Loud Beeping when Muted in a MS Teams Call

So... I've heard back from Shokz.

First thing is to understand what's going on.

When you "mute" your audio, there are two ways that an application can do this. The first way is to turn the gain on the microphone input down to zero. That means you don't get any input from the microphone. The second way is to tell the microphone to mute. Although the effect on the audio is equivalent, the two ways are very different. The first way just stops any audio from the mic. The second way explicitly sets the mute, which can do additional action such as turning on a red LED on the microphone, etc.

Why is this important?

If you explicitly tell the Shokz headset to "Mute", then it tells you this - "Mute on", then beeps whilst on mute, then "Mute off" when you cancel the mute again. The Shokz headset isn't alone in doing this, apparently some other headsets do this too (but I don't have any so can't confirm this behaviour).

If you just turn the microphone gain down to zero, the Shokz headset hasn't actually been muted, so you get no notification.

When you "mute" on Zoom, it just turns the microphone gain to zero. It doesn't actually mute the input.

In earlier versions of MS Teams, when you "mute", it also turned the microphone gain to zero. It didn't actually mute the input.

In the recent update to MS Teams, when you "mute", then it does actually tell the microphone to "mute". This means the microphone would know to turn on its red LED, etc. Unfortunately, for the Shokz headset, this means you get the irritating notifications, beeps, etc.

Now, all these notifications, beeps, etc. are all generated within the Shokz headset. They don't come from Windows. It's the Shokz headset firmware making all these noises. The correct fix is for Shokz to have an option on their headset to disable the mute notifications. Unfortunately, they don't.

There are some solutions:

1. Use the WebApp version of MS Teams, rather than the desktop version.

The WebApp version of Teams, when you "mute", simply turns the mic gain down to zero. It doesn't tell the headset to mute. So, the WebApp doesn't make the headset beep, etc. I've switched over from the Desktop version to the WebApp version of Teams, and it's all OK again. Microsoft - please, please, please don't change the WebApp to mute the audio sources properly!!!!

2. Buy the £50 BT dongle from Shokz

I really, really hate this option. I hate that Shokz have even done this. What they have done is take a generic BT dongle that's worth perhaps £10 at best, then put a different software driver on it that blocks the mute command from getting to the headset. Now when the app tells the headset to "mute", the driver blocks the mute command and instead turns the microphone gain to zero. Magic. No beeping.

What the dongle gets wrong is when you turn off the headset, it doesn't remove the audio source, so your audio configuration doesn't switch over to your other speakers (if you have them).

I hate that Shokz have basically left this issue with the firmware in their headset, then tried you to pay 5x for a generic BT dongle with some hacked drivers that work around the firmware issues in their headset.

Bottom line, this isn't a Microsoft problem, this is a Shokz problem with some very unfriendly firmware in their headset, and they refuse to fix it. Instead, they want you to spend _another_ £50 to buy their custom BT dongle and driver, which 5x overpriced.

I love the Shokz headset... I really hate the way that the Shokz company is behaving.

This one is driving me nuts. It just started happening last week and I haven't been able to find a solution to it.

I have the Aftershox headset w/ boom mic (opencomm?). I bought it off amazon Nov '21. The big button (answer/hang up) and the volume buttons have never worked. The big button did nothing. The volume buttons would simply play the voice that provides the battery status, even during a call. The ringtone is the single Teams ringtone that plays

October 28 rolls around and my Teams updates to 1.5.00.28567. I log on Friday morning and get a call. Two ringtones play: a brand new one and the normal teams ringtone. During the call I go on mute by selecting the mute button on the call via my mouse. i hear "mute on". This is new. A few seconds later i hear the double beep. When I click the mute button again "mute off" plays. I also experienced two new things. 1) if my headset is off and i am geting a call, if i turn on my headset, when the headset connects via bt it auto-picks up the call (in mute on mode... playing the beeps after a bit). 2) if i hit the big button, it will hang up the call.

NOTE: i have not tried using the big button to answer a call.

None of this occurred prior to Oct 28. I work on a computer using Teams every day making calls for 1on1s or meetings every day.

Hopefully this helps someone as I have the aftershox but have had a different experience than others. I've only tried one of the workarounds but did not have any luck (not sure if i was doing it correctly or not).

I am NOT interested in a workaround so i'm not pursuing those at all.

I host about 20 / 30 meetings a week. I pray a fix is coming, this is absolutely maddening.