[owowow]

What doesn't work with Bluetooth today on a distro like Debian 10?

I have Bluetooth 4.1 built into my WiFi card, over the last year the only issue I have had was manually having to switch to HSP mode on my headphones to use the Mic. Switching from A2DP to HSP was easy, just click Audio in the settings menu in the upper right corner in Gnome.

Besides that, Bluetooth mice and headphones &keyboards just work.

[Cynox]

On my Dell 13in XPS laptop from 2018 (9370), Bluetooth used to allmost work, but I had to manually pair my headset every time. Now, with the latest Ubuntu, it often connects automatically, but then looses connection immediately, or fails to see that the device can play audio. After some fiddling and turning the device on an off it will work if i start playing audio right away. It will then work for a long time. The amount of fiddling and rebooting of headphones seems to grow with every new Ubuntu release. It may also be a user space error, but in any case, Bluetooth is far from "just working", unfortunately.

[therealrootuser]

Are you using an Intel wireless chipset or the terrible Broadcom one that Dell used to use? Not sure what Dell was using in 2018, but I replaced the garbage Broadcom chip in my 2015-era XPS 13 with a much more reliable Intel model, and most of by bluetooth problems were immediately fixed.

That said, the replacement process is pretty fiddly...Dell likes using lots of very small screws made of very soft metal.

I've also found that Gnome's bluetooth handling varies from barely acceptable to confusingly horrible. KDE's bluetooth handling has been way more reliable for me across multiple machines and distros. So the problem may very well be in userspace.

[kelnos]

I have the XPS13 9380 (also 2018), and it came with an Atheros WiFi chipset (Killer, I believe). Looks like the Bluetooth is on separate hardware here; lsusb reports it as a "Foxconn / Hon Hai" chipset.

I don't really use BT for anything, so I can't comment on its quality. WiFi has been completely fine, though. Either way, I believe both the WiFi and BT hardware are soldered in on this model.

[kmarc]

If you want that to happen automatically, "you can append auto_switch=2 to load-module module-bluetooth-policy in /etc/pulse/default.pa"

(from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bluetooth_headset#Switc...)

[JoshTriplett]

Many bluetooth headphones support microphones with A2DP, though. And if yours do, you likely want to use that rather than HSP, because HSP has much worse audio quality.

[fidelramos]

Do you have some reference I can follow about that? Because I thought that A2DP not supporting microphone was a Bluetooth protocol limitation.

[JoshTriplett]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#A...

That discusses audio flowing in both directions.

[fidelramos]

From the article:

> Each A2DP service, of possibly many, is designed to uni-directionally transfer an audio stream in up to 2 channel stereo, either to or from the Bluetooth host.

This matches what I has heard: Bluetooth devices with A2DP profile can either receive or send high-quality audio, but not both at the same time.

I don't know if there are Bluetooth headsets that have separate A2DP devices for input and output sound, I have never heard about them, but I would be very interested in knowing of their existence.

Also from the article:

> These systems often also implement Headset (HSP) or Hands-Free (HFP) profiles for telephone calls, which may be used separately.

This is the common case for Bluetooth headsets, the Bluetooth manager switches profile when the microphone is needed, but that greatly reduces audio quality.

[kmarc]

What this setting does, is that when an application requests the Microphone, then it automatically switches to HSP, and once the source is destroyed, it switches back to A2DP.

[JoshTriplett]

I'm aware, but you still don't want to use HSP and downgrade your audio output to HSP if your microphone doesn't require it.

[kmarc]

Hmmm, maybe I don't get it.

When I am using the headphones, and IF an application requests microphone, THEN I do want this switch to happen automatically. After the Microphone is not needed anymore, I want it to switch back to the HQ A2DP.

Am I missing something here?

[JoshTriplett]

HSP makes the headphone quality much worse, and mono. Even while using the mic, that's not ideal. You might not notice if you're just having a conversation, but if you're sharing a video or watching/playing a game, you want the audio output quality.

[FeistySkink]

I'm on latest Fedora and sometime this year headphone volume synchronization stopped working for headphones that never had this issue for me since release (Sony WH-1000XM2). Volume synchronization continues to work as expected on Android.

[xtracto]

I have always had trouble connecting bluetooth headphones into my Linux Mint installation.