Bluetooth Headset and Windows

fatherdougalmag

Educate me.

I've come across a service going by the name of Babble (http://www.babble.net - problem linking). The jist is free landline and mobile calls over the internet (VOIP) until December. Thereafter, you're looking at about €40 a year for unlimited free landline calls to Ireland, UK, US, Oz and NZ. I digress.

Methinks, if I got a bluetooth adapter for PC/laptop and a bluetooth headset I could use Babble hands free around the downstairs area of the gaff. So, little bro working in O2 brings home gear for an experiment and I can't get stuff to work as I thought it would. I was thinking that the headset would be seen as a soundcard (to all intents and purposes). I could then select that as my audio device (mic/speaker) for using Babble.

Thus far, the laptop sees the headset (nice Motorola HS801) and that's about it. I thought I'd be able to playback and record audio over the headset as if it were a soundcard's mic/speaker I/O.

Has anyone done this sort of thing with a bluetooth headset and Windows XP?

fatherdougalmag

Never mind. Seems to going fine now. Headset acts as a new audio device and works fine with Babble for anyone who's interested.

flywheel

hi, depending on the Bluetooth Implementation you are using you can do two things:

1) use the computer's Mic/Speaker as a Bluetooth Headset for your phone transferring the audio to the computer during a call

2) connect a Bluetooth Headset to the computer and transfer the audio to it, so it takes over as the computer's Mic/Speaker

so with the likes of Widcomm's Bluetooth implementation on a PC you can get both working, or on a Mac with the current implementation / firmware for OS X you can get the second option working

to use the headset as the computer's audio device, after pairing, the computer's Sound properties need to be checked/configured to use the headset i.e. the Bluetooth device rather then the sound card - some software, like NetMeeting, may provide a wizard to do this saving having to mess around in the control panels

on a PC you may also have to manually connect to the headset (initiate a connection via the Bluetooth software), if the headset rings like a call is incoming you just answer it to complete the connection

e.g. for XP you may have to look at the Control Panel's Audio / Voice Sound properties:



e.g. on OSX you need to look at the Sound System Preferences:




BrianG

lighthouse82

hi dubwireless

i am trying to connect my SE HBH35 headset to my winXP laptop via a penBlue dongle. but i am having difficulties. i thought they were paired, and i followed your post by selecting bluetooth in the control panel sound properties. but i have no idea how to "activate the connection", and now the computer refuses to recognise the headset.
should i just reset its pairings and start again? if so, could you explain how from the start i go about pairing the devices?
cheers
lighthouse

flywheel

hi, to check are you using the Widcomm Bluetooth Implementation with that adapter? e.g. you have a "My Bluetooth Places" icon you can click on, then in the Help Menu select "About My Bluetooth Places" - you should see some mention of Widcomm if so... likely you will be using Widcomm but another Implementation was provided with some earlier Mavin PenBlue adapters...

if you're using the Widcomm implementation, to set-up it up again, delete the existing Headset pairing, and set the headset up in Pairing Mode (see the headset instruction manual) - then with "My Bluetooth Places" open on the right hand side click "View devices in range" then click "Search for devices in range" - your headset should appear (as an icon / item in the list) - right click on it and select "Pair Device" then enter the passkey (see the headset manual, likely to be 0000)

in order to use the headset for the computers audio input/output - configure the Sound control panel to use Bluetooth Audio for your needs - then you need to activate the connection to the headset:

back in "My Bluetooth Places" on the right hand side click "View devices in range" and the Headset should be listed - right click and select the item that says "Connect" (or it will likely fully read 'Connect SonyEricsson Headset service") - now on my SE Headset it actually rings, so I need to answer it and then the connection is made...

you can also use the Bluetooth icon in your system tray (right click) to use the Bluetooth Set-up Wizard / Quick Connect to the headset if you are comfortable with that approach...

denali

Hi DubWireless,

I too am having bluetooth headset/XP issues: my headset (Nokia HDW-3) pairs correctly, and is visible in the Bluetooth devices window as an audio device. However when I go to Sound and Audio Devices on the control panel, It doesn't appear in the drop down box (any of them...). Is there a way to manually configure XP to recognise the Bluetooth audio device?

I'm using a Microsoft Bluetooth dongle that came with my mouse.

Thanks,

denali

flywheel

hi, unfortunately the Microsoft Bluetooth Implementation doesn't provide support for headsets - the initial keyboard/mouse came with an Bluetooth implementation for XP SP1 that supported keyboard/mouse (HID), printing (HCRP) and modem dial-up (DUN) - with the release of XP SP2 they enhanced the implementation to also include Serial Port support (SPP), the Object Push for transfer of items (OPP) and the Personal Area Networking (PANU)

with the Widcomm Bluetooth Implementation, as described in the previous posts support for headsets was included, but unfortunately with the Microsoft implementation it wasn't

denali

Thanks for that.

If I understand you correctly, I would need to get a different dongle, which uses the widcomm implementation of bluetooth, to be able to use my headset with VOIP etc? Or is there a software fix I could use? Just to confirm, compatability is unlikely to be improved by using a different headset (eg Motorola)?

So much for "standards"!

What's the Santa Strike Force?

cosgrove80

I have the SE HBH-600 the headset. Link on Amazon here

I want to connect it to my PC (XP SP2) to use with Skype.

My bluetooth adaptor can't pick up the device.

I am wondering if it is possible to connect the headset to windows?

My usb bluetooth adaptor is this one.

I have disabled the XP drivers and am using the USB adaptor ones.
I can't find any driver updates either.

flywheel

hi, XP SP2 Bluetooth doesn't support the headset profile.

you're linking to a chipset rather than an adapter, so perhaps your one has that chipset in it - you'd need to determine the actual vendor / distributor of the adapter to see if they provide downloadable drivers / application that supports the headset profile (e.g. Widcomm based solution)

did it come with any packaging to help you do this, where did you get it?

cosgrove80

DubWireless wrote:

hi, XP SP2 Bluetooth doesn't support the headset profile.

you're linking to a chipset rather than an adapter, so perhaps your one has that chipset in it - you'd need to determine the actual vendor / distributor of the adapter to see if they provide downloadable drivers / application that supports the headset profile (e.g. Widcomm based solution)

did it come with any packaging to help you do this, where did you get it?

It's the one that came with the Aldi laptop last week. There dosen't seem to be any cd relating to it. It's branded as Gericom. In windows it comes up as a

Blutonium BCM2035 Bluetooth 2.4GHz Single Chip Tranceiver.

Broadcom seem to be the same people who produce this.

flywheel

Broadcom make the chipset that goes into the adapter - they don't supply the end user with Bluetooth apps/drivers... you would need to try the vendor of the adapter for that... have you tried to contacting Gericom or looking on their site to see if they supply them?

if you get the Widcomm based Bluetooth implementation you should be able to get it working as described above...

cosgrove80

DubWireless wrote:

Broadcom make the chipset that goes into the adapter - they don't supply the end user with Bluetooth apps/drivers... you would need to try the vendor of the adapter for that... have you tried to contacting Gericom or looking on their site to see if they supply them?

if you get the Widcomm based Bluetooth implementation you should be able to get it working as described above...

I'll email Gericom.

I haven't been able to find drivrs anywhere for Gericom products othre than their laptops. Is it possible to get generic drivers/software for Widcomm?

cosgrove80

I managed to find the Widcomm drivers on the Gericom site. PIcked up the headset straight away.

Thanks for all the help all