While the pandemic seems like a distant memory now, it’s hard to ignore the lasting impact the event has had on office culture and design. And now, with the electronic industry back in full swing, its impossible to keep up to date with all the new work from home (WFH) solutions being put to market. So we decided, in another installment of our CE Pro Mini Reviews to look at a videoconferencing darling, Poly, and its Voyager Free 60+ earbuds as an affordable conferencing audio solution.

Poly Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds CE Pro Mini Review

In the world of unified communications or simply conferencing Poly is a huge, go-to brand for many integrators that offer commercial AV services. Recognizing the shift to WFH (work from home) and hybrid workplace schedules, the company developed its Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds.

The Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds incorporate active noise cancelling (ANC) and a three-array microphone array that is designed to isolate users’ voices. The Free 60+ version of the earbuds come with a charging/carrying case that includes built-in screen that things such as the charge level of the case and the earbuds.

Because the earbuds are designed for hybrid applications, users can employ the Voyager Free 60+ earbuds for conferencing sessions via Bluetooth connections to their computers, as well as their phones and tablets. Supporting the earbuds’ use with smart devices, the Free 60+s are “Made for Apple iPhone and iPad” certified, and the earbuds are also certified to work with the Microsoft Teams and Zoom conferencing platforms.

Other features the Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds offer include up to 5.5 hours of ANC talk time with just the earbuds and up to 11 hours with the case. Additionally, Poly supports the earbuds with its Poly Lens App.

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The app is available from The Apple App Store; Google Play, and Poly offers Apple OS and Windows versions too. The app once installed onto a phone for example—I am using an iPhone 13 Pro—users can open the app to see the charge status of their earbuds and the case; you can set your level of noise cancelling, and you can do many other things to customize the Voyager Free 60+ earbuds to specific preferences.

For my purposes in this CE Pro Mini Review I set items such as ANC to “adaptive,” the EQ curve to “bass,” and Auto Answer to “on.” This feature answers an incoming call to give you time to put the earbuds on. Like other headphone products that offer app support, it can take anywhere from 10- to 20-minutes give-or-take to configure your earbuds, including updating the products to the latest firmware version.

Admittedly, things started off a bit rough when I first began using the Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds. The first call I used the earbuds on, the person that I was speaking with commented that I sounded poorly. Using the earbuds subsequently however, call quality hasn’t been brought up again. In hindsight I think judging headphones on the sound quality of phone calls can be a difficult task considering signal strength of the cell phone and the location of the caller or yourself.

Conferencing when using with a computer should deliver a similar audio quality level as music or YouTube videos for example. I did not pair the earbuds with my computer because I don’t like pairing the same earbuds with my computer and phone.

Using the earbuds for music has been an enjoyable experience. Listening to bands such as Living Colour, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Steely Dan I thought the Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds provided a fun musical experience. With the “bass” EQ setting on, I thought the low-end was present to the point where I could hear bass lines, along with drum parts, and the midrange and upper frequencies were detailed. I’ll note that I use the “bass” setting because earbuds and in-ear monitors (IEMs) tend to be a little light in the bass department. In this application with the Poly product, the EQ setting worked great.

My only negative point with the earbuds is the fit. This is not unique to me with earbuds. I have the same issues with just about every headphone I’ve tried. The Voyager Free 60+ product ships with a choice of three ear fitting sizes: small, medium, and large. Out of the box the earbuds are fitted with the medium earpieces I struggled with removing the earpieces from the earbuds. Eventually I was able to remove the medium size for the small size. I still wasn’t satisfied with the small size however, and when I removed the small earpieces I broke the little snap-on clip that secures the earpieces to the earbuds. I did settle on the large size, but I am not sure if I would trust the fit if I were going to do something physical like a run.

Summing this CE Pro Mini Review of the Poly Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds up, the product provides a nice quality music and conferencing experience at a price point that is competitive with other products currently available.

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