices support the ability to receive and transmit audio on all WebRTC audio environments tested.More importantly, as a contributor to the WebRTC standard Plantronics has been working to integrate a variety of headset events into WebRTC workflows to enrich agent experience and enhance Enterprise business processes, like wearing state, remote call answer end, event logging – (for mute and other events), sensor data, etc.
In addition, today, Plantronics has a Chrome browser library available (alpha) for a number of our Bluetooth headsets that provide these enhanced capabilities to any Chrome browser application. The solution is effectively “OS Neutral” and will run on Chrome on a variety of Platforms including Mac, Windows, or Chromebook. We will be extending this to USB headsets as Chrome USB support is fully developed.The library has the potential to allow a local browser based app to directly communicate with the Plantronics Hub Client and surface headset events to enable call control and add context about other user behavior via headset events to WebRTC workflows.
Partner integrations demonstrating the introduction of headset events and contextual data from headset sensors have been successfully demonstrated with a range or Plantronics partners, including, Avaya, Twilio, Mozilla, Chrome and Genband.
Supported Platform OS:
Windows
Mac
ChromeOS
Supported Browsers:
Opera
Google Chrome version 23+
Mozilla Firefox versions 22+