I frequently wear a pair of Bluetooth headphones paired to a computer. If I want to listen to something on my phone I have to re-pair the device to my phone.
Is it possible, through software or hardware, to have both my phone and computer connected in such a way that I can get audio output from either device to my headset simultaneously.
Linux has Pulseaudio/Pipewire. You can stream audio on the network in arbitrary ways.
Many headsets will allow you to connect to multiple devices, giving you the audio of whichever one is actively playing at the time. But, I am not aware of any that do it “simultaneously”, which really annoys me.
I want to be able to listen to music or watch a video on my computer, but still get alerts, alarms, and notifications from my phone. To the best of my knowledge, headset manufacturers are not doing this. If you’re listening to one audio source, the other is muted. You can’t listen to the second device until you stop the audio from the first.
I have been thinking about making a pocket-sized audio mixer with multiple Bluetooth audio receivers and a single Bluetooth audio transmitter. You would pair your headset to the device, and pair the device’s receivers to your various Bluetooth audio sources. I’d prefer to just buy one, but I can’t find anything like it in a simple, portable form factor.
You don’t have to re-pair. Just leave Bluetooth running on both your phone and PC, and your headphones will automatically connect to whatever device is playing audio. It’s that simple. I do it all the time.
That only works if the Bluetooth device is able to connect to two or more devices at the same time. My headset doesn’t, so if I want to switch sources, I need to explicitly disconnect the headset from the phone and manually connect it from the PC (in both cases, open Bluetooth settings, click on theb headset that’s paired and click either connect or disconnect). It’s a bit of effort but not too bad. Not as bad as pairing though.
If I don’t disconnect from the last connected device, my headset will automatically connect to it and only play media from it.
Don’t mean to be rude, but kind of ancientass headphones don’t support pairing with multiple devices at a time? What year is it? 2003?
My headphones can pair with a lot of devices. It can actively play media from only one source at a time, though. The ability for headsets to play sound from two sources at the same time is still pretty rare. And I’m not even sure playing from 3 sources exists.
I use Turtle Beach headphones and they connect to my Xbox and phone at the same time. Can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be the same for PC.
I use these:
TECNO B1 Bluetooth Headphones https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X2JSMHZ
And they will reliably pair to two devices, including some combination of my laptop, phone, and TV. My only complaint is that sometimes when they are paired to my PC, they won’t turn off until I unpair them.
They are pretty awkward with the neck weights, but the battery life is fantastic. They appear to have the same software in them as my older ones that were sold under the brand TaoTronics, which was banned from Amazon for something.
If you find something, please post back, I’d love to find a less awkward pair of headphones that does this.
