Windows 11 | No Hands free mode for bluetooth earphones

Anonymous
2021-11-04T05:17:20+00:00

Hi,

So, yesterday I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and everything seemed to be working fine until I connected my bluetooth earphones.

When you connect your bluetooth earphones you expect to see two output devices, Headset (music) and Hands-Free mode (voice) but I can only see the Headset mode.

I checked the earphone properties from the Device Manager and I can see "Hands-Free telephony" in the Services tab but in the Output Devices, the hands-free mode is not visible at all.

I've tried everything from re-connecting to reinstalling drivers but nothing seems to be working.

This is preventing from attending any Meetings on apps like Google Meet or Microsoft Teams.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Kartikey

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-10-19T13:44:18+00:00

    I also had the problem, that I couldn't hear anythin in Skype as soon as I switched to the microphone of my Surface Headphones. I tried many things, including doing a factory reset of the headphones. Nothing helped.

    For whatever reason the (now "invisible") hands-free mode didn't work.

    In another forum I saw the tipp to run the Bluetooth troubleshooter (in Windows 11 -> Settings -> System -> Troubleshoot -> other troubleshooters). And magically this did the trick for me, and I can hear again :)

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-24T09:45:48+00:00

    This does not fix the issue that is the subject of this thread; i.e. loss of hands-free mode.

    To test this:

    * In Windows11: Perform the bluetooth troubleshooter

    * In MS Teams:

    • Settings -> Devices
    • Choose Sony wh-1000MX4 headphones as speaker (there used to be a hands-free profile but this is gone now), Yeti mic as microphone.
    • Make a test call. No audio is heard.

    If the WH-1000MX4 is used for both speaker and mic MS Teams works as expected.

    This thread is about the loss of hands-free mode that allowed the headphones to operate with a different mic.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-25T18:11:20+00:00

    I was having the same problem, but after some experimenting and using some ideas from this thread I seem to have fixed my issue.

    It seems that while Microsoft have hidden the two profiles Windows 11 is actually doing a good job switching automatically, the problem on my setup was that Teams is not specifically listed on the permission list and is lumped in with the "Desktop Apps", as is the sound recording configuration tool.

    So to fix my setup I used the Control Panel > Sound to set my headset as default communication device, then in Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone I set the permission "Let desktop apps access your microphone" to true.

    This allows Teams to use the microphone and it switches to the Hands-Free profile when the test call starts.

    This unfortunately means that any app can use the microphone, and I found it annoying when running an app like a game that has voice capability Windows 11 switches to Hands-Free mode even though I am not using the voice system.

    What I would like is for the permission list to not lump all apps together and list them all individually so I can choose which specific one gets to use it, similar to the app permissions on an android device.

    Hope this helps some people.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-03T20:15:03+00:00

    In Win10, you used to be able to set the "Stereo" headset as the default device, but then set the "Hands-Free" one as the default communication device. But in Win11, it's not possible. Windows expects the applications to intelligently switch depending on what they require. But some of the applications that I use require that I set the default device in the settings, and I can only choose the bluetooth headset itself, and doing that does not allow it to switch at all. Making the headset that I have worthless.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-11-04T05:08:03+00:00

    Good news! I applied the windows 11 22H2 update which was available today and the matter is resolved for me.

    In the MS Teams Devices panel, I can now choose "Headset (WH-1000XM4 Hands-Free)" for speaker and my Yeti mic for microphone. Works fine.

    In summary, the Microsoft update allows both Headphones and Headset again for the Sony WH-1000XM4.

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