Anyone have bluetooth headset working (for phone)?

[TRS-80]

I tried to get some cheap phone headset[0] working with my PinePhone recently, to no avail.  It seemed to pair (I think?) but I could neither hear nor talk through it.  This was on fairly recent version of Mobian.

Do I need to switch OS?

Or maybe this headset[0] is not supported in Linux for some reason (maybe I should try device on another Linux box, or try different headset?)?

Or maybe I was just doing something wrong?  I played with quite a few settings, to no avail so far.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[0] Headset is a Road King model 920.

[wibble]

First check whether you can get audio through it at all - you should at least be able to hear the speaker test signals, or play some music. I tried some time last year with an old Jabra BT3030 and audio playback mostly worked, with gaps during heavy cpu usage. I didn't try recording. Once you've confirmed that basic audio works you need to look into how the audio profiles work to change the routing of audio to the modem. It was a moving target back when I looked, and I wouldn't be surprised if bluetooth was ignored in favour of just getting the basics working first.

[pagesix1536]

I'm using a pair of Aftershokz bone-conducting headphones (https://aftershokz.com/) with my Pinephone.  So far it seems to do well with audio/music. I haven't made a lot of calls yet though so I can't speak to that.  Occasionally it the sound seems glitchy (like the phone can't send the data quick enough to the headset and it "gaps out" while paying sound), but it's fine after reconnecting or a fresh reboot. This is on Mobian.

[TRS-80]

Thanks guise for input.

It seems these features are not working yet.

I tried again with a different headset today, and I have exactly the same symptoms as described in the above linked issue:

1. A2DP profile (regular audio) works, but HSP (headset profile) results only in buzzing sound from earpiece.  It seems the latter has not been implemented yet?

2. No way in phone app UI even to switch to Bluetooth (only internal / external speaker).

I guess it's about time I create an account over there and see what I can do to help contribute to getting this working (I mean, this is why I bought PinePhone after all, init? ).

EDIT:  As I mentioned in my post in the linked issue, I am willing to fund the development of this feature, if anyone is interested in working on it.  And I am also looking for alternatives and workarounds in the meantime, as this is somewhat of a show stopper for my PinePhone usage right now, unfortunately.

[calinb]

I tried to get some cheap phone headset[0] working with my PinePhone recently, to no avail. <snip>

Bluetooth audio has been a mixed bag for me.  When I connect to via UConnect to my Ram pickup truck audio system, I can play audio but with some audio dropouts (I mostly use my PinePhone as a media player). Sometimes the dropouts are bad enough that I give up on it. Sometimes a reboot helps. My PinePhone does not work for hands-free phone use at all and I've never been able to get a microphone to work in a phone call but I have been able to use voice recorder. I have had no better luck with any of the OS's on Megi's Multi-boot SD card either.

Bluetooth works better with my Phillips headphones except, over half the time it connects, as soon as the audio starts to play or even before, it blows my ears out with a loud buzzing sound instead of the program audio. The solution is to manually toggle the headphones off on the Mobian Bluetooth setup screen and then toggle them back on again--at least it's a solution nearly every time, but I've had to do it twice in a row on one or two occasions.

My Android spy phones have none of these problems with the same hardware. I'm happy to be Pine customer, because I believe in the project, but countless problems similar to the above and the PinePhone's poor performance as a phone--especially in the sparsely populated rural western United States (no CDMA support without VoLTE and no support the for new AT&T rural GSM channels) will keep it "alpha" development level in my mind for a long time to come and I predict that beta" is still a long ways off.

Given that my PinePhone has been a decent portable media player and processor, I just purchased a PineBook Pro. I'm still testing it but I've already found that it fulfills its market niche more satisfactorily than the PinePhone fulfills its smartphone niche. I would recommend a PineBook Pro as a general purpose Chromebook/Netbook type computer to Linux newbies even. The pre-installed Manjaro KDE Fusion on it works as well as any pre-installed Linux computer that I've ever used and it's far less expensive than the others!

[Zebulon Walton]

Today after updating my Mobian installation I attempted to connect the Samsung HM1350 bluetooth headset that I use with my flip phone. As soon as it connects, the earphone just emits loud buzzing. So at least on Mobian that feature still needs work.

[calinb]

Today after updating my Mobian installation I attempted to connect the Samsung HM1350  bluetooth headset that I use with my flip phone. As soon as it connects, the earphone just emits loud buzzing. So at least on Mobian that feature still needs work.

I nearly always experience buzzing upon first connecting my Phillips Bluetooth headphones and playing an audio source. In order to correct it, I go to "Settings" >> "Bluetooth". Then I tap on the device that's connected and toggle the connection off and back on. Alternatively, it usually works to turn Bluetooth off and on but I think it's faster and more reliable to just toggle the device. It's very rare that I must do it more than once after enabling Bluetooth in order to eliminate the ear-splitting buzzing! (I never place my headphones on my ears until I've launched the audio source and carefully checked for the buzz unless I'm using an audio cable.)

I hope it works for you too, Zebulon.

Oh...I almost forgot. Sometimes I suffer audio dropouts when using Bluetooth when simultaneously connected to my 2.4 gHz wifi (it won't connect to my 5gHz channels). This is a known problem so I simply turn off Wifi on my PinePhone (or use a headphone cable).

[Trbl]

I tried to get some cheap phone headset[0] working with my PinePhone recently, to no avail.  It seemed to pair (I think?) but I could neither hear nor talk through it.  This was on fairly recent version of Mobian.

Do I need to switch OS?

Or maybe this headset[0] is not supported in Linux for some reason (maybe I should try device on another Linux box, or try different headset?)?

Or maybe I was just doing something wrong?  I played with quite a few settings, to no avail so far.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[0] Headset is a Road King model 920.

Today after updating my Mobian installation I attempted to connect the Samsung HM1350  bluetooth headset that I use with my flip phone. As soon as it connects, the earphone just emits loud buzzing. So at least on Mobian that feature still needs work.

So after many hours of trial and error, here's what you need to do to get bluetooth (with a2dp) working.

Downgrade Bluze and Bluez-Libs to 5.58-1 (aarch64 archlinux packages can be found here http://tardis.tiny-vps.com/aarm/packages/ download them, run `sudo pacman -U /path/to/package`)
delete /var/lib/bluetooth
pair the device again
reboot

[awaittrot]

1. A2DP profile (regular audio) works, but HSP (headset profile) results only in buzzing sound from earpiece.  It seems the latter has not been implemented yet?

This is probably 8723cs driver issue. Buzzing noise does not happen when I use USB Bluetooth adapter on PinePhone.


Even if HSP does work, we need to solve another problem (at least on PinePhone).

Currenly audio is handled by audio codec in A64 SoC while voice calling, so that
it does not require main CPU to process audio.
Because of that, any audio source/sink connected outside of audio codec cannot be directly used for calling. (e.g. USB Headset)

We probably have to:

1. create a profile for routing modem audio to main CPU (alsa or pulseaudio?)
2. craete a way to loopback audio source/sink into modem.

I have experimented my idea with USB headset.
With some manual adjustment with pavucontrol, voice calling over USB headset seemed to be working.
Here is my script I hacked together:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
source_pine=alsa_input.platform-sound.Voice_Call__hw_PinePhone_0__source
source_usb=alsa_input.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_Blaster_JAM_V2_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-00.mono-fallback
sink_pine=alsa_output.platform-sound.Voice_Call__hw_PinePhone_0__sink
sink_usb=alsa_output.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_Blaster_JAM_V2_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-00.mono-fallback

# mix modem audio
amixer -c 0 cset "name=AIF2 Digital ADC Capture Switch" on
amixer -c 0 cset "name=AIF2 ADC Mixer AIF1 DA0 Capture Switch" on
# mute internal mic and speaker
amixer -c 0 cset "name=Mic1 Capture Switch" off
amixer -c 0 cset "name=Line Out Playback Switch" off

ffmpeg -f pulse -i "$source_pine" -f pulse -device "$sink_usba" 1 &
job1=$!
ffmpeg -f pulse -i "$source_usb" -f pulse -device "$sink_pine" 2 &
job2=$!

echo Press enter to stop
read l
kill $job1 $job2

amixer -c 0 cset "name=AIF2 Digital ADC Capture Switch" off
amixer -c 0 cset "name=AIF2 ADC Mixer AIF1 DA0 Capture Switch" off

Note: This is not a reliable method and induce about 2s of lag.

[TRS-80]

Thanks for ideas, guise!

Another possibility occurred to me as a workaround in the meantime: try and plug in old school wired headset into headphone jack. There is a $10 cheaper model of the Road King Bluetooth model mentioned in OP that is so cheap I might as well give it a try.

I will also try @Trbl suggestion, except modifying package names for Debian I guess. Which would still leave the issue of no UI support in phone app (at least in Mobian) to switch to the Bluetooth headset (assuming I can even get it to work anyway).

@awaittrot that is a very interesting hack and your hardware comments in particular possibly illuminating some way forward. Thanks so much for sharing. Audio on Linux still confuse the hell out of me.