Microphone test online. Hear yourself, and the room.
Check that your microphone picks you up, and how much of the room it picks up with you, before a call or an exam. The recording stays on this page.
One check
- Microphone
One check after another, with your progress along the top and a plain verdict on each. Nothing you show the camera or say into the microphone leaves this page.
In short
Microphone test: the answer first
A microphone test shows whether the microphone hears you, how much of the room it hears with you, and whether your speakers leak back into it as echo. You read a sentence, play it back, and see your voice against the room's noise floor.
Reading your result
- Voice above the room
- The quiet seconds before you speak set the noise floor. The further your voice stands above it, the clearer you are on a call or to a proctor.
- An echo peak
- A burst plays through the speakers and the capture is correlated with it. A clear peak means the speakers reach the microphone; headphones remove it.
- The device name
- If the name is the built-in microphone while a headset is plugged in, choose the headset in the browser's site settings.
What it measures
Measured here, not assumed.
- Live level
- A meter shows how loud you are as you speak, so you can see at once whether the microphone hears you.
- A clip to play back
- The sentence you read is recorded so you can hear what the other side hears. It is played from memory and discarded when you leave.
- Background noise
- Three seconds of quiet before you speak; the middle reading of those is the room's noise floor. Proctors listen for it; so do the people on your calls.
- Which microphone
- The name of the device in use. Laptops with a headset plugged in often keep using the built-in microphone.
- Echo
- A short burst of noise plays through the speakers, and the microphone's capture is correlated with it over lags of 0 to 300 ms. A peak at one lag is the speakers reaching the microphone, which other people hear as echo. Our line is a correlation of 0.3; where the browser cannot give a time-domain capture, echo is reported as not measured.
If it fails
The usual failures, and what fixes each.
- Access was refused
- Click the microphone icon in the address bar and choose Allow. Then the system's own microphone privacy switch; the path for your device is shown under the fixes on this page.
- It works but nothing is heard
- Check the mute key and any switch on a headset, then the input level in the system's sound settings. In the browser's site settings, choose the right microphone if several are listed.
- The room is loud
- Close doors and windows, and turn off fans, music and TVs. Move the microphone closer to you and further from the noise. A headset microphone picks up less of the room.
- The level is very low
- Raise the input level in the system's sound settings and turn off any boost that was turned down. Speak from about 30 cm away.
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- How you sound in a specific app. Each app applies its own noise suppression and can pick a different microphone.
- Whether a headset is allowed. Many exam vendors forbid headphones during the exam; check their rules.
- How much echo a call app would cancel. The test hears the raw path; apps cancel some of it, not all.
Privacy
Nothing leaves this page.
The camera and microphone are read on this page and stopped as soon as they have been measured. The clip you can play back lives in the browser's memory and is discarded when you leave. The location check discards the position. The internet test sends random bytes to this site and nothing else. The result is stored nowhere unless you ask for it by email, and then only the fact that an email was sent is kept.
Questions
Microphone test, answered
- How do I test my microphone online?
- Run the test above, allow the microphone when asked, and speak. The meter moves as you talk and a short clip plays back afterwards. If the meter stays still, the fixes above cover mute, the wrong device and a low input level.
- Is the recording stored?
- No. The clip is kept in the browser's memory only so you can play it back, and it is discarded when you leave the page.
- Why does my microphone work here but not on Zoom or Teams?
- Those apps choose their own microphone and have their own permission. Open the app's audio settings and pick the same device that worked here, and check the app is allowed to use the microphone in the system's privacy settings.
- Can I use a headset for an online exam?
- Often not. Many vendors forbid headphones and earphones during the exam because they cannot see what is being played. Check the vendor's rules and test with the laptop's own microphone if headsets are not allowed.
- Is my recording uploaded anywhere?
- No. The clip is played from the browser's memory and discarded when you leave the page.
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