You'll want to be very confident that it actually mutes in hardware.
I thought my old headset (Logitech G930) did, until I found out the hard way that it was in fact just sending a software command to mute the mic at the system level, and that if the headset was turned on while plugged in to external power it would not properly communicate any inputs to the host system.
Audio still worked perfectly, but volume controls, the "G Keys", and most importantly mic mute did not work in this state. The red light at the tip of the mic would come on but nothing actually changed and audio was always being transmitted to the host PC (which I guess was always true, but the host PC now wasn't muting it either).
I found this out during a lunch break on a multi-day training session, where I let out a Barney Gumble class belch with my mic in the up/off position and the background chatter in the conference call fell silent until someone commented about how my lunch must have been good. After figuring out what happened I then wondered how much had been heard on previous days, but never got around to going back and listening through the session recordings to figure it out.
I live by the principle where I just won't say anything incriminating or extremely embarrassing if there is a mic or phone that could possibly be active. Little embarrassing stuff is fine, but for everything else, I assume the mic is hot even if I just muted it and I can see the mute indicator.
In addition to protecting against technical failures like you describe, I also don't get in the habit of saying stuff that one day I could accidentally say on a blatantly hot mic or in front of someone else.
The only mute button I really trust is the one inside my head.
I thought my old headset (Logitech G930) did, until I found out the hard way that it was in fact just sending a software command to mute the mic at the system level, and that if the headset was turned on while plugged in to external power it would not properly communicate any inputs to the host system.
Audio still worked perfectly, but volume controls, the "G Keys", and most importantly mic mute did not work in this state. The red light at the tip of the mic would come on but nothing actually changed and audio was always being transmitted to the host PC (which I guess was always true, but the host PC now wasn't muting it either).
I found this out during a lunch break on a multi-day training session, where I let out a Barney Gumble class belch with my mic in the up/off position and the background chatter in the conference call fell silent until someone commented about how my lunch must have been good. After figuring out what happened I then wondered how much had been heard on previous days, but never got around to going back and listening through the session recordings to figure it out.