Sometimes even if only one of the phones’ mic is on.
In: Technology
Phones and video conferencing apps have to work really hard to deal with feedback. The speakers make noises, the microphones, in the same box as the speakers, try to pick up sounds outside while not being swamped by sound coming from the speaker.
They pull all sorts of tricks to make this work, but the most important is never sending the sound you are making back out through your speaker. This prevents a feedback loop, where the sound coming out of your speakers is picked up by the microphone, and send back out through your speakers again, is picked up by the microphone, etc.
But if you have two devices close together, the system sends sound from your microphone to the other phone’s speaker, where it finds its way back to your microphone again. It can’t cope with this.
Similar problems happen when two devices on the same call have local feedback problems. Sound from you goes out of his speaker, is picked up through his microphone and sent back to your speaker, where it is picked up by your microphone. This shows up as a person’s long vowel sounds being clipped, a person sounding robotic, or someone’s volume going up and down randomly. It can even sound like connection problems.
Feedback is the reason why the first rule of conferencing is – if at all possible, use a headset. Sound coming out of headphones can’t find its way into a microphone, saving everyone a lot of trouble.
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