Bluetooth Headset

[djc]

I have a bluetooth headset which also has a mic. It works when I make normal calls on my cell. Anyway, I've never used it with dell voice but always noticed that it'd say "Dell voice: Bluetooth Connected" whenever I connect this headset or when I enter my car which has a gps/bluetooth for calls.

Well, today I used my bluetooth headset in my house to call someone and I couldn't heard them. This led me to troubleshoot what the problem was.

As soon as I dial out, a window would open up for "audio source" with three option: Phone, Speaker, and Bluetooth. I'd expect that it'd be the third option to select but when I select it, I don't hear anything on my bluetooth yet the call is ringing. When I select speaker, I'd hear it on the speaker on the back of the phone, and when I select phone, it'd be on my bluetooth headset. Isn't the phone suppose to be the actual phone handset? This seems strange and I haven't tested it in my car, but I'm thinking it maybe the same.

Another thing is, when I select phone, which is the only way for me to hear anything, the mic on my bluetooth headset doesn't seem to be working and the sounds are instead going to the mic from my handset. Again, this is not a good thing since I can't put the phone down and walk around since I have to have the handset for them to hear me.

Has anyone else tried bluetooth with dell voice?

More testing:
I had the bluetooth setting checked in the above tests. When I unchecked it, and dialed out, it no longer asks me for audio source. It just went straight to my bluetooth. But if I select speaker, it would revert to speaker. This is much better than the previous, however, the mic is still a problem. The input only comes from the mic on the handset, and not on the bluetooth mic. This makes it not convenient to just leave the phone and walk around with bluetooth.

Do you know if Dell Voice developers are aware of this problem? Hopefully this bug can be worked out. Thanks.

[TheHardy]

I am sorry that I have no answers or insight on this, but would like to give you KUDOS for your extensive troubleshooting -- this SHOULD make it easier for Steve/Mike/Kris to forward it or get a comment back from the developers regarding this ... also makes it easy for others doing testing to DUPLICATE what you did and see what their results are.

Question: handset? bluetooth model? May be something specific, not sure. Just an observation.

Again -- good post, nice attention to detail! I hope you can get a speedy resolution!

[djc]

I got this chinese headset when I bought my phone nexus s phone for free. Not a big name, all it says is "Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-503". Anyway, I tried dell voice in my car. I have a kenwood dnx9960 in my car. It's a gps and call bluetooth calling. I have it synced with my phone and when calls comes in, I can answer it and it goes to my car stereo system. There's a mic where I have just over my head. So when I used it in my car, same result. I have the bluetooth option unchecked which is what I want since as soon as I call, it's on my bluetooth. Only problem is, the mic being used is still the handset. I guess it doesn't matter so much when I'm in the car unlike when I use my headset and walk around the house where I don't want to be carrying my phone as well.

Well, hopefully my investigation helps with finding the problem. Thanks

[TheHardy]

Ah, ok, right there I had not noticed from the original post that it was two separate BT units --- you had said "in the car" just didn't know that you meant an onboard unit at that point.

It seems odd that it would SEND audio thru the BT but pull the mic from the HANDSET ... both times.

I don't have a smartphone to play with to test this out on my end, and a google search against dv & bluetooth yielded nothing intelligent. I am not sure if it is an ongoing issue. I did not google Nexus-S and bluetooth (too many results).

HOWEVER, the "split-BT-audio" (catchy name??) _may_ be a handset specific issue.

I hope that another DV-mobile user can shed some light from their BT experience ....

[djc]

Tried this again just to test out whether having the audio output go to my headset while the audio input is from the handset made a difference in the echo. I guess it didn't and the echo is probably how the audio is sent through ip and hence poor quality.

Quality aside, it'd be nice to have this whole mic thing fixed.

[FONGO_mike]

Hi djc,

Once the Dell Voice app is opened, try disabling your blue tooth device and then enabling it again. This seems to be fixing the issue.

[Bloodsong]

Curious what options your phone supports for call device routing.
(I.E. does it allow you in the device settings to select a primary speaker/mic device? What settings are there presently?)

What auto-answer settings and PTT settings does your device support?

Let's play around with OS level stuff a little, don't forget the "APP" isn't the only place where magic happens.

[djc]

Hi djc,

Once the Dell Voice app is opened, try disabling your blue tooth device and then enabling it again. This seems to be fixing the issue.

This is what I tried:
First case, with the Bluetooth option under preferences not checked.
When I make a call with my bluetooth headset connected to my Samsung Nexus S phone with ICS 4.0.4, I can hear audio on my headset but the sound comes from the handset mic and not the headset mic.

During the same call, I then turned off the headset, the audio goes back to the handset and the mic on the handset is still used. When I turned the headset back on, it connects back to my phone, but handset mic is still the one used and not the headset.

If I leave the headset on but turn off the phone bluetooth, the audio goes to my handset and the handset mic no longer works. Turning bluetooth back on reconnects my headset and brings the audio back to the headset but neither mic work anymore, even if I turn the bluetooth headset on and off.

When incoming calls come in, same effects as above.

Second case, with the bluetooth option checked.
When I make a call with my headset connected, a window opens up that has three choices: Phone, Speaker and Bluetooth.
When I have it set to bluetooth, no sound is heard on either phone handset or headset and the mic doesn't even work.
If on speaker, the audio is on phone speaker and mic on handset is where the input comes from.
If phone is selected, the audio goes to bluetooth headset but the handset mic is used.

Neither turning on/off bluetooth headset or bluetooth on the handset made the input come from the headset mic.

I'm not sure if it's only for my phone, or if others have had the same experience as not many people reply. Or maybe people don't really use bluetooth all that much. I tried this using both a stereo headset which works perfectly fine for normal cell phone calls as well as my car bluetooth navigation system and another bluetooth headset, Samsung WEP. Neither had the mic working on the bluetooth but just on handset.

When an incoming call comes with bluetooth connected, the dell voice app force closes. By connected, I mean when there's a message saying Dell Voice: Bluetooth Connected. If this message doesn't come up when the bluetooth is connected, then the bluetooth headset works with incoming calls, and the 3 option window isn't available. This isn't too useful for incoming calls so I decided to keep the bluetooth option unchecked.

@bloodsong
I use the Dell Voice app on my Samsung Nexus S ICS 4.0.4. No options to select primary speaker/mic device on there in the Dell Voice app, nor am I aware of any options like this in the android settings.

[djc]

New update version 1.3.1

So I tried this again to see if it has been fixed. First off, good job on bluetooth mic. It's still far from perfect, but at least it works sometimes. I have done these tests. I called my dell voice on my nexus s connected to a bluetooth headset from another phone, the phone would ring with the call not going through the headset, only the handset. That's fine, as I can answer it still via handset. When I answer, the audio goes to the headset as it is suppose to but the mic used is still from the handset. The window pops up and asks to select either phone, speaker or bluetooth. Bluetooth is already selected as it is connected, and if I don't select anything, the window disappears. The mic stays on the handset.

I would have to select audio on phone and back onto bluetooth to get the mic to come from the headset. Sometimes once, sometimes a few times. The audio switches to the different options, but the mic is the one that doesn't always switch to the option selected, either phone, speaker, bluetooth. If I selected bluetooth again with the first popup, it's a hit or miss whether the mic comes from the handset or headset. During my trials, after toggling from phone, speaker, bluetooth to get the mic to switch over to the headset, the mic stopped working all together in all options and I had to end call since there was no sound going in. The same results are seen when I dialed out with my phone with headset connected. The audio is in the headset but I would have to toggle to get the mic to work.

Since these were all tests it is fine, but on an actual call with someone, it would be a little problematic especially when I call them. I wouldn't know if the mic is coming from my handset or headset at first. I would have to toggle back and forth to see where it was coming from and if I toggle, I wouldn't hear them in the bluetooth headset until I toggle back. It can be even worse in a car bluetooth system when calling and answering calls.

Well, the good thing is that it at least works with a little bit more effort. I hope my tests and be of some use to help figure out the bug.

[FONGO_steve]

djc - thank you for the feedback about the results on your device.