Trouble With Your Jabra 930 Headset And Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

Tips And Tricks

Recently while testing Dragon, I had trouble getting my Nuance-recommended Jabra Pro 930 headset to work with the software. The issue turned out to be fairly simple, once I managed to get in touch with the nice folks on the technical side at Nuance. Since there was nothing about it in Internet search results when I looked, I thought I’d fix that situation for future users.

The problem Jabra 930 Headset And Dragon NaturallySpeaking

After installing Dragon, I could not get it to accept audio input from my Jabra headset for more than a few seconds at a time, and sometimes not even that. The software appeared to recognize the headset but did not “hear” anything when I spoke into the mic.

As it turns out, this has nothing to do with Dragon per se. It has everything to do with the Jabra Pro 930 headset itself, which – probably to conserve batteries – doesn’t send audio back to its base station unless a computer application switches it on. Skype is able to do this, but Dragon evidently isn’t. In order for it to work, we need to change settings such that audio will start to flow automatically whenever the headset is picked up off the charger.

The solution

  • If you haven’t done so already, download and install the Jabra Software Suite. I know your headset may work fine without it (mine did) but the driver is needed to access certain essential settings.
  • Open your Windows sound settings panel and click on the Recording tab. You don’t need to change anything here, but this will provide a quick way to tell if it’s working. You want the little green meter next to your headset to move when you speak, which will show that audio is transmitted back to the base station.
  • Start the Jabra Control Center application, and click on the “Softphone (PC)” tab. (Not sure what this tab will say or look like in the Mac version, as I don’t have one.) Note the settings highlighted below:

how to resolve the problem Jabra 930 Headset And Dragon NaturallySpeaking

  1. This is the button that essentially “turns on” your headset, feeding audio back to the base station and computer. You don’t want to have to turn it on manually every time, though, so that brings us to the next highlighted area.
  2. Check “Open phone line on undock.” Despite the name of the setting, this has nothing to do with a phone line; it simply means that your headset will start sending audio as soon as you pick it up.
  3. Under “Softphone vendor/name” choose “None (audio only).” This lets the system know to enable audio for all applications, not just softphones when the headset is lifted from the dock.

That’s it! Click Apply, and Dragon should start working with your headset. Just one thing to keep in mind: You may want to keep your headset on the dock when not in use from now on. Otherwise, the “constant audio” mode we’ve created could deplete your battery.

Kealoha
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