AirPod Pro Microphone Call Quality

To add insult to injury, not only is the noise canceling horrible for the mic in 3E751 - I am not noticing the NC doesnt work properly at the headphone either, there are so many sounds that slip through now..

Same problem with Airpods Pro during calls, other side can not undersetand me when I am talking.

I also have a 2nd gen Airpods with a broken mic (only functioning left one) and calls are way better than with the pro version.

I have latest firmware, did every trick trying to solve the problem, but nothing worked for me. Will try to exchange or return

I have reached out to Apple support on Twitter multiple times. I've done everything they've recommended. The latest iOS and firmware 4A400 did not help. I even mailed in my AirPod Pros to their repair center to try to fix the horrific background noise my callers hear from my side. Apple canceled the repair saying there was nothing to repair. I don't understand why this is still a problem for so many people and Apple hasn't produced a fix! I told Twitter support I wanted a replacement, but I was referred to my local store to see if they can do something. So far I'm feeling abandoned by Apple with an expensive set of AirPods that I can only use for music. Grrr!

Like many others have stated, the new firmware 4A402 did not fix Apple's known microphone issue in my airpods pro either. Cannot use for phone calls (muffled, mic signal cutting in/out...other people saying "I can't hear what the___your saying!"), great for audio, but I didn't drop $$ for just audio. Performed all "mic fixes", resetting, reconnecting, cleaning, etc. Simply being transparent/honest about this significant, known issue would foster loyalty=money=a happy apple. One pion's opinion is either fix said issue or be honest and offer a minor option/incentive in exchange. Good luck all

Chiming in with the same issue. I don't make a ton of phone calls, mostly just talking with my mom, and I never had complaints from anyone other than my mom so I just assumed it was something with her phone since she was the only one who complained. However, I've been talking on the phone with my wife the past few days and she's started complaining about it too. I tried a bunch of things like re-pairing, taking them out and putting them in the case then putting them back in my ears, turning off noise cancelation both through Accessibility and the Airpod Pros active noise cancelation, etc etc but nothing has fixed it.

I hadn't paid close attention before but now I think what's happening is it's hearing my dogs bark from the next room and trying to cancel that out, and instead canceling out my voice. It's incredibly aggravating, because although I mostly use my Airpods just to listen to music, YouTube etc, it's annoying to get a phone call and have to scramble to quickly take out my Airpods just to take the call. Especially when I spent like $250 on these and taking calls is literally their job. These were an upgrade from my old regular Airpods because I wanted noise canceling (because barky dogs), but I'm starting to wish I'd just kept my old ones because at least people could hear me.

You’re absolutely right. But it must be fixable, try and record a video and talk, the quality is great if you do that. So it’s 100% a software issue so I just can’t get my head around it why they won’t fix it..

When I try the same test using MoviePro (which allows you to choose a "bluetooth" mic as the input and thus records from the AirPods even when you walk into the other room) the quality is much worse than it was while sitting in front of my phone making a video. It's not quite as bad as when trying to use the AirPods to create a VoiceMemo, but it's still not very good.

This suggests that, when making a video using he camera app, the audio input is coming from the phone's mic (even if you have the AirPods in) - unless you use an app like MoviePro that specifically allows you to get input from a Bluetooth mic.

Try making a series of VoiceMemos using different settings for the AirPods. All of them sound terrible. However if you use the phone's mic, the VoiceMemo sounds great.

From my own experience and all these posts about the Airpods Pro, it seems the best solution at this time is to stop buying the Apple Airpods... and if you purchased them recently, return them!....because Apple is well aware of this problem and chooses not to correct it. I have spent countless hours pairing, unpairing, and re-pairing them on 3 separate iPhones and on a Samsung Note, with the same dismal results. My Airpod 2's work flawlessly and I don't have to try any magic tricks to get them paired. I have about half a dozen cheapo's from Amazon, and while they don't provide the same sound quality as the Airpods, at least the darn things work! And no magic tricks to get THOSE earbuds to pair! I'm an Apple fan and always have been, but I'm totally shocked by Apple's failure to respond and fix this hot little mess.

I'm also encountering this issue only when I'm taking the call in my iPhone 8. BUT, when I do use my airpods pro 1 during my calls/meetings at my work with 14-inch macbook pro, It's so clear and having no issues unlike with using an iPhone.

I have had exactly the same problem with the new Airpod Pros. The regular AirPods were perfect. I was forced into upgrading into the $379 AirPods Pros, after a few weeks I noticed every response from others was that I sounded 'muffled'. I have cleaned the microphone, and I have rest and also paired again.

It seems that the sound of my voice is muffled while the sound of the surrounding noise is exaggerated, so that others only hear the surrounding sounds and not my voice.

So it is an algorithm issue, not a dirty microphone issue.

Everyone seems to have this same problem;em, and Apple are not addressing it.

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.

Over 4 years later and I’m using Pro 2 that I got last Christmas and looking into this. Clearly Apple doesn’t want to fix their products. For clarification, I have had the regular AirPods (gen 2) for several years and would talk to my friend on the phone for several hours multiple days per week and we don’t have the problems as the Pro 2. I got my girlfriend the Pro 2 and it goes both ways her quiet sometimes as well as me. Don’t buy the Pro AirPods if you want to do voice calls.

Can you post your iOS firmware your on and your AirPods pro firmware?

That would be helpful. Thanks.

It is 2C54. Ever since it updated taking a phone call on my AirPods pro are useless. I am better off without them at that point.

Bad call quality on hearers end. Doesnt work on Android either whereas it did with first gen Airpods.

I put new airpods in old non wireless charging case and it fixes it for the time being.