The audio from the built-in mic is very good. Zero background noise.
I suspect a really good condenser mic, with a filter, would be better, but these headphones work great.
I have noticed that people that use earbuds (in particular, Apple AirPods Pro), seem to also supply a lot of background noise. That does not happen with my headset.
- aggressive noise reduction can add unpleasant distortion
- depending what you use them with, you get a low bitrate bi-directional codec that does not sound great.
- any bluetooth interference leads to dropped frames and choppy sound.
- There's a bit of extra latency. I've had issues with bluetooth sound visibly getting out of sync with video I was watching. I expect this could also happen for the microphone.
The worst is people who are not aware they sound bad that ought to know better. I've had more than a few calls with people who basically talk a lot on audio/video calls professionally (e.g. recruiters, sales people, etc.) with apparently really shitty headsets. A lot of those people were using some bluetooth headset that combined with a lousy network (or saturated upload in the case of DSL), makes for a really lousy sound quality. Talking extra loud does not really help.
I just picked up a pair of Shure Aonic 50 headphones. I asked a few people in calls if it was an improvement over my built in imacs microphone. Answer: nope. It wasn't horrible but not exactly an upgrade. I also was not enjoying the low bit rate with the bi-directional codec that makes people sound like they are on a bad phone line. So, I switched to using the headphones for output only. The imac microphone is fine. I just need to make sure to be near it when talking.
If I bought these for calls I'd be annoyed of course. But I bought them for their sound quality and ability to filter out my obnoxious neighbor. Neighbor cancelling headphones are great for my stress levels.
WHY?
Bluetooth was designed for embedded devices that need to conserve power.
That said, I know that there's active work going on, to improve this exact thing.
Might be a while before we see video over BT, though.
In which case would that be useful?
There seems to be a range of broadcasting features, but if I'm not mistaken they mostly use WiFi.
Apple has a system that basically combines all of the available connection options, so it can appear as if BT is being used, but it’s really WiFi. Not sure if this type of “zero config” stuff is available in non-proprietary form, though.
So far, it hasn't been an issue, but I don't do podcasts; just the occasional class. Most of the folks that I know, who do podcasts, use wired mics with filters.