4 ms·

The annoying thing I have with bluetooth, is with my headphones, I connect them up, set them as the sound source and just..... nothing. I have to go round all

The annoying thing I have with bluetooth, is with my headphones, I connect them up, set them as the sound source and just..... nothing. I have to go round all of my devices and disable the bluetooth on them, because some other device is connected too and although that is not playing any sound at all, somehow has priority and doesn't allow any sound to be played by any other device.

vladvasiliu 4y ago
This annoys me to no end, too, but I'd say the issue isn't as much Bluetooth itself as the implementation of multiple sources on the headphones. I have the exact same issue with a pair of Jabra headphones that have multiple wired inputs. They'll switch between them for frivolous reasons.
enriquto 4y ago
> I have to go round all of my devices and disable the bluetooth on them, because some other device is connected too Sigh. If only there was some kind of mechanism to indicate physically which of the devices you want the sound to come from. A thin string of sorts, that you could attach easily to both devices to indicate that these two are to be connected. But we can only dream...
- criddell 4y ago
  As long as you don't have to keep the string connected to use the device after pairing, I think that's a good idea.
  - PainfullyNormal 4y ago
    Isn't that essentially NFC pairing? I've had considerably better luck with NFC technology as a whole than with bluetooth.
diogenescynic 4y ago
This is my biggest issue. I use my AirPods to connect to my two laptops, tv, Bose portable speaker, iPad, and iPhone and sometimes have to spend several minutes disabling devices to actually connect to the device I want. Worse, when I’m connected to one device like a laptop but I get a call that I want to answer on my iPhone, it’s nearly impossible to actually transfer or reconnect the AirPods to the iPhone. I tried to get two pairs of AirPods to resolve this and keep one connected/dedicated to my iPhone, but even that doesn’t work because once you’re logged in with your Apple ID it will keep re-syncing to your other Bluetooth devices. It’s insanity.
wildrhythms 4y ago
Same issue. I find Apple devices are the most aggressive to try to pair themselves, even when the devices are in sleep mode! Most of the time I just relegate myself to holding the pair button on the headphones and re-pairing from scratch.
neurostimulant 4y ago
One option is to use your bluetooth headphone exclusively with a usb bluetooth audio dongle (which is detected as a usb headphone when you plug it). Unpair the headphone from all your devices, and plug the bluetooth audio dongle to the device you want to use the headphone with. This is faster than scrambling to find whichever device currently grab your headphone and disable it.
zardo 4y ago
The worst is when it connects to my laptop with the lid shut and not logged in.
SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
That's one of the core annoyances of Bluetooth: it's 1:1, not many:many. I've got a desktop, a laptop, and a phone. I've got a Bluetooth earbuds (with microphone) and a Bluetooth speaker (no mic). So obviously it should be simple to play audio from any of those devices to both the earbuds and the speaker at the same time. With wired headphones & speakers, that took a $2 splitter. But with Bluetooth, at best you can get one application per output. It'd be really nice if you could play audio from multiple sources to the different speakers at the same time. But that can't be done. You have to disconnect from one device, connect to the other, each time. I've never even seen a Bluetooth mixer (not a wired mixer that can use Bluetooth, but a device that can manage multiple Bluetooth connections for different audio streams at once). The same stuff all applies to Bluetooth microphones. Bluetooth needs many:many audio streams to get parity with wired sound.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

This annoys me to no end, too, but I'd say the issue isn't as much Bluetooth itself as the implementation of multiple sources on the headphones. I have the exact same issue with a pair of Jabra headphones that have multiple wired inputs. They'll switch between them for frivolous reasons.

enriquto 4y ago

> I have to go round all of my devices and disable the bluetooth on them, because some other device is connected too Sigh. If only there was some kind of mechanism to indicate physically which of the devices you want the sound to come from. A thin string of sorts, that you could attach easily to both devices to indicate that these two are to be connected. But we can only dream...

criddell 4y ago
As long as you don't have to keep the string connected to use the device after pairing, I think that's a good idea.
- PainfullyNormal 4y ago
  Isn't that essentially NFC pairing? I've had considerably better luck with NFC technology as a whole than with bluetooth.

diogenescynic 4y ago

This is my biggest issue. I use my AirPods to connect to my two laptops, tv, Bose portable speaker, iPad, and iPhone and sometimes have to spend several minutes disabling devices to actually connect to the device I want. Worse, when I’m connected to one device like a laptop but I get a call that I want to answer on my iPhone, it’s nearly impossible to actually transfer or reconnect the AirPods to the iPhone. I tried to get two pairs of AirPods to resolve this and keep one connected/dedicated to my iPhone, but even that doesn’t work because once you’re logged in with your Apple ID it will keep re-syncing to your other Bluetooth devices. It’s insanity.

wildrhythms 4y ago

Same issue. I find Apple devices are the most aggressive to try to pair themselves, even when the devices are in sleep mode! Most of the time I just relegate myself to holding the pair button on the headphones and re-pairing from scratch.

neurostimulant 4y ago

One option is to use your bluetooth headphone exclusively with a usb bluetooth audio dongle (which is detected as a usb headphone when you plug it). Unpair the headphone from all your devices, and plug the bluetooth audio dongle to the device you want to use the headphone with. This is faster than scrambling to find whichever device currently grab your headphone and disable it.

zardo 4y ago

The worst is when it connects to my laptop with the lid shut and not logged in.

SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago

That's one of the core annoyances of Bluetooth: it's 1:1, not many:many. I've got a desktop, a laptop, and a phone. I've got a Bluetooth earbuds (with microphone) and a Bluetooth speaker (no mic). So obviously it should be simple to play audio from any of those devices to both the earbuds and the speaker at the same time. With wired headphones & speakers, that took a $2 splitter. But with Bluetooth, at best you can get one application per output. It'd be really nice if you could play audio from multiple sources to the different speakers at the same time. But that can't be done. You have to disconnect from one device, connect to the other, each time. I've never even seen a Bluetooth mixer (not a wired mixer that can use Bluetooth, but a device that can manage multiple Bluetooth connections for different audio streams at once). The same stuff all applies to Bluetooth microphones. Bluetooth needs many:many audio streams to get parity with wired sound.