tldr; W11 bluetooth doesn't work with multiple cards. It will see devices but will not pair. Same hw pairs under Linux.

hey folks. I posted this to /r/techsupport on reddit and for some reason they say they don't support Windows 11 Enterprise... and it took them a day to tell me instead of using automod. I thought this was both funny and the dumbest thing. Anyway, here's a fun little issue I'm trying to sort out.

Windows 11 Enterprise 22h2 (22621.3810)

About two weeks ago (after a year of having this system) my bluetooth decided not to pair with anything. It will see devices and try to pair, but it never goes through.

I have tried:

• a different wireless card / bt combo (PCIE)
• removing the wireless / bt combo and using a bt dongle
• removing all drivers (show hidden devices etc), rebooting clean, reinstalling
• changing the USB connection to the mobo for the PCIE card
• live boot of latest Ubuntu LTS -- successfully paired DS4 controller and Sony Headphones

The event logs for Bluetooth Policy are all positive (e.g. A connection to a remote device 0xA4538553B7FD was successfully established) -- but nothing is paired.

This happened on a day when I added two HDDs to the box and ran updates etc. I also tried everything above without the drives installed without any luck.

Any ideas?

notes:

• I just finished with a W11 windows-to-go install off a super slow USB and I wasn't able to pair headphones or the DS4, but I did pair some sony TW earbuds. I'm sensing a fresh install in my future.

Hey! So I used to be fairly warm to MS Teams but I utterly despise its call handling. I have three Bluetooth audio devices that I used regularly - a set of Edifier earbuds, my expensive Sony WH-1000XM5 pair, my CX-5 audio, and my Bluebus that integrates into my old BMW's hands free system. All of these work perfectly fine when I call someone via regular-ass phone calls. When I use Teams, all hell breaks loose. The edifiers work perfectly fine, so I know Teams is QUITE capable of handling these all ok. My CX-5 system won't do microphone audio when Android Auto is connected, but works fine on Mazda's infotainment call handling. In my BMW it won't handle the microphone but plays audio. On my Sony pair of headphones, it works great... And then about every ten minutes it disconnects, consistently, so I can't use them.

In theme with the other ongoing thread, nothing gets my gears moving like tech not doing what I'm asking it to. Teams barely has any options on Android for audio, so there isn't much of anything to tweak. Does anyone have any ideas of where to start? Is there something similar to Windows solutions like Virtual Audio Cable which could set up a virtual BT device to pipe audio through and simulate it being something else for Teams? Thanks all!

Looking for a good wireless (probably bluetooth, but happy to hear if something other than bluetooth is recommended for a good reason) keyboard to use with my home laptop/dock setup.

I've ben using my laptop's keyboard while plugged into my dock which is probably less than ideal ergonomic-wise and am looking to improve things.

I don't need to be a fullsize or compact keyboard - I think my sweet spot would be middle size with a number pad. I'm somewhat aware of mechanical keyboards but will admit my complete ignorance as to their benefits (other than sounding nice when you type?) and so am open to those if there are more tangible benefits that I'm just totally ignorant about. Battery life would be important as charging it constantly could get a bit annoying.

Appreciate any input you all have!

Does anyone know of a good pair? or where I might find more info on the matter, like a comparison website with in-depth reviews?

My previous ones (Nokia BH 905i) are still fine although they are showing heavy signs of wear and don't support the latest features, like LE etc.

I might want to look into something potentially smaller, like in-ears with a flat surface on the outside so I might be able to use them in my motorcycle helmet. ANC is prefered and so is good sound quality. Price is about 250-300eu max.

Alright, so I fell down a rabbit hole of trying to understand a whole bunch of techy things that I don't fully understand and could use some help:

What I'm looking for: a pair of Bluetooth wireless earbuds that I can pair with my computer, with low enough latency that it won't impair my enjoyment in casual gaming/video watching

What I understand so far: Almost nothing. 😔 I get that Bluetooth will always have some level of latency, but, beyond that, I've got nothing. I'm so confused.

There are lots of different versions of Bluetooth, and then there are different Bluetooth protocols within that, and then different audio codecs, and each piece of hardware seems to support completely different combinations of those, and I'm not sure if the devices have to match configurations or even how to figure out what my computer supports? It seems Bluetooth will gracefully fall back to worse codecs/protocols if better ones are incompatible, but I don't really want to buy something that's just going to fall back to its worst usecase.

I also don't know what's an "acceptable" level of latency. What's reasonable versus what's intolerable?

It also seems like the information I read online is subject to rapid decay. I read a bunch of stuff only a few years old saying I should look for aptX Low Latency capability, but then I read very recent posts saying that's dead and to go with aptX Adaptive instead. Meanwhile there are a handful of gaming-focused headsets that say they're low latency but don't really say how (e.g. Razer's Hammerhead). And some, like Samsung's buds, having a "gaming mode" but it only works on special hardware.

Also, how do I know what my computer itself will support? Is there anything I can do from the computer side to reduce latency, or is that strictly a function of what my hardware supports and which earbuds I buy?

My usecase:

My computer is a System 76 Oryx Pro (5) running Pop!_OS 21.10. I think its Bluetooth adapter is version 5.1 (though I'm not confident on that). I do not know which protocols/codecs it supports, nor how to find that out.

Audio quality isn't too important. These will be for everyday video-watching and gaming, which is what's prompting the latency requirement. I'd rather them be responsive than rich.

Active noise cancelling would be nice to have (especially if it has a toggleable transparency mode), but I don't know if ANC adds latency and is therefore incompatible with what I'm wanting.

I don't have a specific budget for it, and that's honestly the least important requirement. If the solution exists I'm fine paying for it (within reason, of course). These will end up getting used for thousands of hours, so even a big price difference upfront will even out over time.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer in pointing me in the right direction on this!

At the risk of sounding like an audiophile I noticed that on some bluetooth devices audio quality comes out absolutely terrible (Like radio recorded with a phone microphone). I was using a pair of Bose QC 35 headphones and on my phone they sound just fine but on my desktop which has a cheap $2 bluetooth usb the sound quality is terrible. Ok for $2 what can you expect but now I have a distrust for all bluetooth devices. How can I know if my bluetooth usb is killing the quality of audio when thats not even a listed spec on these devices. I looked in to this a little bit ago and there seem to be a few proprietary extensions to bluetooth that allow lossless streaming but they aren't well supported because they are proprietary. I understand that high quality lossy compression is pretty much the same quality as lossless but how do I find a product that uses high quality lossy compression when it seems some of them use absolutely horrible compression?