Teams bluetooth audio compatibility sucks. What options do I have?
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!
I can't summon spicy enough expletives for how I feel about Teams, particularly "new" Teams. On a call yesterday, new Teams froze and crashed every time the person I was working with tried to start a recording while I was screen-sharing. The fix was to revert to "old" Teams. Also, Android Teams sometimes steals meetings from Windows since the latest updates...
I've had exactly the same Bluetooth audio problems in Teams that OP posted about, exacerbated by switching among multiple conferencing clients throughout the day. I'm also on calls long enough that I run out of battery on one wireless audio device and have to switch to another. That process is not seamless, and usually requires dropping and rejoining.
I suspect these are Windows Bluetooth issues as much as anything. A cheap "Teams-compatible" Plantronics wired USB headset has no issues whatsoever across applications. It's just a PITA to wear for extended periods, and does nothing for Android/iPhone use.
I've dug everywhere, with no consistent solutions or app recommendations for Windows. Needless to say, Android Teams hasn't had Bluetooth audio problems, nor have various flavors of Linux.
***I don't want to start a rant thread, but Slack is just as bad if not worse on Windows - huddle audio never picks up the Windows default audio if it's a Bluetooth device.
Teams is just bafflingly bad. Like, we've had four years of pandemic and Teams is still awful. Worse than it used to be.
It doesn't help that there's paid for and free teams, and a the free Teams is either Microsoft Teams Free (classic) or Microsoft Teams (Free), and I guess the web client too.
I'll be honest, I never have issues with Teams at work. I think it's been over two years since I had any significant issues and those were just due to the way my employer's network handled calls.
Same. Teams has largely been fine since I've started using it in 2021, whether it's old or new (I've been using the new client), web or application (I use both at the same time), or Mac or Windows.
I have noticed issues in chats where it feels like older messages disappear at times. I know my co-workers and I have noticed that every once in a blue moon. But then they eventually reappear.
Though like @arghdos has said, search is painful. It often feels like things get lost eventually, or the search keeps repeating the same results over and over. I wish there was a search feature on the the admin side, or a way to easily save/export chat messages.
For me, if I can remember the subject and who I was talking too, I can usually find the discussion it happened in. But then I’ll be like 3 messages away from the information I needed and Teams absolutely will not load any context around what you found short of scrolling back to last year or something ridiculous. Makes it effectively useless.
An export would be killer so I could run grep.
Yeah, same and I’m running a (probably now deprecated) client on Linux. The in-client search is super painful to pull up any messages older than a few months tho
I never really have issues with the search function...I mean, I do, but the issues usually exist between the chair and keyboard and not inside the program.
I on the other hand love Teams, I've literally never had any bugs or issues with it and it's a saint for the live captions.
For Bluetooth, I always dial-in with my cell phone as a medium, 100% reliability since it's my phone I use for many other Bluetooth things. I mute using my phone's Mute button instead of relying on Teams. I've never had any issues other than the external meetings that don't have dial-in enabled.
My experience with Teams has been all bugs all the time and I’m astonished that the opposite experience is actually possible. I attributed it to working on a Mac, so if I’m doing the meeting from home I’ve been trying my Windows PC, but that’s just as bad.
If I’m forced to use Teams I reserve 20 minutes before the meeting just for troubleshooting because it is going to log me out, verify my account, log that out, change my profile pic, not recognise my camera and who knows what else.
The biggest problem I have with Teams is that sometimes I click on "Teams" when I mean to click on "Calendar." I don't know how your employer has implemented Teams, but could all these issues be on their end and not Microsoft's?
We don’t use it internally, solely to interact with other businesses so unless I’m missing something there isn’t much to implement on our side.
Here's hoping someone else has a solution. I use a shokz headset and everything mostly works most of the time. Weird things can happen with muting, where the headset/windows is muted but teams is not and vice versa. Usually requires turning the headset off/on to get everything back on the same page. I can use the same headset perfectly fine for Discord/Android and every other system/program I've used.
It's truly astounding how badly Microsoft has wrecked Skype. I hate that the standard now is to just not have settings at all to make menus and interfaces 'cleaner'.
This is on Android, it's corporate use so I have no control over platform or hardware.
Well, technically I could switch to iOS, I guess.
(editor's note: not switching to iOS over Teams)