The best wireless gaming headset is slowly driving me up the wall

In case you’re going to make one of the best product available on the market, please go all the way in which.

Working example: the SteelSeries Arctis Professional Wi-fi is without doubt one of the finest wi-fi gaming headsets ever made. In 2018, I examined it towards each single competitor available on the market (significantly, all of them), and none may beat its mixture of fantastic audio high quality, a transparent microphone, unbelievable wi-fi vary, oodles of connectivity, and twin swappable batteries.

It’s a virtually good gadget — however a few occasions per week, that “almost” half makes me need to scream.

Right here’s how I described dwelling with the Arctis Professional Wi-fi earlier this yr:

If I’m gaming with buddies and desire a snack, I don’t have to cease chatting — I simply stroll a number of rooms away to the kitchen and the audio by no means cuts out. When a too-loud recreation drowns out my mates, I faucet the dial beneath the ear cup to rebalance the audio between “recreation” and “chat” — it provides you two totally different audio units in Home windows. When the battery runs out, I can simply pop a spare battery pack out of the bottom station and swap it in beneath 15 seconds. I make plenty of calls with the Arctis Professional Wi-fi, too, due to its built-in Bluetooth.

It’s true! There’s only one tiny factor I uncared for to say: the act of holding it powered on can contain common embarrassment.

Virtually each week, I’ll inevitably be on a Zoom or Groups or Skype or Slack or Discord name once I’ll hear the dreaded beep — the beep meaning the battery is sort of useless. Not “25 p.c battery remaining” or “five-minute warning,” thoughts you. The beep means I most likely have 90 seconds to apologize to my dialog companions, seize a freshly charged pack, flick the outdated one out, pop the brand new one in, and maintain down the facility button for what looks like an eternity whereas frantically gesturing to my boss / colleagues / interviewees to allow them to know sure I’m okay and I’m terribly sorry for losing their time however isn’t expertise hilarious?

(Many Verge colleagues have witnessed me doing this dance. Miraculously, I’ve up to now escaped with out it turning into a meme.)

If all goes effectively, my headset will come again to life, and I’ll fake it by no means occurred. However as typically as not, the embarrassing warmth of the second will result in much more embarrassment — I’ll press the facility button, however the headset nonetheless received’t activate as a result of I didn’t press it fairly lengthy sufficient.

You see, the Arctis Professional Wi-fi has two energy buttons positioned proper subsequent to one another — one to connect with your PC or console, and one for the Bluetooth radio that lets it connect with your cellphone. To activate Bluetooth, you solely have to briefly faucet the button. Like most different Bluetooth headsets, holding it down too lengthy throws the headset into pairing mode.

However the Arctis Professional Wi-fi’ major energy button is simply the other: you have to carry it to energy on. And whereas the product handbook says you solely want to carry it down for 2 seconds, it really takes 2.25 seconds… and a full 3.5 seconds earlier than you get any audible affirmation that the headset responded to your command.

That additional second looks like an eternity while you’re miming an “nearly prepared, be proper there!” gesture in Zoom. And typically — between that delay and the fear that perhaps I stabbed the Bluetooth button as a substitute of the facility button in my haste — I wind up letting go of the button too early and must repeat the cycle once more.

All of this assumes the headset really warns me that it’s powering itself off, after all! The primary few months I used the headset, I by no means acquired any warning in any respect. Seems, when you cease the bottom station from beeping each time you turn menus, it turns off the low battery alert as effectively. And as soon as each month or two, I’ll additionally expertise a sudden lack of energy with no warning in any respect — sometimes once I’m taking part in a recreation or listening to music at low quantity. My finest guess is that the headset’s auto-power-off perform is a poor listener and doesn’t notice I’m nonetheless taking part in.

Would I eliminate my Arctis Professional Wi-fi? Under no circumstances. It’s a unbelievable gadget I exploit day by day for video games, conferences, and calls, even when I wasn’t long gone the window for return. I’ve accepted that common embarrassment is the worth I’ll pay. However it’s so tantalizingly near being price its $330 value in US {dollars} as effectively — which, final I checked, made it the one costliest wi-fi gaming headset available on the market. If SteelSeries made it barely extra comfy / adjustable for bigger heads, ironed out these energy points, and strengthened the hinge, a future model could be price each penny.

In the mean time, listed below are one of the best wi-fi and wired gaming headsets we’re really recommending proper now.