I’m looking to buy a good set of headphones, but I remember the Bose issue a few years ago where their app was (and still is) stealing a lot of data. They’ll need to be wireless, a built-in mic and noise cancelling would be good. I don’t want to have to download an app. I’m currently looking at the Sony WH-XB900N.
What has been people’s experience with Bluetooth headsets, Librem hardware, and accessing the features of the headset?
p.s. I’ve ordered the L5 and I hope to get the L14 around Christmas.
The Librem 5 spec sheet says it supports Bluetooth 4 and uses the Redpine Signals RS9116. But looking at Redpine’s website, it says the chips support Bluetooth 5. What is the exact model the Librem 5 uses?
Is it the open source firmware that doesn’t support Bluetooth 5?
I’m using with my Librem 13v4 a Sennheiser MB660. Most times it works excellent - sometimes there is a connection problem which I solve by disabling headphones and bluetooth on the Librem and enable it again.
It came with a usb dongle to connect it to equipment without build-in bluetooth. I use that dongle on my phone at work, but didn’t try it with my Librem.
I like the sound when playing music or watching a movie. Using it as a headset with noise cancellation enabled mutes my own voice also and that feels a bit strange :).
When having it connected to my desktop phone and to the notebook the music on the Librem is paused when a call arrives through the phone. I didn’t really find out how this works, but it does not seem to be possible to restart the music after ending the call - except through the command line using the pulse audio tools.
There is an app around, but I never tried it and didn’t miss it, yet.
The headphone now connect a little less good than before (judged by feeling).
Today I tried to use them in headset mode (when I turn on the micro the output is reduced to mono and bad quality) and found that the speakers didn’t work anymore.
The Redpine Signals RS9116 supports Bluetooth 5.0 and the FOSS drivers in the Librem 5 are provided by Redpine Signals, so in theory Bluetooth 5.0 should work, but only Bluetooth 4 has been tested and the Librem 5 schematic only mentions Bluetooth 4.1.
Tried back and forth with Asus BT400 USB and different kernels (see the thread about the kernel updates).
In the end I did the following: Plugged in an usb cable between computer and headset (yes, it does not only have an usb port to charge, but it also provides a sound card by usb ) and used it in long calls without any problems.
Yes, not ideal, because with bluetooth I could move around, but from the perspective of privacy and security even better than bluetooth.
) and used it in long calls without any problems.