I’m always seeing people holding the phone in random orientations while having the speakerphone on but in the end the speakerphone on the phone is often limited by the quality of the speaker in the phone.
Ankerwork has a solution for those who want to answer their smartphone (when not out and about). Their new S600 Speakerphone is more than just any old speakerphone though.
The S600 offers not only a crystal-clear speaker but also “local real-time voiceprint recognition and non-target voice elimination with VoiceRadar 3.5 AI Noise Reduction. These are the two big ticket items but when you add in 15W Qi2 Magnetic Wireless Charging that is adjustable you have a very compelling product.
While it sounds like a compelling product, and it is, AnkerWork has decided to (at this stage) make it available only through Kickstarter. A strange decision given the size of the company – in my opinion Kickstarter should only be for small companies looking for capital to build and launch a product.
Hardware
The S600 speakerphone looks a lot like the old space capsule that the astronauts came back to Earth in with a magnetic lid for 15W Qi2 charging of your iPhone (no Android phones support Qi2 just yet) so you can lift the lid and sit the iPhone on it at any angle without having to worry about it slipping off.
The lid does not extend all the way to vertical though (only 70 degrees) so it can make it difficult to get the perfect angle if you prefer upright. To use it on an Android phone you will need to sit the phone flat on the top surface making it fairly unusable while charging on the speaker.
The upper speaker section is covered in a black/grey woven mesh to allow for the sound to get in and out.
Underneath the mesh on the front are capacitive buttons to control your media and phone calls along with two microphones along with two on the rear to detect sound from all directions around the speakerphone.
Sandwiched between the two microphones on the rear are the USB-C charging port and the USB-C data port along with a power and a Bluetooth button. At this stage the data port does nothing but I assume it will allow you to connect it to your PC in the future to adjust settings.
Inside is a 5W 45mm up-firing speaker which is great for phone calls but underpowered for decent music listening although it does allow 360-degree listening. If it’s all you’ve got then it is ok but nowhere near as good as a dedicated Bluetooth speaker, lacking a deep punchy bass.
The speakerphone can be battery powered or plugged into the wall with a 3,100mAh battery included. Ankerwork states that the battery should power the speakerphone for up to 16 hours and in my testing it was under that but then I tested all the things on it including the charging capabilities and its music playback.
The big-ticket item for the S600 speakerphone is the elimination of outgoing background noise and it accomplishes this using the in-built neural processing unit and AnkerWork’s own acoustic algorithm to create a voice imprint recognition so it can detect your voice and transmit just that voice to the other end of the call – yes it can block other voices along with over 300 noise types.
Voiceprint recognition is a biometric technology that verifies and identifies individuals based on their unique vocal characteristics.
In my testing it worked well according to those on the other end of the call. It takes the speaker 35 seconds to create the voice imprint before it kicks in.
S600’s system can accurately extract and eliminate* other non-target voices in real-time during calls, truly achieving a ‘Focus On Your Voice Only’ experience.
These voice imprints are stored on-device only so you can be sure of the security around them.
Setup and features
At this stage setup is the same as setting up any Bluetooth speaker – there is no listing within the Ankerwork app for the S600 just yet (I assume there will be eventually). Turn the speaker on and pair it to your phone as per a normal speaker.
The app that I used to test it is still in beta at the moment given that the device is not released just yet so I would assume more features will be added? Even if they are not added the app still allows you to create your own voice print by reading a paragraph of text to it for a minute.
It then stores this on-device (not within the app), and this is an assumption based on how ANC works, filters out background frequencies that do not fall within this voice print so that they are not transmitted to the other end of the call. Noises such as the washing machine, dogs barking and other people talking should all be either removed or minimised using this technology.
That is great but it is also a bit of a problem. If you are on a group call to your family (ie. with me, my wife and kids calling my parents) and the voice print feature is not turned off then it will clip their voices from the conversation. I am sure it would be exceptionally difficult but I see a point where you can store more than one voice print on the device at a time and have multiple voice prints active within a single call.
As it stands just a single voice print can be stored on the device which limits the use of the device at home. Your partner or housemate cannot connect to it and use it if they wish – well they can, but they won’t be able to use the voice print technology.
At this stage that is all the app can do, record and transmit the voice print to the device but it does it well. Connecting within the app is super simple and easy. It’s a start and really all it needs to do.
How well does it work in a call?
As mentioned above, it works great if I’m the only one on the call. My wife and I called someone and had a nice long conversation with the person on the other end only to find out towards the end that the other party could not hear my wife at all the entire call. Sure, it was a quick fix of turning the Voiceprint off but it would be nice for it to be able to have two voice prints, or a warning that there is a second direct voice being removed from the conversation.
As for the rest of the background noise, it was all removed extremely effectively. This is exactly how Adaptive Noise Cancellation is designed to work and Ankerwork has done a great job implementing it in this speakerphone. If you want to use a speakerphone around the house this is a perfect solution.
As for the call quality it is crystal clear and loud, way better than using your phone’s speaker in a call — and that is from both ends of the call. Those on the other end will hear your voice crystal clear and you will hear them perfectly wherever you are thanks to the 360-degree microphones and speaker.
Final word
If you work from home or even in the office and want to use a speakerphone for your phone calls, then this is perfect for you. The background noise and voices from your end are removed exceptionally well while at the same time not affecting the quality of your voice to the person on the other end of the call.
At your end of the call the voices come through loud and clear thanks to the 360-degree speaker so you can use it anywhere you want — the boss doesn’t need to know that you are on that phone call while sitting under a tree in the park and they won’t if you use this speaker (just don’t turn video on).
Unfortunately, at this stage, Ankerwork are only selling this through Kickstarter, which I am definitely not a fan of. I have no doubt that this speaker is good enough to stand on its own two feet without having to rely on the risk-averse Kickstarter launch. Hopefully Ankerwork see this as well — it is a great product and I now use it for every call I make while I am at home.
If you like taking your phone calls on speaker then I can highly recommend this speakerphone for you. Head on over to Kickstarter now to back it for US$113 (AU$177) if you are early enough. The funding goal was AU$77,905 and it currently sits at AU$576,723 and shipments are expected to begin in Mahy 2024.
