Plantronics Calisto 800 series for home workersI’ve been putting off writing this post. I could/should have done it two weeks ago, when I received a Smartspeaker through the post from the nice people at Plantronics, whose technology enables us home and mobile workers to communicate wherever we are. They wanted some feedback from what they call the Home-based Worker. In my case that also means a late adopter, and reluctant adopter, of technology.

In other words I am completely unexcited by new pieces of kit or software, and I grumble loudly whenever websites and programmes are updated, which they are, constantly. I’m simply unable to comprehend why Google feels the need to come out with Google+ when we’ve already got Facebook, Twitter and ad infinitum.

But I expect a fair proportion of home workers are like me, and have no interest in the equipment they use beyond being confident that it’s actually going to work. So what follows is a fumbling review of the Smartspeaker by a committed technophobe who nevertheless has a strong interest in working as effectively as I can and helping other home workers to do the same.

Left to me, anything black, shiny and box-shaped would stay in its packaging indefinitely, unless it contains chocolate, so I shamelessly asked the ever-patient A to connect it up for me. (Naturally I prefer to call this delegation, while I stick to what I do best, or at least much better).

I didn’t know what to expect so I was pleasantly surprised when a smallish (about 10 cm square) box emerged from the packaging, with a neat little wireless microphone perched on the side. A reports that it was easy and quick to connect, and that I could easily do it if I’d just be bothered to concentrate. Certainly the enclosed booklet has only two sides of incredibly brief instructions which any technophobe could manage to understand.

That’s as much as I can manage thinking and writing in what feels like a foreign language for which I have no dictionary, so we’ll take a break here. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about what happened when I started to use the Smartspeaker…