Windows 11 | No Hands free mode for bluetooth earphones

Long Post.
TL;DR at the bottom.

I don't need or want Hands-Free mode.
I use Discord which works great without it.
Also, my friends and I are always watching screen-shared videos, so the quality drop of Hands-Free mode is just unusable.
In Windows 10, I just disabled the Hands-Free device right after pairing any new BT device.

Based on this thread, I can see some people want or even need Hands-Free mode for some applications.
So I can see it's important for users have access to both.

As Windows 11 has proven, it NEEDS to be an option people have access to.
And as @logularjason's post shows, this option kind of exists.

I have to be honest and say that while this did help me get further in solving the issue, things did not go as expected.
I'm going to be as thorough and transparent as possible in case this helps someone else out.

So if you're having this issue, you're on Windows 11, so follow @logularjason's directions:
Settings -> Bluetooth & Devices -> Devices -> More devices and settings -> WH-1000XM4 -> Services

If you can't find it, try this:
Settings -> Bluetooth & Devices -> Devices -> More devices and printer settings -> Right-Click your bluetooth device -> Properties -> Services

I unchecked Hands-free telephony
I also unchecked Remote Control and Remotely Controlled Device, but that was personal preference and may or may not affect your results.

I was (probably stupidly) in a Discord call while testing this, so after making this change, my BT earbuds just stopped working.
I restarted my PC, hopped back into my Discord call, and it worked.
I pulled up a YT video to see if it was still giving me the terrible sounding Hands-Free (call) audio, and there was NO audio!
So I clicked on the audio symbol on the taskbar to look at my audio devices and BEHOLD, two devices:

• Headphones
• Headphones (Hands-free)

I changed my PC's device to the non-hands-free device.
I went into Discord settings and changed my output device to the non-hands-free device.
Everything was great... except for a small problem and a BIG problem.

Small problem:
I went back into the settings, and Handsfree Telephony is checked again...
Also, so were the "Remote Control and Remotely Controlled Device" options.
I was scared to mess with the Handsfree Telephony setting again, in case it broke things again.
But I did disable the other two again.

Big problem:
While I initially thought this solved my problem, I realized that while it did split the Audio (output) devices back to two devices (HF and non-HF), it DID NOT do that for the mic (input) devices.
The only Mic option is "Headset (hands-free)".
And the moment I switched my mic (input) device from the terrible laptop built-in mic back to the Headset (hands-free), my audio went back to garbage quality.
If I remember correctly, the same thing happened in Win10 if I tried to use the non-hands-free output device and the hands-free mic at the same time.
It basically seems like the device can either be used in one mode or the other.
So to fully fix this, it seems I'm going to need to find a way to split the mic into two devices as well.

Before anyone says it's just the device (there were a lot off those earlier in the thread), this was ENTIRELY possible in Windows 10.
I had these earbuds, a USB Headset that used a 2.4Ghz connection (instead of BT), and a Wired Mic.
I had the HF versions of these BT earbuds disabled and swapped between each of the input and outputs on my devices at-will.
I had zero problems in Windows 10.

Microsoft NEEDS to give us these settings again, and if like @logularjason posted, this option is hidden away for splitting the output part of BT devices, then hopefully there's a way to do so for the mic as well.

And if anyone is thinking "just try @logularjason's fix but choose the input rather than the output device" feel free to try whatever you want, but the problem I ran into was that the screen where you select your device only shows the device as a whole, not separate mic and headphones devices.

Sorry for the long post.
TL;DR - Following @logularjason's post should allow you to actually see the separate device and Hands-Free device options, but unless someone has better luck than me, it will only do it for the output and not the input, which *might* solve the issue for people who only want to manually choose Hands-Free mode, but not for people who don't want Hands-Free mode.

Seems like these issues do all result from the "improved bluetooth" experience introduced in this patch

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/04/29/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-21370/

Can we somehow opt out of this and have the manual option to choose between Headphones and Headset (Hand Free) ? Very much appreciated

I have the exact same issue. I will add to it:

In windows 10 i was able to select my bose headset with stereo audio + an external microphone, so i don't have to endure the TERRIBLE audio quality of the hadsfree setting.

Since this option is removed in winsows 11 i am not unable to use my headset for audio with an external microphone, because it simply doesn't allow any audio to come through. I can't hear any one on teams anymore, i have to use a speaker....
This happened in windows 10 too if you selected stereo audio + handsfree mic. This issue is now happening, but in the background and we're unable to change it!

Would you PLEASE be so kind @microsoft to stop hiding all the options that we need, it's driving me nuts! i didn't even want to upgrade to windows 11, it just happened over night and now i can't use my headset anymore.... I hope some one can help.

I'm running into the same issue running a new Dell Inspiron laptop and a Conambo K10C BT5.0 single ear headset. With Windows 10, I was able to switch devices to the hands-free version which reduces the quality and allows me more range to walk around freely. With Windows 11, it appears to be stuck in the high-quality mode which sounds very echo-ey and gives me a limited range of only 10-15 ft away from the laptop. I'll try the work-around mentioned on page 2.

As Kartikey has emphasized, this does appear to be a Windows issue and not a driver issue. I can select the Hands-Free mic from apps like Teams just fine. Windows REALLY needs better Bluetooth management to select a specific audio profile. I know Windows sees two devices but this is a technical artifact of a bad software design. I definitely hope Microsoft addresses this because Bluetooth is one of the biggest pain points in Windows. Users should be able to select a system-wide or app-specific profile of a single audio device without having to confused!

Thanks for listening!

Hi RottweilerX and Carlo TJ,

So, uninstalling and installing the drivers did not help at all.

I noticed an interesting thing though.

Just to check things, I launched a Google Meet meeting and to my surprise, it was working fine.

In the meeting settings, I could see all the modes of my bluetooth earphones.

Now, this makes things a bit confusing for me.

The video conferencing tool is able to detect all my bluetooth earphones modes but Windows 11 is not ? 🤔

Thanks,

Kartikey