Bluetooth Headset cannot be used as both headphones and speakers

Anonymous
2019-07-26T17:27:54+00:00

I have a bluetooth headset that does not allow me to use it as both a microphone and a headset.

I have determined that audio will play through the Bluetooth headset as long as the recording device is set to Conexant ISST Audio.  If I set the recording device to BHS-530 Hands-Free then no sound will play through either BHS-530 Playback device.

I can get audio to play while the BHS-530 Handsfree is setup as the Recording device but not while it is actively listening.  As an example my BHS-530 Stereo is selected for both my default audio and default communication device.  I start playing a YouTube video and audio works with the Playback menu is up in the Sound dialog (first screenshot), as soon as I select the recording menu (second screenshot) the audio stops.  If I switch the recording device back to Conexant ISST Audio the youtube video will continue to send sound regardless of which menu I am on.

What do I need to set so that I can use the headset for both audio and microphone (Microsoft Teams Calls)

The headset comes up as two separate devices once it connects to windows:

Playback Device

Type: Headset

Name: BHS-530 Hands-Free

and

Type: Headphones

Name: BHS-530 Stereo

Recording Device

Type: Headset

Name: BHS-530 Hands-Free

Type: Internal Microphone

Name: Conexant ISST Audio

(this is my laptop's internal mic)

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-09-10T15:46:23+00:00

    Did you all resolve this? I am having the same problem. I tried using 3 different kinds of wireless headphones and none of them works.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-09-10T15:56:11+00:00

    This cannot be resolved by us nor is it an issue with the Bluetooth devices. Its something Microsoft has to fix in Windows.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-10T16:25:27+00:00

    @MohsinSait

    Exactly, there are two issues here.

    #1 the bluetooth device has to support some mythical protocol that Microsoft uses to allow the "Headset" profile.  When you use both input and output at the same time the headset dervice has to be selected for both.  This will have the audio output as low quality mono and the microphone active.  You will not be able to use the high quality stereo output profile for the same device at the same time.  In Microsoft Teams when I join a meeting I have it defaulted to use the Headset profile for both input and output so that my bluetooth headset works (MPOW H19 IPO).  However I have another bluetooth Phaiser BH-530 device that shows in windows with a headset profile but does not work with the headset profile being selected on both the input and output for teams (hence the mythical protocol).  Both headsets work great on my Android phone but only the MPOW works on windows.

    #2 Windows does not tell you which protocols are support and expects the user to manage their sound devices in a confusing manner.  How it should work is that if the microphone is not active then windows uses the stereo profile, when the microphone is active then windows uses the headset profile.  This should be transparent to the user.  Bluetooth 5.0 in theory is supposed to improve this however I have not found devices that support this yet.

    I think the needed protocol is aptX but I am not positive.  The Phaiser does not have aptx but the mpow does.  But why does the headset profile show up in windows for the phaiser if it doesn't support aptx???

    Overall bluetooth and windows is super hit and miss and Microsoft has failed at implementing this in a user friendly manner.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-09-24T01:53:29+00:00

    Turns out Windows 10 suffers from the exact same problem Linux distros such as Ubuntu also suffer from, the sound output cannot use A2DP for output while using microphone as input and has to switch to HFP/HSP (which has unacceptable voice quality) for most of the bluetooth devices. Why Desktop OS's are incapable of doing this while Mobile ones are able to still remains a mystery.

    ref

    https://superuser.com/questions/930251/possible-to-use-bluetooth-headset-in-stereo-mode-with-mic

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-10-16T12:43:26+00:00

    No it can't. Get in a discord call and ststt youtube. Listen to the youtube quality, it's mono....tested on a note 10 plus

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