Bluetooth Headset cannot be used as both headphones and speakers

I am having the same problem with Anker Soundcore Mini 2.

I understood the difference between the two modes [ hands free and stereo ]. I bought this bluethooth to listen music and use as home office during this pandemic period.

If I use the stereo mode to listen music in my laptop, for example Spotify, the sound is excellent and very clear; but when I change to hands free mode the speakers does not works anymore as well as when I use the Microsoft Teams to remote meeting the speaker and microphone does not work either. In the Microst Teams I have to select the stereo mode speaker and use the laptop´s microphone that has a poor quality.

I would like to use the Soundcore Mini 2 Hands Free as microphone during my meetings.

HeyDavidPfannenstiel, i had the same issue like yours. What i did was disabling the Bluetooth Headphones from Sound - Playback and setting the bluetooth Headset as Default Device. The Playback and the Recording device should be the same, like in your photo Headset is default in the recording but Headphones is default in the Playback. Even if it's the same device, it will not work to hear and use mic at the same time. Setting both Headset in the Recording and Playback as default should fix the issue. I hope this helped!

TL;DR: At least for me, the only solution is to downgrade to Windows 10 version 1709

Update: Welp, that didn't work either...

It's a fact that you can't use a Bluetooth headset's mic and stereo audio at the same time, because stereo needs two channels and mic needs one. You can't use more than two channels AT ALL with Bluetooth technology. That's why with apps like Skype, the Hands-Free Profile needs to be used for both mic and audio.

But I have the same problem with my Samsung U Flex headphone even if I use the Hands-Free Profile. I have tried every solution on this thread and everywhere else and nothing works.

I also found out that some headsets get muted automatically when idle and you have to open Sound Mixer and mute and unmute your headset when in a Skype call or press a combination of keys on your headset to effectively unmute it. This sounded about right because the sound bars of my HF audio in Sound Control Panel would rise up and down but I just couldn't hear anything. However this still didn't work for me and my headset doesn't have a combination of keys to make it mute/unmute.

To my surprise, the same headphone works flawlessly on my friend's laptop which has Windows 10 version 1709. I took a look at the headphone drivers in his Devices and Printers section which looked something like this:

Which looks totally different from mine (I have Windows 10 version 1903). At first I tried to force install the same drivers that he had, but came across some drivers that can't be installed for versions of Windows 10 higher than 1709 (like e.g. Bluetooth Audio/Video Remote Control HID)

Seems like Microsoft has messed up a working functionality as usual. I guess I have no choice but to fresh install a 1709 version of Windows 10 until this gets fixed. What a pain.

Update: I just installed a 1709 Windows 10 and the same problem persists. I guess it's just my laptop's Bluetooth chip. I think I'll buy a Broadcom Bluetooth adapter or something.

I'm having this same issue with my Oneplus Bullets Z wireless. Both my Laptop and the Headphones have Bluetooth 5, so it should not be a bandwidth issue. Also when i first connected the headset they worked with stereo sound and microphone simultaniously. Unfortunately one day it just stopped working. The workarounds mentioned in here also didn't work for me.

Hi David, I was just poking around in here to see if I could use my bluetooth earbuds to dictate while pacing around. I will print out your advice to check if any of it works, but whether or not it does, I want to thank-you for A) updating this just 2 days ago (July '20), and especially for actually providing relevant direction to the original poster: I have wasted hours that amount to days of time on both MS & Google help, trying to find some rather basic help, much of that time spent on rephrasing my questions with appropriate jargon order that return a relevant response. It seems as if most of the responses are either completely non-relevant, or so distantly related I give up after wasting more time.  It feels as if most respondents go out of their way to misinterpret basic questions.  So thank-you for being one of the good ones! CC