Bluetooth Headset cannot be used as both headphones and speakers

My observation is that all devices running BT5.0 ver or later are having issues with windows 10 connectivity

Older devices with BT4 versions are working perfectly.

I'll go ahead and add another reply on here, maybe if there is enough, microsoft will sometime eventually look into it. This question was opened an entire year and a half ago, and yet this is still an ongoing problem. Talk about agitate me, microsoft is huge, and they can't assign anyone to get this fixed. Wow. I know this is small and trivial compared to a multitude of other things, but it's still a problem. Maybe stop acting like this problem doesn't exist and fix it. Like others have said, in comparison, mobile devices do just fine with these bluetooth headsets, why can't my much more powerful computer do it, oh that's right, microsoft and their windows software has evidently decided it's a "NO" kind of feature. Nice.

I never blow up but it seems like i can here without anyone really noticing because again, this obviously is ignored. And if someone does notice, great, maybe you can fix it.

This seems such a key connectivity issue that I cannot believe Windows have not sorted it out.

I like many other commentators have spent hours researching this, fiddling with various settings, installing, uninstalling, and it turns out it's a capability issue I can do nothing about.

I have an MPOW bluetooth headset and even by playing around with the selection of 'hands-free'  and 'stereo' (not stereo) I could not get the headset to work with both sound and microphone at the same time. It was either one or the other. This is inline with one of the original posters frustrations.

Fortunately, though I also have some Soundcore bluetooth earbuds and they will play audio while allowing use of the microphone. This is via the poor (single channel / mono ?) audio, by disabling stereo playback, while at the same time allowing use of the microphone.  Again, the MPOW would not allow this.

I only wanted to use this for voice audio so I am hoping the mono audio will not be an issue, but, this should really be fixed... in this day and age!

Hi All,

So, I have had Bose QuietComfort 35 II headphones and a Plantronics Voyager working fine with my Windows 10 set up for about 18 months. And I have to admit, when it all worked it was a dream. I have a slightly complex set up with two separate handsfree kits, a Yeti Blue microphone, Logitech Brio webcam (which also takes mic inputs) and separate Logitech speakers. 

Recently experienced the same issues listed here with the Bose headset. It would allow me to use the headset, but refused to pick up the microphone. For a while, I used my USB Yeti Blue as the mic and the headset as headphones only. However, not ideal.

Having looked into this quite a bit, I finally found a solution that worked for me. It seems that the drivers had become "screwed" and it was only seeing the headset as headphones and not as a full hands-free solution for the Bose (Plantronics continued to work fine).

I had to remove the Bose Headset from Bluetooth on the PC, then remove all drivers (including hidden ones) which related to the Bose. I then cleared all Bluetooth pairings on the Bose headset, and finally restarted Windows.

Following this, I repaired the Bose with the PC. This still did not work, and I then had to run the Bluetooth Troubleshooter. This got everything working for about 2 minutes. Then the Bose returned to headphone only mode. Checking Device Manager, the Bose Handsfree drivers were still not installed. 

Removed Bose from Bluetooth on the PC only, then repaired the device. The device paired fine. 

THEN LEAVE IT ALONE FOR 2 MINUTES as it installs the Handfree Drivers. 

This finally solved the issue for me, and all seems to be working fine (famous last words). It really seems like it was a driver corruption/issue which needed a lot of resetting to get it working again.

I hope this helps someone, it was extremely irritating for me while the issue continued.

All the best and stay safe all,

Sanj

If it muted other sound while communicating, did you try this setting?

Go to Control panel then choose the small icons view

Find "Sound"

Go to "Communication" tab

choose "Do nothing" instead of other 3 options.