Aliph Jawbone Icon sets new bar for Bluetooth headsets

San Francisco's Aliph was already considered among the best, if not the best, Bluetooth headset maker with its Jawbone line of headsets.

But the company is pushing the envelope with its new Jawbone Icon devices, which are not only great looking and sounding, but they're intelligent in a way that Bluetooth headsets have never been before.

Jawbone Icon comes in six designs that range from functional jewelry to smart looking business accessory. Jawbone Icon comes with a dedicated on-off switch, along with a talk button and Jawbone's signature voice activity sensor, which senses when you're talking and activates its NoiseAssassin noise-canceling technology.

But the real magic happens inside. The devices actually sport an operating system that can allow it become a platform for applications. Now they're not iPhone like apps but they are useful short-cuts bringing you services through what used to be a somewhat dumb piece of hardware.

Using Aliph's new MyTalk website, which is in beta, you can connect your Icon to your computer via USB and program it with an app that lets you do things like call Free 411 or use Jott, the note-taking service. Or you can listen and post to Facebook and Twitter using your voice. From MyTalk, you can also set what kind of voice you want to hear on your Icon.

There are six different voices that give you caller ID or what your remaining talk time is. You can also set your volume level on your Icon so that it can normalize the voice levels you hear, so all your inbound sounds stays within a certain range. This is sort of necessary because there is no volume rocker on the Icon.

Jawbone Icon also has some nice iPhone integration so when you pair it with an iPhone, you can see a battery meter for your Icon headset. That's actually really useful because it's often hard to know when your Bluetooth headset is almost dead and needs charging.

The sound quality is great on the Jawbone Icon. Most people won't even know you're on the headset.

Aliph is trying to make buying and using a headset a frictionless proposal. Right now, it's not the case for many consumers. They might have bought a headset to comply with California's hands-free law but many find they're not turning to their headset that often.

Jawbone Icon helps address some of those problems. I like the On-Off switch, which tells me clearly if the device is ready to go. And the battery status updates, whether through the Icon's voice service or on the iPhone, really helps me know when to charge it up. That's another barrier for consumers, who can't discern their battery life and then turn to a dead headset, which only discourages them even more.

Perhaps the nicest surprise is that the Jawbone Icon sells for $99. Maybe a little steep for some but it's got the most features and best performance of any headset around.