I guess it might be an idea to have a Bluetooth headset to fully enjoy something like Home, too?... *quickly adds to Amazon Wishlist*
There are plenty of excellent reasons to own at least one Bluetooth headset, like to use with your phones, chatting through the PS3's XMB, and in games like LBP, where voice chat is beneficial and fun.
As far as with Home, there are benefits as well, but I must admit, not only is the preset text and emotion options quite easy to use and do a surprisingly good job of conveying a message, but the advantage of typing your chat in Home rather than use a headset or the PS Eye is that there is a running text log in Home that you and your friends can look over in case you missed something someone "said". However, if you are using a headset, then they have to listen, because it won't be added to the chat log for later reference.
My wife and I have found that we use a combination of both our wireless keyboard and mic, depending on who we are socializing with, and what we are discussing.
Speaking of using a keyboard instead of the InteliText onscreen keyboard in Home and in the XMB, the advantage is if you are a fast typist it's almost always going to be faster typing with a keyboard. However, unlike the InteliText menu, it won't include a list of often used words, which can allow you to type even faster than a keyboard using the InteliText option. So it really comes down to personal choice. Like the use of a mic, we also switch back and forth between using the keyboard and using the Intel-Text option depending on what it is we are typing. If it's a quick commonly used word or phrase, then we use the InteliText.
Going back to the use of a mic in Home, late last night I was watching the recording of the Sunday night game between the Colts and the Chargers while my wife was playing around in Home, and she accidentally switched the audio input settings from the headset to the PS Eye... well sure enough, she started getting comments from those around her in the Central Plaza area that they could hear the game being played in the background every time she pressed the R2 button to chat.
This got me thinking....
(and that's a dangerous thing
)
One of the celebrity Home avatars we made was an Obama look-a-like, so we switched avatars and I cued up Obama's historic acceptance speech "Yes We Can", and played it while holding down the R2 button.
Well the reaction was pretty amazing. Within seconds a large group had gathered around our Obama look-a-like and were visually and audibly cheering at each message point of his speech.
I wish I could hear what it actually sounded like, but apprently everyone nearby could hear it quite well, and they dug the fact that it was coming from an avatar that looked like Obama as well.
Needless to say, my head raced through all the different things one could do with that feature, but it also hit me that it might be too good to be true. In other words, an enterprising company might jump at the chance to sign up a bunch of people to hang out in Home, and verbally play commercials through chat.
Granted, there is a very good Abuse Report system in Home, as well as an option to mute anyone you like, so maybe it's a none issue.
Any way, I highly recommend getting a BT headset, but even more so, the PS Eye. Not only will the PS Eye give you a mic, but unlike a BT headset it also gives you some pretty nice video and photo capabilities whic can be very handy both in games and networking. Some games have features exclusive to those with the PS Eye even, so that's worth considering as well.
The downide to using the PS Eye however is that the audio output has to go through the same as the game audio output. Where as if you use a mic, then you can have the audio chat output going straight to your ear rather than mixed in with all the other game sounds.
So ideally, you are best served getting both, and seeing as the PS Eye is very reasonably priced and you can get BT headsets for under $25 now... if not free with your mobile phone - having both is not a unreasonable thing. 👍