Questions[voip](ubuntu)

since a few weeks I have some (more) trouble with my bluetooth headphones Sony WH-H900-N in Ubuntu 18.04 (but also in Linux Mint). It is a headphone with noice cancellation feature. So it does have a microphone for this purpose, but I doubt that it is good enough to use as input for VoIP applications. Instead I would like to use a webcam as microphone input.

So here are my problems:

-I am able to connect the headphones more or less properly, but I have to manually pair it in every session and manually set it to A2DP profile. Using this annoying workaround it works as an high quality audio sink.

-Whenever I connect to any VoIP application (Telegram call, connect to TeamSpeak Server, Skype) for some reason it automatically switches from A2DP audio sink profile to Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP) Profile. The result is, that I can not hear anything anymore. Neither system sounds, nor the audio from the voice call. People hear me talking though and it seems like the correct microphone is used as input (the webcam, NOT the microphone from the headphones).

Strangely I had no problems with calls until some weeks ago. And this is true for two different systems (Ubuntu, Linux Mint). So I guess there was some recent common update that causes the problems.

Does anybody know how I can fix this issue? To me it seems like permanently setting the headphones as A2DP audio sink and permanently setting the webcam as default microphone input could solve this. But I am not sure how this noice cancellation thing interacts with all this. Plus I don't know how to set things up permanently and I read terrible stories of people trying to manually mess with pulseaudio :)

Any help is appreciated!

I use a commercial Asterisk-based SIP provider for my business. I'm going through the process of acquiring hearing aids, and it may be smartest for me to stream telephone audio from my provider directly to my aids via bluetooth and a softphone (I spent a lot of time on the phone). I could conceivably use my Android handset, but it seems k,ind of clunky. I used to use X-Lite under Windows, but the Linux version is very rough comparatively. I've also tried Xoiper, but find the interface pretty rough. I want something that's close to a phone dialing and usage wise.

Counterpath makes Bria and Eyebeam, which are more contemporary then X-Lite, but there is apparently no way to try them out (I would be open to buying one if that made sense).

Any recommendations are appreciated.

I've always had this problems with skype and pulseaudio on ubuntu. Whenever i start up skype, i have to call someone, then hang up 4-5 times, before the other person can hear my voice.

When i, or the other person hang up, skype tends to lock up. I can't kill it with "killall skype" or a logout, so i have to restart my computer.

Have anyone else encountered this problem, and if so solved this? I'm using 10.10 btw.

I'm looking for an open source Skype application that I can use instead of the current beta we have to install.

I've seen several links suggesting it is possible to make a call from the command-line with skype. The instructions suggest something along the lines of:

skype --callto:+14445551234

However, this gets me an error message, "skype: unrecognized option '--callto:+14445551234".

Is this possible?

Use case scenario:

I want to call a particular number frequently.

• assuming skype client is already running and logged in.
• I create a shortcut on my desktop, which runs skype --callto:+14445551234 or something similar.
• Double-click the shortcut.
• skype window pops up, immediately calling this number

Can this be done?

I know there is a Skype API. Can this be done from a normal skype installation on Ubuntu, without installing any developer tools?

EDIT: I am considering this question to be still open, because I would like to know if this is possible from a default installation of skype without any additional functionality.

However, the answer below regarding "Skype4Py" does answer the desired outcome, albeit with an additional tool. I will mark this as the answer if another is not forthcoming in a few weeks.