Calisto Pro: One Headset, Three Calling Options

Plantronics has made a phone and Bluetooth headset combination that works for people like me who work from home and juggle a cell phone and a home landline all day. With the Calisto Pro Series phone, you can also add VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) phone service and answer all three from one headset.

The DECT 6.0 frequency phone is one of the nicest looking home phones I've seen. The handset sits flat in the docking station and is not much bigger in size than my Palm Treo. Next to it is the Bluetooth headset, which may look longer and bigger than the sleek Bluetooth headsets many opt for. There's a reason for that, says Judi Hembrough, director of marketing management for Plantronics' Home & Home Office division. The focus of this all-around-use headset is on audio and sound quality, and a noise-canceling headset that extends longer toward your mouth provides better sound, particularly with VoIP calls, she said.

After trying out the phone and headset for a few days, I've found the Calisto delivers on ease of use and sound quality. The focus on simplicity and design extends to the Calisto Pro's packaging, which is the least cumbersome and wasteful that I've seen in a long time. No Styrofoam or heavy plastic to be found.

It was very simple to sync my Treo with the Bluetooth headset so I can answer it with the headset, as well as the home phone. You can leave the house with the headset to use it with your mobile phone on the road, and it picks right up on the home phone when you return. Connect the base to your PC, and you can also download up to 200 Microsoft Outlook contacts into the handset.

For someone who spends a lot of her day throwing in loads of laundry between posts and making dinner at the time of day the phone doesn't seem to stop ringing, this is a setup that works. As Plantonics' research on "home pros"—professionals who work from home all of the time or part of the time—73 percent of us sometimes conduct non work-related tasks while on work calls. The handset has a built-in clip so you can attach it to your waist and flip it up to see who's calling when roaming from the home office.

Plantronics has designed the Calisto Pro to jive with changes in the home phone market, which is evolving while most home phones have not. Plantronics' research also found that 74 percent of "home pros" use their mobile phones regularly at home along with landlines, and the Calisto Pro makes it easy to move between the two (or more).

It will be available for $280 online in September at The Sharper Image, Office Depot, Office Max, and Staples, in the retail stores in September and October.