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vava
Asked: 2009-05-13 22:32:01 +0800 CST

Is there a way to use A2DP/SCO bluetooth headphones in Ubuntu reliably?

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I have a bluetooth headphones that can be used in both A2DP and in SCO mode. Under Windows, I can activate both profiles simultaneously and I can listen to high quality music but when Skype rings, I can answer it right away.

Although I can use those headphones in Ubuntu, I have to connect them in either A2DP or SCO mode but not both and can't find a way to switch the mode on the fly which driving me insane. I can either listen to the music or I can use Skype and there's no procedure which will take under a minute to switch a profile.

Am I missing something there? Is there a way to use my headphones in Ubuntu like I do so in Windows or at least switch those profiles in the mid air without crashing music player and, more importantly, Skype?

linux ubuntu bluetooth

2 Answers

  1. Have you tried using PulseAudio? If you use the 'module-bluetooth-device' module, it allows switching modes on the fly either with pactl (a command line utility) or pavucontrol (a volume control/mixer app). The line to put in your config or to pass to pactl (for A2DP) is:

    load-module module-bluetooth-device profile=a2dp channels=2 address=YO:UR:BT:AD:DR:ES name=<your_headphones_name>

    Then you can use:

    pactl set-card-profile bluez_card.<your_headphones_name> hsp

    to set them to SCO mode. However, pavucontrol has a much nicer interface, where you use a pulldown menu. It works wonderfully for me, and you can use the 'module-combine' module to make sound output go to both your speakers and your headphones. Also, it might be possible to load the module-bluetooth-device module twice, once with each profile, but I haven't tried that.

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  2. It might not be elegant but you can try adding a "voice" and an "audio" profile in your ~/.asoundrc file, but I think switching between the two would require you to restart the bluetooth service.

    Might try to script it and put a shortcut somewhere convenient.

    pcm.voice {
    type bluetooth
    device xxx
    profile "voice"
}
pcm.audio {
    type bluetooth
    device xxx
    profile "audio"
}
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