[Deprecated] [TESTING] Bluetooth audio streaming (A2DP)

Yes, if USB is causing your problems. Ethernet is connected via a separate PHY on the Vero, so USB performance does not impact it.

But Bluetooth audio playback is a bit different for other platforms. We are hoping to have it in a more stable shape for Vero etc and a beta version of BTPlayer in a couple of weeks.

Edit: just read this again. Internal BT on Pi 3 is hooked up via SDIO, not USB. Not sure why it would cause interference unfortunately.

Thanks Sam.

I guess that means the built-in BT would be better than USB dongle? I’ll give that a try
and report back. I had previously used little a BT transmitter connected to the audio jack.
That was ok, but kept going standby - and the sound was not great.

I had also wanted to run a slideshow (over samba), and at the same time
with audio streaming (TVHeadend, or sometimes music) to BT.

If all that is just going to be too much for RPI3, then I might just be better off upgrading to Vero.

Thanks.
Best regards,
Niall.

In my testing, the external dongles are behaving better than the Pi’s internal adapter at this time. This may change in the future however.

Test it out.

You can’t go wrong with the Vero 2 however, but BT streaming won’t work as expected on this device for a couple of weeks or so yet

Sam

ok, Vero 2 sold to the man at the back :slight_smile:

I’ll let you know how I get on with it.

Thanks for all your help @sam_nazarko and team.

Best regards,
Niall.

Sam,

fyi, I managed to get simultaneous video streaming (HD channel from another OSMC/TVHeadend) and with the audio streaming to BT. Using ethernet and built-in BT (i.e. not the USB dongle).
Although it worked well, it was not stable. I was going to make a video for you … but the
audio stopped, and I couldn’t get it to work again :frowning:

So I have reverted to the USB dongle for BT. This is working great for audio only (radio channel from another OSMC/TVHeadend). Probably would be fine also for simultaneous slideshow and streaming audio. But streaming live video + audio seems to be too much for the one USB.

I think it does prove that RPI3 can handle it. But only with built-in BT - which
is still in a ‘flaky’ phase, and not really usable yet.

Thanks.
Best regards,
Niall.

p.s. I’ve ordered Vero2, so I’ll see how that goes :slight_smile:

tried finding an answer but no luck. I’m trying to connect the Bluetooth to 2 devices at the same time for playback (headsets/speakers). it looks like it was possible on bluez4 so the hardware seems to be able to handle it.

right now I can pair multiple devices but as soon as I connect (power on) the 2nd device the first 1 gets disconnected. if I power off the 2nd device it seamlessly goes back to the first.

would adding a bt dongle work? can you use multiple dongles on the pi? was thinking onboard for device 1 and dongle for 2. obviously it would be better if the 1 bt can stream to the multiple devices

I installed the A2DP per this thread a few days ago and everything worked fine streaming from devices to OSMC (I didn’t test the other way around). Then today I installed a Hifiberry Amp+ which works fine, but now when I stream from a device to OSMC via bluetooth the sound is way too loud and the OSMC volume control doesn’t change anything. Also changing the volume on the source device does nothing until it reaches the ‘mute’ where all sound stops.

Nevermind. It looks as though Hifiberry and A2DP are not working. Just to reiterate, mine is working, but it is way over modulated. If i could adjust the volume coming in from BT it would be perfect.

Regards

If I’m beating a dead horse just ignore me.

The sound from BT is usable and actually sounds great if I use alsamixer to lower the Master.

If your device supports AVRCP volume can be adjusted from the phone

Using an iPad and strangely all volume steps are blasting 100% except the last ‘mute’ step.

It works on my Samsung phone, so I’ll guess it’s an IOS issue.

Thanks, it helped me :slight_smile:

I got this working nicely on Pi2 with two different BT dongles (a very old ‘Targus’ branded one and a middle-aged BlueNext), except for two issues.

Issue 1: when streaming from a local (SMB) fileserver, track plays for about a minute then stops. Interface is unresponsive, the little blue light on the dongle still flashing furiously, suggesting it is still sending lots of data. After a while, with occasional quick blips of music, the next track (file) starts playing and the cycle repeats. This does not happen when playing a local file from the SD card, nor when playing radio music through a TV dongle. Suspecting a buffer problem, I reduced the cache from 50MB to the default, with no improvement, but I have to have buffermode 1 to get smooth playback over my network.

Log at paste.osmc.io/qalekijuco is from before reverting the buffer size.

Issue 2: if I plug in a USB soundcard, it generally does not show up in the list of available devices in settings, even after a re-boot. If I select the BT speaker from that list, however, audio plays through the soundcard. I say ‘generally’ because at one stage I was poking around from a terminal trying to find out what devices alsa recognised and when I went back in to audio settings on the Pi, they were all there. I don’t know if this is related to installing the A2DP package, but I think it worked as expected before.

Hi. I have installed on raspberry pi 2 One Bluetooth dongle USB and connected One Bluetooth headphone . Is It possible connect second Bluetooth dongle USB for second Bluetooth headphone on the same raspberry pi 2?
Thanks

Hi all,

First time chatting on this thread, hopefully no one has asked this before.

I have followed the initial instructions for setting up the bluetooth streaming, only difference being that I am using the on board bluetooth of the Pi3 instead of a bluetooth dongle.
I can connect my Android device, and stream audio, the problem I’m having is that the audio is patchy/jumpy…

Any ideas? Anyone faced anything similar?
Thanks!

This seems to be prevalent with the internal adapter. An external adapter may work better at this time

I am looking to replace my Kodi box. I have an old one and memory is not brilliant. I want to hook up new box with Bose Soundlink and Sony headphones . Will any of latest boxes with built in BT do this 'out of box .If so , what boxes can do this ? Or is it a case of a new box with dongle . If this is best route ,what would anyone recommend. As you can guess ,I am not very techie but would appreciate any help on this.

Hello People and Merry Xmas!
I have osmc about a year first on Raspberry Pi 2B and now on the Pi 3.
Everything amazing but, Great problem with Bluetooth. As I said I use a raspberry Pi 3 with internal Bluetooth. It pairs with any of two diferent csr chip headphones that I have, it works about 6-8 minutes and the sound completly cuts off. No sound, and then in the osmc plugin, I cant reconnect to headphones again. Only deleting the device from list and pairing it again. And it cuts the sound after few minutes again. I tried with old Smh50 from Sony and now Avantree with aptx support that also fails. I have the latest december osmc update and the same problem again. I completely desperate to use Bluetooth headphones on such great Kodi Os. Please should I tweak something, or what is wrong?

The internal Bluetooth dongle does not work well with A2DP streaming at this time. I don’t have a solution for this nor a timeframe for when we can expect one.