Headset mic issues?

So, my sister ordered these over-ear headphones with a built-in mic—the Kodak ones—and they just got delivered to the house today.
The thing is, you can't see a microphone anywhere on them. We actually called the seller, and they're claiming the mic is just tucked away somewhere inside the headset or hidden in the cable itself.
Anyway, she plugged them into her laptop jack and we hopped on a Zoom call to test things out.
The video works fine, and I can hear her perfectly, but even though she can see me, there’s absolutely no sound coming from her side. Just dead silence.
I'm a bit stumped because these only have one single plug. From what I understand, most headsets that include a mic usually need two separate cables—one for the audio and one for the mic input.
Does anyone here actually know what might be going on?

Morgan Ortiz6 said:So, my sister ordered these over-ear headphones with a built-in mic—the Kodak ones—and they just got delivered to the house today.
The thing is, you can't see a microphone anywhere on them. We actually called the seller, and they're claiming the mic is just tucked away somewhere inside the headset or hidden in the cable itself.
Anyway, she plugged them into her laptop jack and we hopped on a Zoom call to test things out.
The video works fine, and I can hear her perfectly, but even though she can see me, there’s absolutely no sound coming from her side. Just dead silence.
I'm a bit stumped because these only have one single plug. From what I understand, most headsets that include a mic usually need two separate cables—one for the audio and one for the mic input.
Does anyone here actually know what might be going on?

It all comes down to that metal jack. It could be a TRRS plug—stereo plus mic—or just a standard TRS stereo plug.

I mean, what kind of laptop doesn't come with its own speakers and mic built-in anymore?

If the laptop has two separate jacks, you're gonna need a splitter adapter to turn that single combo plug into two different connections.

Or... honestly? There's a decent chance they just sent her regular headphones without a mic at all.

I'm working with a Dell Inspiron 15 that’s got those three separate jacks—line, mic, and headphone
I honestly can't wrap my head around why I'm getting zero audio from the mic
Is there any way to figure out if the microphone itself is shot or if it's actually the soundcard acting up?

Splitter from single jack to separate stereo + mic jacks

Turning those split stereo and mic inputs back into one combined jack

Just count how many individual contact rings you've actually got on your headphone plug first

Here’s a shot for you

Morgan Ortiz6 said:Here’s a shot for you

So, yeah... your laptop has separate jacks for headphones and mic, while yours just has one single combo jack on there

Just grab that adapter I mentioned—it takes that single plug and splits it into two separate ones, then you just plug those two into the laptop

It works. But if you tried shoving that single combined plug into just the microphone jack, you'd end up with nothing but audio coming out of your mic instead of your headphones. Makes sense, right?

I mean, I’m just scratching my head over why the seller isn't mentioning the group banana. It’s kind of a dealbreaker, right? Because let's be real, those headphones wouldn't even work for anyone without that banana in the mix.

Morgan Ortiz6 said:I mean, I’m just scratching my head over why the seller isn't mentioning the group banana. It’s kind of a dealbreaker, right? Because let's be real, those headphones wouldn't even work for anyone without that banana in the mix.

Newer laptops and basically every smartphone out there only have one hole for a combo jack.
You still find the separate ones on desktop PCs—you know, the line-in, headphone, and mic jacks, all color-coded red, green, and blue, tucked away on the back panel.