Joseph (00:00):
A little mild rainfall. It's definitely hitting all sides of it and yeah, I guess we're going to see how this sounds on the other end. The Hollyland Solidcom SE is an affordable full duplex wireless headset intercom system with great range, which we'll test environmental noise canceling, which you'll hear and is even water resistant as you saw. Let's get into it. Hollyland asked me to make this product overview for you. This isn't a review, it's a product tour, but we'll be verifying their claims of range, environmental noise cancellation, and water resistance. Let's get some specs out of the way first though, starting with the price. The Hollyland Solidcom SE headsets come in sets of two, four, or five units at prices of $229 for two, $459 for four, and $579 for five. That's a cost of about $115 per unit no matter which kit you buy.
(01:01):
And if you buy a small set and want to expand it later, you can purchase individual headsets at about $120 each; up to five total. It's a 2.4 gigahertz system with auto frequency hopping, meaning if there is interference, the headsets should jump around it seamlessly. It's lightweight at just 185 grams or six and a half ounces and quite comfortable with replaceable ear, head and microphone pads. It supports up to five headsets and comes pre-paired so it's ready to use out-of-the-box. It's easy to add additional headsets if you buy a smaller kit, but decide to expand it later. It's a full duplex system, meaning that anyone on comms can talk and listen at the same time and you can leave it as an open mic or set it to push-to-talk if you prefer. You can mute the microphone by tapping this button here, which you also push and hold to activate push-to-talk.
(01:50):
You can wear it over either; ear left or right, and the flexible boom does a great job of staying where you put it. There's also a small LED on the inside of the mic that's easy to see, that conveys status: green for open, red for muted, and other colors or flashing patterns to indicate things like low battery. Speaking of battery, the master headset – that's the one in beige – features a 10 hour battery life when connected to the maximum four headsets, and each remote headset has a 12 hour battery life. And the batteries recharge in three hours or less, using this included charging station. The headsets can also be charged over USB directly, meaning you could plug them into a battery power bank for infinite use. Now, I didn't stress test the battery claims on a 10 hour shoot, but I did set up a pair of them with music playing on both ends and let it run for about five hours, and of course, they were still showing green on the battery. The headset's USB-C port for charging also doubles as an analog audio output, meaning you can connect a Hollyland USB-C to 3.5 millimeter audio adapter and connect to any standard headphones if you wanted to. Finally, the range is 350 meters or 1,150 feet, line-of-sight. They boast water resistance for rainy shoots and water related activities and feature environmental noise cancellation, all of which we're going to test right after this specs page.
(03:17):
If you want to discuss these headsets or anything else on the channel, of course, please subscribe and comment below, but also consider joining the channel as a member. Not only are you helping support what I do here, but it also gives you access to a private Discord channel. Just for photo Joseph members, click that join button next to the subscribe button to learn more. To test out the 350 meter line-of-sight range claim, I set up on this footbridge here with a camera, measured out 350 meters on Google Maps, and my buddy Chris rode his bike out to that point wearing a headset. To record the audio, I stuck a lavaliere mic inside of the headphone recording to these Zoom F2-BT recorders, which have Atomos timecode sync. I did a video on timecode that featured these a few years ago so that you can hear exactly what we heard. There were a few spots where it got a little crunchy, but, well… have a listen.
(04:05):
Go ahead and head over.
Chris (04:06):
I'm definitely getting a clear signal now.
Joseph (04:10):
Yeah, same here.
Chris (04:12):
Some people ask me about this restaurant right here…
Joseph (04:14):
Jack and Joe's?
Chris (04:16):
Jack and Joe. There's no S at the end.
Joseph (04:20):
<garbled>
Chris (04:22):
No, it's Jack and Joe.
Joseph (04:24):
It's just Jack and Joe.
Chris (04:26):
You can still hear me fine though?
Joseph (04:27):
I still hear you fine.
Chris (04:28):
This is really far away! So I am coming up on the Thai restaurant. I can go a little farther too. I can go past Fani & Rozi.
Joseph (04:40):
Yeah, just go ahead; go on. At this point, let's see how far you actually get.
Chris (04:43):
If I make it to Brew Pub, I'm pouring a beer.
Joseph (04:45):
I think I could…
Hollyland Headset (04:47):
Disconnected.
Joseph (04:47):
Oop… that's it.
Hollyland Headset (04:47):
Connected.
Joseph (04:49):
Yep. Yeah, it's breaking up there.
Chris (04:51):
That's about it.
Joseph (04:53):
We actually reached a range of over 400 meters before that complete disconnect that you heard, which is quite impressive. Then it occurred to me that since the range of the units is 350 meters, but this beige headset is the hub, then we should be able to have headsets up to 350 meters in either direction, meaning a pair of remote headsets could be up to 700 meters or more apart. That's 2300 feet or nearly half a mile. There were only two of us, so we left one of the headsets at the 350 meter mark, and Chris grabbed another headset and rode the other direction. As before he got over 350 meters away before disconnecting. And when we check the recording from the headset left down by the river, it had both of our voices loud and clear. So for this segment, you'll be listening to the headset left behind 350 meters in the other direction…
Chris Farley (05:40):
down by the river!
Chris (05:42):
You have any song requests? I can try singing something.
Joseph (05:45):
No, because then I'd get a copyright strike because you'd sing something, and YouTube'd be like, “you don't have rights for that!”.
Chris (05:51):
And it'd be totally perfectly on key. Obvious…
Joseph (05:52):
Obviously
Chris (05:52):
Obvious,
Hollyland Headset (05:52):
Disconnected. Connected.
Chris (05:57):
We're getting pretty far now.
Joseph (06:00):
Okay, it's starting to break up now.
Chris (06:02):
Same here.
Joseph (06:03):
Yeah.
(06:03):
Now let's check out the water resistance. There's no official rating, just the statement that they feature water resistance for rainy shoots or during water related activities. Now it's the middle of winter here, so I wasn't about to stand at an actual rainstorm because I'm not a fan of walnut ice cream, but I did stand in a nice warm shower and recorded what it sounds like through the receiving headset. Let's listen. I can't believe I'm actually doing this. So here I am in a light rain. Okay, that's probably a pretty heavy rain, but it's a light rain. It's getting cold and it's working. We're talking that's pretty heavy. Let's take it down a little bit. Maybe we don't need quite that strong of a rain, but, you know, a little mild rainfall. It's definitely hitting all sides of it, and yeah, I guess we're going to see how this sounds on the other end.
(06:54):
This is pretty heavy, quite a lot of rain. The water test performed well and the headset kept working. The final test I wanted to run is a little harder to capture, but I wanted to test how good the ENC or environmental noise canceling is. Each headset has a secondary mic on the earpiece that listens to environmental sound to cancel it out. So first I want you to hear how the canceling works. I'm going to play music through the speakers and hold the headset's mic up, so it's clearly getting the music. You'll be listening to the recording on the other end, a headset that is in another room and can't hear these speakers. Then I'll put the headset on so the mic is facing my mouth and just be quiet for a moment and then I'll talk, so you'll hear what it sounds like on the other end. Let's do it. And now I'm talking. This is what it sounds like. If you're in a loud environment like a concert and you're using the comms, I'm talking here and someone else is listening and they can hear me perfectly well. That's the tour. A robust, affordable, easy to use, wireless comm set with impressive range link's in description, and I'll see you in the next video.
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