A lavalier microphone, also known as a lav mic or lapel mic, is a tiny microphone that clips onto your clothes, usually near your collar.It’s like a hands-free headset, but instead of headphones, it has a microphone that picks up your voice.Lavalier mics are quite common in a lot of places where people need to talk without holding a microphone, like on TV, in plays, during interviews, for public speaking, and in movies.They’re small and hidden, so you can move around freely without tripping over cords or bumping into the microphone.
There are two kinds of lavalier mics: wired and wireless. Wired ones have a cord that plugs into a recording device, while wireless ones don’t have any cords at all.Wireless mics are like tiny radios that send your voice signal through the air to a receiver, which then plugs into a recording device.Wireless lavalier mics are great because you can move around even more freely, but you have to make sure the batteries don’t die and that there’s nothing blocking the signal.
They’re perfect for presenters, performers, filmmakers, and reporters who need to move around a lot while talking.So, next time you see someone on TV with a tiny microphone clipped to their shirt, you’ll know it’s a lavalier mic, the handy little helper that lets people talk freely without holding anything!
We recently had the opportunity to test one such interesting device, the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone.As the name suggests, it is a wireless lav microphone from Hohem. If you aren’t familiar with Hohem, they are a popular manufacturer of gimbals for smartphones and cameras. Recently, they started producing a bunch of accessories for video content creators and the MIC-01 Microphone is one of them.
In this review of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Microphone, we would like to share our experiences of using the device with an iPhone as well as a camera. We will explore how easy/difficult it is to use the microphone, the quality of the recordings, and many other things. If you are looking to purchase a decent quality lavalier style wireless microphone either for your podcast or stage shows (as a public speaker), then continue reading the review and find out if this microphone is good for you.
Let us take a quick look at the contents of the package of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone. Opening the box, we have the user manual with a lot of details on the usage of the microphone. We highly recommend to go through this before using the device.
Next is the charging case with one receiver and two transmitters inside. We will talk more about them in the next section. Continuing unboxing, there is a small box with USB-C Charging cable, and a couple of windbreakers.
There is also a hard case for the microphone. You can store the charging case inside this case when you are not using them. That’s it for the simple unboxing. In the next section, we will talk about the design of the microphones.
But before that, we would like to mention that Hohem MIC-01 is available in single transmitter model as well as two transmitter model.With “1 transmitter and 1 receiver” option, you get the transmitter and receiver pair along with a carry pouch.The “2 transmitter and 1 receiver” option, like the one we have, comes with two transmitters, one receiver and a charging case. There is also a significant price difference between these two models, which we will see in the price section.
The Receiver can have either a USB-C Connector (suitable for latest iPhones, Android Phones, Laptops, and Cameras) or a Lightning Connector (suitable for previous generation iPhones). You can choose the connector type. We have the Lightning type receiver, which is MFi certified.
We will start with the design of the Receiver Module.It has a Lightning connector on top, which plugs into the charging port of an iPhone. On the left of the device, there is a USB-C Port. This is useful if you want to charge the phone while still plugging in the receiver module to the phone. On the right, there is a 3.5mm jack where you can plug headphones or earphones to monitor the speech in real time. The front of the receiver has a couple of buttons (CH1 and CH1) and a couple of indicators for both the channels. These buttons have multiple functions, which we will see in a later section.
An important thing to know about the receiver module is it doesn’t have any built-in battery. So, you have to plug the receiver to your smartphone or laptop (depending on the model) all the time in order to power the device.
We have two transmitter modules in the package and they are identical. The front has the opening for microphone and a multi color LED. On the left, there is a 3.5mm jack to plug an external microphone, if you want to. On the right, there is a micro-SD Card slot and a USB-C port for charging. But the main charging contacts (which charges the device through the charging case) are on the either side of the USB-C Port.
There is a clip at the back of the transmitter which helps us in attaching the device to our collar (or something similar). The transmitter has two buttons on the bottom side; one is the main power button and the other is a mode switch button.
Next is the charging case. It has slots to insert both the transmitters as well as the receiver but charges only the transmitters as receiver doesn’t have any battery (it acts as a holder). There are a bunch of tiny LEDs on the front that indicate the battery state of the charging case. They also indicate the status of charging of the individual transmitters as well. The charging case has a USB-C port on the back for charging.There is a tiny strap on the bottom right corner of the case.
Overall, the design of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone kit is very good.The size of the transmitter and the receiver is quite compact and you don’t have to worry about the weight of the transmitter while you clip it to your collar.
Using the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lav Microphone is very simple. The transmitter, which houses the microphone has a built-in battery so that you can place it anywhere you want (ideally to a collar or somewhere similar where it can capture the audio). After the transmitter captures the audio, it transmits the data to the receiver wirelessly.The receiver, which plugs into the iPhone, receives the data from the transmitter and stores the audio files in the phone. It is that simple.
The first step is to power on the transmitter by pressing and holding the power button for 3 seconds. The indicator LED on the transmitter blinks indicating that it is on but not yet paired. Now connect the receiver to the charging port of your iPhone. Indicator LEDs on both the transmitter and receiver will become stable after successful pairing. You can pair the second transmitter in the similar way.
When you start recording a video or audio on the iPhone, it will automatically start capturing audio from the transmitter (or transmitters, it you pair two of them).
So, how was the performance of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone? Before talking about the performance of the mic, we have to briefly discuss the noise cancellation function of the mic.Yes. The Hohem MIC-01 Lav Mic has three levels of noise cancellation; Off, Standard, and Strong. It uses a special DSP IC to implement the noise cancellation. We will see how it performed with these three settings.
By the way, the Mode button on the transmitter (the one next to the power button) will help us in selecting the noise cancellation mode. Once the transmitter is powered and paired with the receiver, we can press the mode button to switch between different noise cancellation modes. Here are the colors of the LED indicator on the transmitter corresponding to different modes.
Let us begin with the performance review with no noise cancellation. We tested the microphones in both a closed room as well as outdoors with a lot of noise. We used the windbreaker all the time. We attached the microphones at roughly 10cm from mouth (Hohem recommends this).
In this mode, the MIC-01 does a very good job of capturing the voice of the speakers. As noise cancellation is off, we get almost all the surrounding noise and sounds in the recording. Surprisingly, the Hohem MIC-01 could reduce the wind noise even with noise cancellation off.In the Standard Noise Cancellation Mode, the audio quality is much better. While there is anacceptable level of surrounding noise in the audio, we can still hear the voices of the speakers very clearly.
With Strong Noise Cancellation, the HohemMIC-01 Wireless Lav Microphone completely eliminates the surrounding noise. But our experience of audio in this mode is not the best as we felt the voices a little bit artificial (like there is some artifacts in the voice). Of the three, the Standard Noise Cancellation is the best performing one in terms of audio quality as well as noise cancellation.
We mentioned microSD Card Slot on the transmitters. They support microSD Cards up to 32GB (in FAT format). The benefit of this option is you can use the microphones as standalone devices and record directly without pairing with the receiver. Even if you pair with the receiver, the microSD Card acts as a local backup storage for audio files.
The transmitters have a small 150mAh battery. With a full charge, they last approximately 6 and a half hours. But with the charging case, which has a battery capacity of 850mAh, you can double the operating time.Depending on the remaining percentage of battery in the transmitter, the LED indicator with either be a steady red (battery less than 10%) or flashing red (battery less than 3%).
With flashing red LED, it took almost 1 hour 45 minutes to fully charge the transmitter. The charging case has four LED indicators. The left most indicator corresponds to the first transmitter while the right most LED is for the second transmitter. They blink while the respective transmitters are charging and turn off when the battery is full.These LEDs will also report the status of the battery of the case when you open the lid.
There are a bunch of features and functions in the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone, some of which are very useful (such as muting the audio and camera shutter control). Let us quickly take a look at these functions. The first one is the Reverb Function. This adds reverb effects to the audio. In order to activate this, we have to press the Mode button on the transmitter twice.
After connecting the receiver to the iPhone and pairing it with the transmitter, you can use the transmitter as a shutter control for the phone’s camera. With iPhone’s camera active, you can use the power button on the transmitter to take a picture or start recording a video (depending on the mode in the phone).
While recording audio, we sometimes want to mute the audio. While we can do this later in the post production, the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lav Microphone gives us the option to mute the audio directly from the device. All you have to do is double press the power button on the transmitter.
We know that the receiver has a couple of buttons on it. These buttons perform multitude of tasks. The first one is gain control. Yes. The Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone comes with 5 levels of gain adjustment. The gain adjustment is independent for both the transmitters and the steps are identical (just replace CH1 with CH2).To enter gain adjustment mode, double press the CH1 button. The CH1 indicator LED becomes yellow. Now press the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons on the receiver to adjust the gain. To exit this mode, double press the CH1 button or it will automatically exit after 10 seconds.
You can also switch between mono and stereo recording mode. Just press and hold the CH1 button for 3 seconds. If both CH1 and CH2 indicators are green, it indicates Stereo mode. For mono mode, the LEDs become blue.
Apart from phones, you can also use the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone with cameras as well. First of all, you have to provide external power to the receiver (as it doesn’t have any built-in battery) using a power bank. Then we have to connect the receiver to the camera using a 3.5mm cable (male to male).
The 3.5mm jack on the receiver also doubles as a listening port. You can plug headphones or earphones in to this port and listen to the audio in real time. If you notice, there is a 3.5mm jack on both the transmitter. This is useful if you want to connect an external microphone to the transmitter and use the microphone as a wireless device.
As we mentioned in the beginning, the Hohem MIC-01 is available in a single transmitter variant as well as double transmitter variant. If you are a solo creator or vlogger, then the one transmitter, one receiver variant is sufficient. But if you collaborate with other people (for podcasts, interviews, etc.), then the two transmitters, one receiver variant is the obvious choice.
Coming to the price, the listing price of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone (two transmitter variant with charging case) is $258 but the selling price is $129. They are available in black as well as white colors. Make sure you pick the right variant (USB-C or Lightning) while making the purchase. Hohem backs this product with a 1-year warranty.
Overall, we really liked the build quality and performance of the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone. It is very useful for live shows, interviews, etc. where you can keep your hands free by just clipping the microphone to your collar (or a similar piece of clothing).
The audio quality is good and the standard noise cancellation is our choice of operation. The battery life is decent and with charging case, you can work continuously. The charging time is slightly more despite is small battery. You can easily carry the entire kit with its hard case.
If you are looking to invest in a good quality wireless microphone for you video production (vlogging, interviews, or regular video production), then the Hohem MIC-01 Wireless Lavalier Microphone is definitely a worthy choice. If you have other Hohem product (such as their gimbals), then you can easily pair or combine them for better experience.
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