Airpod Pro poor microphone quality when video conferencing

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Level 1

6 points

Airpod Pro poor microphone quality when video conferencing

AirPod Pros sound great when connected to both my iPhone and Macbook Air and listening to music. When I connect to the Macbook Air and start a video conference like Google Meet or Zoom the audio quality of the microphone often leads to the meeting participants telling me that I "cut out" or they couldn't understand what I was saying.

I've brought them into for service and was given a new pair of headphones. Alas, these ones are behaving the same way when in a virtual meeting. It's so bad that I've fished out my wired headphones and have to use those for meetings.

I've tried unpairing them. I've tried turning off automatic microphone switching. I've tried turning off the bluetooth on my iPhone.. I've tried changing settings within the programs I use, but nothing seems to solve the issue.

I'm not sure if the more processor heavy things get the worse the quality is? For example, Google Meet tends to draw a lot of CPU usage... and it seems much worse when I have a few things on the go.

Any ideas? Thanks!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Dec 6, 2021 12:11 PM

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Answer 1

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Mighty Moose Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 8, 2021 4:55 AM in response to Chris_D13

Thanks... I tested this a bit further and it seems like having the microphone enabled on my computer and disabled on my AirPods solves the issue... so, if I use the AirPod Pros to listen to the video conference but the microphone on my computer, and not on the AirPods, I do not get the unintelligibility during the video chat.

Unfortunately, this really isn't ideal. It would be nice to have both the sound and microphone work from the AirPods. Is it something to do with how much data can be sent via bluetooth? For example, if I listen to music and then go to preview a video conferencing software as soon as my microphone is enabled the sounds quality of the music goes from excellent to poor. I had read somewhere else that the AirPods are unable to send high quality sound to the speakers and audio from the microphone.

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Answer 2

Chris_D13

Community Specialist

Dec 7, 2021 11:34 AM in response to Mighty Moose

Hello Mighty Moose,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities! We understand your concern with the quality of your AirPods Pro when using specific apps. We're happy to assist you with this.

Let's try creating a test user account to see if the same thing happens. This will let us know if there is something in your user profile that's causing this issue: Set up users, guests and groups on Mac - Apple Support

You can also try deleting one of the apps and reinstall it to see if it will help resolve the issue as well.

Best Regards.

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Airpod Pro poor microphone quality when video conferencing

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