Connecting Bluetooth Headphones to OSMC

Help and Support
21

Update:

I’ve disabled BT on the board so the dongle now is the only BT connection. That seems to have helped greatly.

  1. Power on OSMC
  2. Go to My OSMC
  3. Turn on headphones
  4. Go to Networking-Bluetooth
  5. Reconnect to headphones (even though they show blue and the red light is blinking)
  6. Settings-System-Audio and select ALSA

Sound is now coming thru the headphones! This has reliably worked every time I’ve booted up in the last week.

The initial connection while it seems to be connected, isn’t. I have to re-connect… and that seems to keep the sound coming thru the headphones 100% of the time.

When I am done, I switch back the audio to HDMI

22

Above steps still working! Does not drop off.

I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that the headphones never truly connect when you first turn them on. At first in the Networking-Bluetooth menu you seem the device turn blue like it’s connected but it drops off within 2 seconds. Back to red disconnected. And of course from the moment you turn them on, the headphones constantly say “no device connected.”

When I Re-Connect, it actually does connect and stays. Then I set the sound to ALSA and all sounds run thru the headphones.

The 6 steps above have reliably made sound work thru the BT headphones consistently for weeks now.

23

This is because it is preventing the sink from blocking.
You may run in to other problems by selecting ALSA as the audio output however.

This is all being worked on.

24

In theory, could I leave it as HDMI but just ensure the BT is actually connected and it would work?

I was under the impression I had to go into the System settings and switch to ALSA/Bluetooh for sound to actually come thru the connected headphones?

25

BT audio actually comes through Pulse, not ALSA.

By selecting ALSA explicitly you are avoiding fights over the sink.

Soon you will be able to just select hdmi and leave it at that

26

At one point that actually was the case… I left it at HDMI… turn on headphones… sound came thru. Switched off headphones, sound went back thru the monitor.

Never was consistent but it was awesome when it worked!

27

Yep, it’s a bug.

It will be fixed.

1 Like
28

Is there an update on this bug? I looked on github but the issues section is fairly clean.

I have a Bluetooth headset (Beats Studio 2.0) that pairs, but it doesn’t matter what I select I can’t get any audio to play. I’m assuming it’s related to this bug and eventually we’ll just leave it on HDMI and be done with it?

As it stands I’ve got a horrible grounding issue with my Pi 3 and I haven’t been able to isolate it so really, I have no audio until this is fixed as analogue audio isn’t a solution either.

29

Would there be away to search and connect from the Linux terminal rather than the GUI in OSMC?

30

yes with bluetoothctl

1 Like
31

Is there any news on this item? I have a Sony MDR-1000x but it does not work. Tried the onboard as well as a dongle. Edited the config.txt to disable onboard. In both cases the headphones only respond to “connect with PIN” it never asked for a pin but moves the headphones from discovery table to paired table. Then turns red and never connects.

32

Hi Simon,

Did you install the A2DP package?

Sam

33

No, did I miss that in this topic? How can I install that?

34

Search the forum for A2DP and you will find plenty of info on it :wink:

35

Thanx for pointing me in the right direction. Got it working now. Things I had to do to get it working:

  • apt update
  • apt dist-upgrade
  • apt install a2dp-app-osmc
  • add hdmi_ignore_edid_audio=1 to config.txt
  • apt install alsa-utils
  • connect with headphones without pin
  • choose audio output in kodi setting: ALSA
  • pactl list
  • pactl set-card-profile bluez_card.A3_E5_xx_xx_xx a2dp_sink
  • reboot

Now it works. I only have to switch manually from HDMI to ALSA. But that is no big deal.