3 ms·

I'm still annoyed that most bluetooth headphones haven't figured out how to provide stereo sound at the same time as using the microphone. There is definitely e

I'm still annoyed that most bluetooth headphones haven't figured out how to provide stereo sound at the same time as using the microphone. There is definitely enough bandwidth in bluetooth 5

LinAGKar 4y ago
I hope LE audio will fix that
- out_of_protocol 4y ago
  By the way, what LE stands for? Legendary Edition?
  - shakna 4y ago
    "Lite". The Bluetooth 5 spec is over a thousand pages long. The Lite Edition spec is "only" a few hundred, IIRC.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    Originally, Low Energy. Bluetooth LE removes all the different communication modes and introduces a single, packet network based approach for everything. You may remember the switch from bluetooth connections being something you had to manually enable every time you wanted it, to devices just being connected all the time (without causing your battery to drop). That’s what LE enabled. The switch to the single packet network approach obviously also simplified everything else you might want to transmit. The audio specs are still from the pre-LE era with different modes for everything you might do (modem, fax, headset, headphones, HID, etc), and LE Audio introduces a new and clean way for that.
    - zwirbl 4y ago
      To expand on that, there is a pretty accessible free book covering LE Audio available here https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/?utm_campaign=le-audio&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=introducing-le-audio-bluetooth-le-audio-applications https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- izacus 4y ago
  I tried really hard but I couldn't find any new spec for two way audio. It seems that the specification authority is completely ignoring that problem.
  - zwirbl 4y ago
    I don't think you looked all that hard, as this is central in the book "Introducing Bluetooth LE Audio" available for free here https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/?utm_campaign=le-audio&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=introducing-le-audio-bluetooth-le-audio-applications https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/... LE Audio is built around a channel concept, where a channel is unidirectional and a connection can have multiple, e.g. listening on 2 stereo channels and when a call arrives enabling 2 mic channels in the other direction for stereo microphones Don't go around throwing shade at the spec authority if you haven't read the spec
dogma1138 4y ago
Most do but many can also go into a “headset” mode in which they use encoding that is more suitable for speech. That said this is mainly an issue for Windows these days that does that automatically for some reason nothing stops you from switching to headphones and still using the mic. In fact for voice and streaming apps that aren’t classified as telco apps it doesn’t even switch.
kmarc 4y ago
worksforme on Linux, MacOS and Android. I have a Bose QC35 and it just works, now for years, reliably. On Linux, it used to work quite okayish with pulseaudio, even automatic switching between profiles, when an application requested microphone. Since pipewire came around, much higher quality.
- hjanssen 4y ago
  It works, but the quality is noticeably reduced. Gaming (and using VoIP in e.g. CSGO) on this profile is practically unusable, the quality of sound is so diminished that it is very annoying.
  - kmarc 4y ago
    With pipewire you have all the AptX/LDAC/mSBC codecs. Same quality as under MacOS As for "reduced", as in, worse than simply monoplex stereo headphones (no headset/microphone support), true, but it's a bandwidth-related limitation, not software impmentation limit, AFAIK
zwirbl 4y ago
That's because there is no profile for that, as per the spec the hands free profile only supports Mono This changes with LE Audio (spec released in March iirc) which is much more channel oriented (e.g. 2 channels stereo playback + 2 more stereo microphone), has a new codec (LC3) and has support in the upcoming android release
- znpy 4y ago
  Nice, maybe in 15 years I’ll be able to use that in debian.

I'm still annoyed that most bluetooth headphones haven't figured out how to provide stereo sound at the same time as using the microphone. There is definitely enough bandwidth in bluetooth 5

LinAGKar 4y ago

I hope LE audio will fix that

out_of_protocol 4y ago
By the way, what LE stands for? Legendary Edition?
- shakna 4y ago
  "Lite". The Bluetooth 5 spec is over a thousand pages long. The Lite Edition spec is "only" a few hundred, IIRC.
- kuschku 4y ago
  Originally, Low Energy. Bluetooth LE removes all the different communication modes and introduces a single, packet network based approach for everything. You may remember the switch from bluetooth connections being something you had to manually enable every time you wanted it, to devices just being connected all the time (without causing your battery to drop). That’s what LE enabled. The switch to the single packet network approach obviously also simplified everything else you might want to transmit. The audio specs are still from the pre-LE era with different modes for everything you might do (modem, fax, headset, headphones, HID, etc), and LE Audio introduces a new and clean way for that.
  - zwirbl 4y ago
    To expand on that, there is a pretty accessible free book covering LE Audio available here https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/?utm_campaign=le-audio&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=introducing-le-audio-bluetooth-le-audio-applications https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
izacus 4y ago
I tried really hard but I couldn't find any new spec for two way audio. It seems that the specification authority is completely ignoring that problem.
- zwirbl 4y ago
  I don't think you looked all that hard, as this is central in the book "Introducing Bluetooth LE Audio" available for free here https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/?utm_campaign=le-audio&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=introducing-le-audio-bluetooth-le-audio-applications https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources/le-audio-book/... LE Audio is built around a channel concept, where a channel is unidirectional and a connection can have multiple, e.g. listening on 2 stereo channels and when a call arrives enabling 2 mic channels in the other direction for stereo microphones Don't go around throwing shade at the spec authority if you haven't read the spec

dogma1138 4y ago

Most do but many can also go into a “headset” mode in which they use encoding that is more suitable for speech. That said this is mainly an issue for Windows these days that does that automatically for some reason nothing stops you from switching to headphones and still using the mic. In fact for voice and streaming apps that aren’t classified as telco apps it doesn’t even switch.

kmarc 4y ago

worksforme on Linux, MacOS and Android. I have a Bose QC35 and it just works, now for years, reliably. On Linux, it used to work quite okayish with pulseaudio, even automatic switching between profiles, when an application requested microphone. Since pipewire came around, much higher quality.

hjanssen 4y ago
It works, but the quality is noticeably reduced. Gaming (and using VoIP in e.g. CSGO) on this profile is practically unusable, the quality of sound is so diminished that it is very annoying.
- kmarc 4y ago
  With pipewire you have all the AptX/LDAC/mSBC codecs. Same quality as under MacOS As for "reduced", as in, worse than simply monoplex stereo headphones (no headset/microphone support), true, but it's a bandwidth-related limitation, not software impmentation limit, AFAIK

zwirbl 4y ago

That's because there is no profile for that, as per the spec the hands free profile only supports Mono This changes with LE Audio (spec released in March iirc) which is much more channel oriented (e.g. 2 channels stereo playback + 2 more stereo microphone), has a new codec (LC3) and has support in the upcoming android release

znpy 4y ago
Nice, maybe in 15 years I’ll be able to use that in debian.