Review: Mutalk Leakage Voice Suppression Microphone

Striking product images draw you in, don’t they? Even when you’re not sure what the doohickey is, or does, you know you want it, or at the very least want to know about it. The Mutalk certainly has striking product images—but not in a good way.

Shiftall’s creation is a “Bluetooth mic that isolates your voice, making it difficult for others to hear,” but the brand promo pics offer equal parts bafflement and amusement. A guffaw followed by, “Is it a portable Monsters, Inc. Scream Extractor?” is, we’d wager, not the first impression Shiftall’s marketing team are after.

But we’re professionals at WIRED, and the Bluetooth isolating microphone gimp mask is a new category for us. So let’s strap it on, get to work, and pray to Marsellus Wallace that no one sees us.

Designed for discreet conversations in public places, shy people, ebullient gamers, and shouty bosses, the Mutalk supposedly offers a simple solution to a common issue. But does it work, does it need to work, and will it make a difference to your home, office, and remote working existence? And will anyone ever speak to you again once they know you use it?

The Mutalk “utilizes the Helmholtz resonator principle” to achieve a sound muting effect when the user talks into it. This principle deals with the transfer of acoustic resonance through different materials, the main example of which is blowing across the top of a bottle with different amounts of liquid inside—but the principle has also, more practically, been used in car mufflers to alter the pitch and reduce exhaust noise.

That description undermines Hermann von Helmholtz’s legacy, but, essentially, when you talk into the Multalk mouthpiece, your words transmit clearly to the Bluetooth microphone but are muffled for anyone listening close by.

To use, you simply connect the 183-gram mask to your phone’s Bluetooth, the same way you would a pair of headphones. There is a 3.5-mm headphone socket for hands-free conversations, although the Venn diagram for people prepared to invest in conversation-muting Bluetooth microphones and those still using wired headphones is pretty small.

In terms of features, it’s all rather simple. There’s no fancy frequency tweaking app. It uses Bluetooth 5.1, and has USB-C charging (one hour) and an eight-hour battery life. It’s also impossible to ignore the removable head straps, moisture-absorbing cushion, and washable rubber mouth pad. Washable. Rubber. Mouth. Pad.

As a man prepared to wear the Dyson Zone in public, I didn’t think wearable tech could get any more embarrassing, but how wrong I was. Wearing the Mutalk was hysterically funny for my work colleagues, disturbing to children, and “completely unacceptable” for my wife.

The design of the voice box is fine. It’s quite dull in fact, and could do with someone taking a Sharpie to it and giving it some cartoon lips. But the head straps are unforgivably awful.

During testing, any feelings of self-consciousness over the volume of my voice were quickly replaced by the skin-crawling embarrassment of sitting in Starbucks (no, I wasn’t going to go in my regular coffee shop) with the head strap on.

There’s something troubling about the combination of protruding mouth box and multi-point head straps. We’re getting dangerously close to Pulp Fiction territory here, and while I have my kinks, wearing a Bluetooth ball gag in public isn’t one of them.

Mercifully, you don’t need to wear the straps to use Mutalk, and for me, it works much better without the bondage accoutrements. Stand it on its end (snout?) and it automatically mutes, but lift it to your mouth and it unmutes as you take the call.

If you were one of the lucky recipients of a phone call from me over the past few weeks, you’ll have experienced the best of Mutalk. The Bluetooth microphone sounds crisp and clear, with virtually no background noise.

The mouthpiece is large enough for you to talk freely, but unlike a good pair of headphones, you are all too aware of it as you speak. It’s a sensation to which you will grow accustomed, but, like hemorrhoids, it’s not something any right-minded person wants to become inured to.

It’s great that my voice sounds clear to the person on the other end of the phone, because to my ears it’s like talking into a pillow. It’s not the worst sensation, and in a noisy café it was nice not to have to talk louder to be heard, feel self-conscious, or disturb those around me. I’m decidedly British in this regard.

Voice quality is not without issues, however, and the brand admits that, given you’re only covering your mouth, it is “difficult to convey nasal sounds, and your voice may sound slightly different from your normal speaking voice.” As someone with quite the nasal twang, I thought I might end up sounding peculiar, but in my test calls nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary. If sounding like the Great Gonzo is a problem though, there is—saints preserve us—a gas-mask-esque nose cover available, albeit thankfully only in Japan.

Getting used to making and receiving calls using the strapless Mutalk (even that phrase makes it feel kinky) didn’t take long, and if you’re in a busy office or café it’s more convenient than having to find somewhere else to go. If you’re someone who still lifts their phone to their ear to chat, as opposed to putting headphones on/in, the action isn’t as bonkers as you’d think.

Aside from quieter phone calls, Mutalk is also marketed squarely at gamers. If you’re known to get overly excited during multiplayer gaming sessions, and tend to get online at unsociable hours, your housemate/family/neighbors might love the Mutalk. In practice, it’s a bit of a distraction, and not the comfiest thing to wear for long periods. It also impairs your ability to eat snacks.

The Mutalk can cut the volume of your conversation by 30 dB. For context, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “a whisper is about 30 dB, normal conversation is about 60 dB, and a motorcycle engine running is about 95 dB.” A refrigerator humming produces around 40 dB, and any noise exceeding 70 dB is generally considered disturbing.

This detail is important because while my voice is muffled by wearing Mutalk, it is not silenced. Yes, my colleagues and wife can insert their own jokes here, but I was surprised by how much could still be heard. Recording myself talking into Mutalk, the sound was understandably muted, but I could still hear every word on the playback. When I asked for feedback from coworkers, they admitted the conversation was still audible, but definitely muted, “like putting a pillow in a kick drum.”

Raised voices and shouting fared better, with more of the sound frequencies seeming to be chopped from the register. It’s still pretty obvious when someone is shouting, but it lacks that barbed edge.

Using a decibel meter app in my private office, my normal conversation volume fluctuated between 56 and 68 dB. Speaking into the Mutalk, this drops to between 35 and 55 dB. Putting on my best trying-to-be-heard-in-a-busy-bar voice peaks the meter at 92 dB uncovered, but with Mutalk on this remains just below 70 dB. (But remember the CDC: “Any noise exceeding 70 dB is considered disturbing.”)

If you need to give someone a bollocking in public, the Mutalk might save your blushes, but if you’re the sort of person who’s used to yelling at people in less than private circumstances, you’re probably beyond embarrassment anyway.

The Mutalk is part of a range of metaverse-adjacent products from Japanese tech brand Shiftall. We’re deep into Ready Player One territory here, with elbow, knee, and full-body sensors, VR controllers, and headsets. The brand has also developed Wear Space, a bewildering union of noise-canceling headphones and horse blinkers, for creating a “personal partition” between you and the world, supposedly allowing wearers to “instantly create a psychological boundary with their surroundings.”

From my own Western position, products like Mutalk are beguiling, entertaining, and generally unnecessary, but I’m conscious of trampling on cultural differences here. And no, not with the metaverse dwellers—those guys remain a mystery—but with Japanese norms and traditions.

There’s a world of difference between cultures, and it’s hard to understate the impact of “noise” in some parts of Japanese society. Disturbing the neighbors is a definite faux pas, and walls are traditionally much thinner than in the West. In these circumstances, where being loud is frowned upon, the existence of the Mutalk makes some sense.

Indeed, it’s not the only option on the market, either, as a quick search on Rakuten reveals. If anything, it appears that quietly screaming into the void, or discreetly belting out karaoke hits, is seemingly a growth industry.

We all know someone (or might be that someone) who talks too loudly in public. Shared offices are a nightmare if you’re trying to be discreet, or when you need to lay down the law. Most adults have learned the knack of leaving the room, finding a quiet corridor, hiding in the bathroom, or, when it’s really important, asking for a callback.

With Mutalk, however, you can sidestep those tedious conventions and have awkward conversations wherever you like. Yes, people can still hear what you’re saying, but it’s quieter, and you won’t sound like you’re whispering to the person on the phone, thus instantly attracting even more unwanted attention. It’s a niche proposition, but it does work.

Strapping it to your mouth and wandering around—or even sitting at my desk—is a step too far for this journalist, though. It’s too restrictive to be a long-term solution to a day on the phone, or night on the PlayStation or Quest 3.

And then there’s the unavoidable gimp aesthetic. When loved ones and complete strangers point and laugh in unison, you know something fundamentally isn’t right. Sadly, the level of shame induced by the Mutalk is deafening.