AirPod Pro Microphone Call Quality

My brother has AirPod 1 Pros and my sister had AirPod 2 Pros. I talk to them a lot and they both pick up a lot of background noise. Background conversation, running water, clanging dishes, scrubbing dishes, slight breeze, vehicle noise (with the windows shut), opening of doors, toilets flushing, etc. all come through very loudly. That’s the only reason I haven’t bought AirPods. They’re useless for calls. Oh, I’ve purchased and returned them after a couple of days of taking them through the paces. Musically, compared to my 25-year-old Grado headphones, AirPods (all of them) sound like $10 earbuds. I will say that ANC is great, but I can use earplugs to get the same effect if that’s all they’re good for.

Thanks all for looking into this. There were several recommendations in this thread that I tried. What seems to have worked for me in the end was to change the Accessibility->Audio/Visual setting, later forgetting the device on the phone and re-pairing using the method of opening the lid and holding pair button. Now finally my calls are clear. I verified all of this by calling my work phone and leaving myself voicemails after each step and after the last one, it finally doesn't sound muffled, even when I call only with one airpod in the ear.

Thanks all for looking into this. There were several recommendations in this thread that I tried. What seems to have worked for me in the end was to change the Accessibility->Audio/Visual setting, later forgetting the device on the phone and re-pairing using the method of opening the lid and holding pair button. Now finally my calls are clear. I verified all of this by calling my work phone and leaving myself voicemails after each step and after the last one, it finally doesn't sound muffled, even when I call only with one airpod in the ear.

Ok, never mind. This lasted about 15 minutes and it's back to the muffled voice. It seems that the airpods are struggling when I start to talk and it takes them a bout 1-2 seconds to be come clear. When I talk continuously it remains a decent quality but as soon as I pause, it's muffled again upon resuming to talk and again it's bad for 1-2 seconds as long as I talk all the time.

Expressing my concerns, I'm perplexed as to why Apple has remained silent on this matter. Personally, I feel entitled to a refund if it turns out that Apple is either complicit in unethical practices or mishandling our finances.

So a common answer in this thread is to turn off noise cancellation from Accessibility -> Audio & Visual. But the noise cancellation setting doesn't exist in IOS 17?

I have airpods 2nd gen, airpods 3rd gen, and airpods pro 2nd gen... my pros have the worst mic.

I have the same problem, my airpod pro model is A2084 and it is from 2019. I called support to use Apple's recall program, but they said my AirPods Pro were manufactured after 2020 and are not included in Program for Sound Issues. It's really disgusting that this problem occurs after less than 1 year of use in good condition! I don't know why Apple is not responding! I am disappointed with Apple, I spent a lot of money on AirPods Pro and I will not do it again! The strange thing is that I, as an Apple user, cannot find out what year my device (airpod) was manufactured, this is very ridiculous and a way of corporate fraud!! I'm still waiting for Apple's response!

I had this problem until I read one of the replies in a forum like this one. It may have been this one. Anyways, the recommendation was to activate voice isolation mode once the phone conversation starts. So I have done that a few times and now the phone just default to voice isolation mode. That has helped.

The microphone service is not as good as I expected still, but I have not returned the AirPod Pro 2 because I have found the sound when I watch a TV show where movie on the iPad is superb. It’s like I’m in a theater and I never go to the theater.

Oh yes and one more thing. I’m not sure if this has helped or not but I have taken to tilting the stems so that they point towards my mouth instead of pointing straight downward. I think maybe that has helped but I haven’t done a scientific experiment. Yet.

the mic on mine is terrible: or is it????

Just tried recording my voice using non apple software and the microphone works perfectly, totally clear. (I used the free Voice recorder -Voz on my iPhone from the App Store and the standard voice recorder on an android phone).

Both picked up sound flawlessly using the AirPods Pro mic.

Use Phone call or apple voice recorder the recorded sound is terrible, you can barely hear me.

In summary the AirPods Pro mic is fine: the software is the problem

so I was dealing with this exact same problem with me sounding muffled to people on phone calls. I did a proper full reset of my charging case. Have to hold that button longer than you think to get it to fully reset. Then reconnect to Bluetooth. That fixed it. Just forgetting the device and reconnecting to Bluetooth alone isn’t enough. You have to do a factory reset. So first make sure AirPods and case are at least 30% charged. I would fully charge them though. And make sure the AirPods are in the case for this time and case closed. Then forget device on your Bluetooth device. Then with pods and case charged, open the case and hold that button on the charging case for at least 15 seconds it will start flashing white, keep holding it, it will flash amber, then flash white. That’s when you release the button and pods are reset. Bring near phone, Close case, reopen case then phone will detect them and reconnect to Bluetooth.

Just joining the long list of people with issues with these headphones. For music, they are good.

For phone calls, terrible. The sound from the other people sounds like a Star Wars scene with sound going from left ear to right in a warped/delayed fashion. Goes on the entire call.

When I try to use these on my Mac, the headphones are constantly connected/disconnected. I've reset repeatedly, turned off recognize automatically as that helped a little. Best thing is to turn bluetooth off of my phone when using on computer. This helps the connections but doesn't help anything with sound quality on telephone calls. Just terrible for this.

Im having exactly the same issue. Happy that someone brought this up.

Tried repairing didnt work for me...