Arch Linux

nze

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 18

[Bluetooth] Gaming headset vs headphones w/ mic confusion

Hi,

Please help me understand how this bluetooth thing works.

What I want to do is to simultaneously:
1) watch a movie / play games
2) talk over skype / discord etc.

And I'd like to do that wirelessly. What are my options here? I thought either gaming headsets or headphones with built-in microphone (something like the Bose Quiet Comfort 35) would fit the bill.

Gaming headsets should be able to perform my required tasks. But maybe they don't use bluetooth?

I ordered the Bose on amazon, but when I tried it, I was only able to select between a "high-fidelity audio" profile or a "headset" profile. The former didn't allow me to use the Bose's mic, the latter had dreadful audio quality. They were specifically promoted for high-quality calls. Am I missing something here?

Cheers!

PS: Not sure to what extent this is an (arch) linux issue, and to what extent it's just bluetooth. Would this work better on a Mac?

PPS: The computer is a Lenovo Thinkpad T440s. Could the poor quality over the Bose have to do with the bluetooth chip used?

edit: P3S: Reading more I get the impression that Bluetooth does not support both broadcasting and receiving audio at high quality. A hacky solution could be to get a set of bluetooth headphones and a bluetooth mic, and add a second bluetooth adapter on my laptop. Thoughts?

Last edited by nze (2018-01-28 23:59:11)

qinohe

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 1,540

Re: [Bluetooth] Gaming headset vs headphones w/ mic confusion

Arch nor any other OS/distro phone/gameboy is to blame, that's bluetooth. You can also only use one profile at any given moment.
There are a few profiles you can use.
aptX for very high quality audio no mic-if supported
A2DP for good quality audio no mic
HSP/HFP low quality audio with mic

The only thing you can do is use the higher quality profiles for the audio and use a separate mic to talk.
I wouldn't know another way to mix high Q. audio with skype sound and use a mic at the same time.

nze

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 18

Re: [Bluetooth] Gaming headset vs headphones w/ mic confusion

That was my suspicion, but I found it hard to believe that in 2018 we still can't seem to have what seems very basic functionality for a headset. Bluetooth 3 (and 4) has a bandwidth of 25 Mbit/s, you'd hope to be able to stream some 200 kbit/s in each direction!

I found a "whitepaper" about "Multi-Profile Specification" on the website of the bluetooth consortium (MPS_Spec_V10-clean.pdf if anyone's interested). In particular, there is the "Multiple Profiles Single Device" (MPSD) configuration: "In this configuration, multiple Bluetooth profiles are used concurrently between two devices."

With MPSD it should be possible to concurrently use HFP for head-set functionality and A2DP for audio playback. I haven't read the fine-print of the 88 pages, but I suspect that concurrent here means exclusive, so there would be no playback during microphone use. Maybe a push-to-talk solution to switch from A2DP to HFP could work for gaming, but it'd still not be great.

By the way, aptX is not a different profile, but merely a codec that can be used by the A2DP profile.

Last edited by nze (2018-01-29 15:49:42)

qinohe

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 1,540

Re: [Bluetooth] Gaming headset vs headphones w/ mic confusion

I'm not sure about this but I thought MPSD is what it is already, you can switch between A2DP and HSP but I could be wrong.
Also I don't see a way to activate your mic while on A2DP and use HSP at the same time, that simply wont work.
I should not have mentioned the aptX, you're right.