4 ms·

On Arch, my Bluetooth headphones are working great. MPOW-x3 and sony wh-1000xm4 My biggest gripe is that I can't use the microphone at the same time as the hea

On Arch, my Bluetooth headphones are working great. MPOW-x3 and sony wh-1000xm4 My biggest gripe is that I can't use the microphone at the same time as the headphones, without switching to tin can mode.

jagger27 5y ago
My XM4s used to pair fine on Arch too, but not anymore. I think the mic issue isn't specific to Linux but the headphones themselves.
foobarbecue 5y ago
This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not Linux. It's crazy, but no decent 2-way Bluetooth protocols exist.
- bashinator 5y ago
  What's the limitation? My wild-ass guess would be that rx and tx have to be on the same radio frequency, so you can't do full duplex without packet collisions.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    It's that the handset profile which allows two way audio but only with crappy phone style codecs is different from the audio profile that only has one direction for an audio stream but has decent audio quality.
    - TylerE 5y ago
      What I don't get is that why the H/W companies don't just solve this by including a 2nd Bluetooth chip. Give up on running duplex, run high quality audio out to the headphones, and the mic as a separate device using whatever is best there.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        Half the battery life. And there are fixes at the protocol layer already, you just have to use nonstandard extensions. This is how airpods work.
        charrondev 5y ago
        And beats (at least my studio 3s) on Mac/iOS/Android. If your going to do wireless on windows, either get a separate mic, use a corded headset, or a headset with a USB-wireless adapter unless you want it sounding like a tin can.
        numpad0 5y ago
        You could just stuff two headsets into one same headphone, sharing only speaker output and power. Battery life isn’t a problem, a random BL-5C from parts bin should work just fine.
  - numpad0 5y ago
    Some sort of hardware limitation preventing two protocols(profiles) going through CODEC or something. “Back/return channel” features are emerging to encapsulate profile over profile so it might change in the future
  - foobarbecue 5y ago
    https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://superuser.com/a/1301789/235533 https://superuser.com/a/1301789/235533 https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audio-for-bluetooth https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audi...
- rofrol 5y ago
  - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1338933/samsung-galaxy-buds-bluetooth-headset-works-on-pipewire/1338934#1338934 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1338933/samsung-galaxy-buds-... - https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/14017/are-there-any-truly-wireless-earbuds-that-support-a2dp-while-using-the-microphon https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/14017/are-t...
sheenobu 5y ago
Have you switched to pipewire? I haven't pulled the trigger yet so I'm wondering if bluetooth gets any better.
- da_big_ghey 5y ago
  yes much better and greater reliable with codec switching. i encourage switch. also mSBC better 2way sound
  - GrayShade 5y ago
    And LDAC support.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  I have a new laptop running Arch, and Bluetooth headphones which nominally can act as a headset as well, but I actively disabled that functionality under Windows, because if something tried to use the atrocious-quality headset microphone, the high-quality headphones output would silently (literally!) not work, and only the low-quality headset audio output would work. The headset modes haven’t appeared under Linux at all, which happens to suit me just fine, so I haven’t investigated the lack. A couple of times I’ve had issues with connecting at the BlueZ level, but putting the laptop to sleep and waking it up again has resolved it. (Just restarting bluetoothd doesn’t help.) I was running PulseAudio for a few weeks, then I switched to PipeWire. I no longer get the Bluetooth indicator on it in waybar, but other than that the switch was fairly uneventful. One point is an improvement: it now seems to remember which devices I like to use, so that when I plug in my Yeti microphone it doesn’t switch audio output to it (it has a 3.5mm monitor port and can feed audio from the computer through that too), which it had always done under PulseAudio and I hadn’t yet gone to the trouble of figuring out how to stop it from doing that. One point in the Bluetooth device handling is potentially a slight regression: when silence should be being fed through the connection, I observe extremely quiet whine which I didn’t under PulseAudio. Not sure what’s at fault there.
da_big_ghey 5y ago
pipewire better in this, use mSBC having better quality 2way sounds

jagger27 5y ago

My XM4s used to pair fine on Arch too, but not anymore. I think the mic issue isn't specific to Linux but the headphones themselves.

foobarbecue 5y ago

This is a limitation of Bluetooth, not Linux. It's crazy, but no decent 2-way Bluetooth protocols exist.

bashinator 5y ago
What's the limitation? My wild-ass guess would be that rx and tx have to be on the same radio frequency, so you can't do full duplex without packet collisions.
- monocasa 5y ago
  It's that the handset profile which allows two way audio but only with crappy phone style codecs is different from the audio profile that only has one direction for an audio stream but has decent audio quality.
  - TylerE 5y ago
    What I don't get is that why the H/W companies don't just solve this by including a 2nd Bluetooth chip. Give up on running duplex, run high quality audio out to the headphones, and the mic as a separate device using whatever is best there.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Half the battery life. And there are fixes at the protocol layer already, you just have to use nonstandard extensions. This is how airpods work.
      - charrondev 5y ago
        And beats (at least my studio 3s) on Mac/iOS/Android. If your going to do wireless on windows, either get a separate mic, use a corded headset, or a headset with a USB-wireless adapter unless you want it sounding like a tin can.
      - numpad0 5y ago
        You could just stuff two headsets into one same headphone, sharing only speaker output and power. Battery life isn’t a problem, a random BL-5C from parts bin should work just fine.
- numpad0 5y ago
  Some sort of hardware limitation preventing two protocols(profiles) going through CODEC or something. “Back/return channel” features are emerging to encapsulate profile over profile so it might change in the future
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://superuser.com/a/1301789/235533 https://superuser.com/a/1301789/235533 https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audio-for-bluetooth https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audi...
rofrol 5y ago
- https://askubuntu.com/questions/1338933/samsung-galaxy-buds-bluetooth-headset-works-on-pipewire/1338934#1338934 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1338933/samsung-galaxy-buds-... - https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/14017/are-there-any-truly-wireless-earbuds-that-support-a2dp-while-using-the-microphon https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/14017/are-t...

sheenobu 5y ago

Have you switched to pipewire? I haven't pulled the trigger yet so I'm wondering if bluetooth gets any better.

da_big_ghey 5y ago
yes much better and greater reliable with codec switching. i encourage switch. also mSBC better 2way sound
- GrayShade 5y ago
  And LDAC support.
chrismorgan 5y ago
I have a new laptop running Arch, and Bluetooth headphones which nominally can act as a headset as well, but I actively disabled that functionality under Windows, because if something tried to use the atrocious-quality headset microphone, the high-quality headphones output would silently (literally!) not work, and only the low-quality headset audio output would work. The headset modes haven’t appeared under Linux at all, which happens to suit me just fine, so I haven’t investigated the lack. A couple of times I’ve had issues with connecting at the BlueZ level, but putting the laptop to sleep and waking it up again has resolved it. (Just restarting bluetoothd doesn’t help.) I was running PulseAudio for a few weeks, then I switched to PipeWire. I no longer get the Bluetooth indicator on it in waybar, but other than that the switch was fairly uneventful. One point is an improvement: it now seems to remember which devices I like to use, so that when I plug in my Yeti microphone it doesn’t switch audio output to it (it has a 3.5mm monitor port and can feed audio from the computer through that too), which it had always done under PulseAudio and I hadn’t yet gone to the trouble of figuring out how to stop it from doing that. One point in the Bluetooth device handling is potentially a slight regression: when silence should be being fed through the connection, I observe extremely quiet whine which I didn’t under PulseAudio. Not sure what’s at fault there.

da_big_ghey 5y ago

pipewire better in this, use mSBC having better quality 2way sounds