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bethchimeaws asked

Why am I causing echo?

macosecho
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1 Answer

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bethchimeaws answered

There are a number of reasons your device may be causing echo.

macOS Sonoma: If you are using an Apple Silicon device (e.g. M1) and upgraded to macOS Sonoma (14.3) - the new Voice Isolation feature from Apple may be generating echo.

  • Use earbuds or a headset instead of built in microphone and speakers
  • Upgrade to 14.4.1 or higher and change Audio to Standard (turn off Apple Voice Isolation).
    • Join or start an Amazon Chime meeting
    • Join with audio
    • Click the Audio icon in the upper macOS control bar
    • Click Standard
      voice-isolation.png
    • The setting should be remembered for future meetings

High CPU utilization on your device: If you have recently upgraded to a new OS version or have not rebooted your computer in a while, we recommend choosing to Restart your device.

  • MacOS, specifically Silicon (M1/M2 chipsets) do more than just reboot. Restart also does SMC and VRAM resets at the same time, which are useful for ensuring the OS is running optimally.

Multiple people in the same conference room: If you are joining from a conference room, make sure to choose a single audio source for the meeting. Just muting your audio does not prevent echo (sound may still be coming from your speakers).

  • When joining the meeting
    • Join the meeting and choose Use conference room for audio or click Other as the Audio setting then click Join or Join with Video to connect to the meeting.
      Choose Use conference room for audio from device preview
  • When you are already in the meeting
    • Click the up arrow next to the audio icon and choose Disable mic and speakers.

Other general echo guidance

  • The interesting thing about echo is that if are causing the echo, you won't hear it. When others speak they hear their audio echo. To avoid echo follow these guidelines:
    • Only one audio source should join from a room - use dial-in from large conference rooms - and then others can join with the Amazon Chime App (Answer > Other tab in Device preview > Join with Video or Join) and take advantage of the Attendee panel, video, screen share, and mute controls.
    • When you are on the Amazon Chime app, you can mute a caller by clicking on the associated phone or microphone icon on the Call Roster. This can help you identify the source of the echo (if echo stops when source is muted) and reduce background noise.
  • If there is too much noise on a call, the Host, a delegate or moderator can choose Mute All Others under the More menu to help manage the audio (then ask people who are presenting to unmute themselves).

10 |600

Up to 25 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 10.0 MiB each and 96.4 MiB total.

Documentation

View the Amazon Chime User, Administration Guide and API Reference on the AWS Documentation site.

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