Can you use wireless bluetooth headphones using Librem 5?

Hi I am considering buying the librem phone

Can you listen to music via wireless / Bluetooth headphones?

Can it run Spotify? What about WhatsApp?

Many thanks,
T

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You can use Bluetooth headphones for listening, but the Bluetooth microphone currently doesn’t work.

You can use Spotify as a web app through its web player. It may be possible to use WhatsApp through Anbox, but it has to be tested. There is also the possibility of connecting to WhatsApp through a XMPP-WhatsApp bridge. See these two methods:


It is probably better to wait until early adopters have tried this stuff, so you might want to wait a couple months and ask again when more people have the phone. The Librem 5 still has software issues to resolve (like getting the cameras and suspend-to-RAM to work), so don’t expect it to be an immediate replacement for your current phone.

If you are sure that you want the phone, then it isn’t a problem to buy it today and wait for the updates, because the phone has lifetime software updates. However, if you aren’t sure that you want the phone, then you should probably wait six months until the software is more polished before deciding whether to buy or not.

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Thanks for the reply. Another quick question- is there some kind of quicker automated way of transferring contacts from IOS Contacts app into a librem phone? Or wld you have to manually type in / input each contact into the phone?

The L5 has an app called Contacts Importer, which allows you to load a .vcf file exported from another phone:



This was a very smooth process for me. I exported from an Android. I’m not familiar with the iPhone, but I’m assuming there is a way to export contacts…?

I’m hopeful that Purism is working on a way to import contacts directly from the SIM card, too.

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I’ve tested bluetooth headphones, and they connect fine and stay connected even when I’m walking around the house, including upstairs while the phone is downstairs. I haven’t tried in my car yet, but will do so.

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Apple makes it difficult to escape from the Apple ecosystem aka prison.

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Sheesh! :neutral_face: Prison indeed! No wonder my iphonic friend’s eyes glaze over when I talk about performing simple functions!

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If you have Microsoft Windows?

I’d sooner type all my hundreds of contacts by hand! Lol!

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Looks like you can export from iCloud:

The L5’s Contacts Importer app should be able to handle that.

Who knew Apple would provide an escape hatch? :rofl:

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iCloud??? I would sooner type all my hundreds of contacts by hand! :slight_smile:

Seriously, no, I am not going to upload all my contacts for Apple and who-knows-who-else to keep forever. (Fortunately I already have most of them in a text file on a Linux computer and I should be able to massage that into whatever format the L5 wants.)

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I tested a pair of Skullcandy (hate that name!) Sesh Evo wireless earbuds today, with success. Sweet!

However, trying to answer a call was somewhat problematic and unsuccessful. Will investigate further and report back.

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You probably have to change the Bluetooth profile from A2DP to HFP/HSP to get the microphone working over bluetooth. This is a bit problematic on Linux currently due to HFP/HSP having very bad audio quality and improving it has been in the works for a while but the work is not yet finished (and there’s been quite a lot of drama regarding the changes).

Take a look at the pulseaudio gitlab for more info, you can build the WIP patches yourself if you want it working, but it’s a hassle.

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The contacts importer script is a stopgap solution that I personally hope that we get rid of soon.

The best way to solve this for GNOME contacts to add support to import contacts from a vcard file: there is a ticket open about it:

And an incomplete merge request:

Anyone that contributes to that is most welcome

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Also just a small nitpick, the contacts importer script also supports importing contacts via bluetooth. So you can “just” send the vcard file from another device via bluetooth to the Librem 5, you have a pop up notification that you received a file, and are asked if you want to open it, and if you press open, your contacts in the vcard file are imported.

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that would be a carddav (nextcloud), or vcard, but since GNOME contacts uses Evolution Data Server as a backend, you might be able to import from other file formats using maybe syncevolution:

These are column fields you need to make a csv with your contacts in a format that Evolution Data Server Expects.

name_title
given_name
middle_name
family_name
name_suffix
full_name
nickname
email_1
email_2
email_3
email_4
wants_html
business_phone
home_phone
business_fax
pager
mobile_phone
Home Address
Home Address2
Home Address City
Home Address State
Home Address PostCode
Home Address Country
Business Address
Business Address2
Business Address City
Business Address State
Business Address PostCode
Business Address Country
title
office
org
homepage_url
caluri
Birth Year
Birth Month
Birth Day
note

I could have made that list prettier in a table but my markdown kung fu is not in shape this morning

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vCard looks doable, probably with some awk-fu. Do you know what version of vCard?

I think that in the interests of getting this up and running quickly I would avoid the additional effort in setting up CardDAV i.e. no online/shared access.

you should be ok with: VERSION:3.0

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Did you ever get this to work? I find that Bluetooth works for audio playback on Pinephone Mobian Phosh, but no option in Calls or the Sound Settings to use Bluetooth.