bluetooth audio request

[Eddie]

I have a Boombotix BB2 speaker and right now I use the audio out cable and it works great. But then I am tied down... What do I need to do to write my own or request to have the code developed so that I can use the bluetooth as audio out to this device.  Would also be nice so that when I want to play mp3 skateboarding I could send them from the pandora.

 

[edgex004]

I've gotten bluetooth audio working in the past. It all depends on the player you are using. If I remember correctly exaile worked for me.

It takes a bit of work to configure all of the correct files, but it should still be doable. There are several threads I used to get mine working and I will link you to them once I dig them up. Even setting up keyboard shortcuts to turn BT audio on and off was fairly simple.

After that it all comes down to the player, and recently I've read that there are a few that work.

[EDIT]

Here's a recent thread, but not the one I was active in a few years back:

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/9734-mostly-solved-installation-of-xmms-and-bluetooth-settings/

I succeeded with exaile and a one or two line modification of .asoundrc. Their method looks to be similar. If I can find the files for my keyboard shortcut and such I will post them for you.

 

[levi]

On the wiki there's a link to a thread documenting how to configure Bluetooth A2DP (assuming this speaker speaks that language) on HF4. No idea if the same trick is needed on the latest OS, but more recent posts in that thread seem to suggest not much has changed, and getting all audio to go out via A2DP is not something the Pandora can do yet. But yeah, specific players should be possible to get working.


Edit: edgex004's link looks more recent to me. If it proves for be more useful, perhaps we can get the wiki updated (or perhaps I'll even do it, if I remember).

 

[Eddie]

Thanks guys, after google search for BoomBoxit BB2 AD2P it appears that this device does indeed use the A2DP [stereo audio] and with the correct player I should be able to play music audio files to the boombox. I am interested in sending the audio for the PSX emulator and SNES emulator to it as well. Mainly the SNES because there is a long line of titles I want to enjoy and I noticed there is no option to control the audio "streams/channels" sepratly. So sometimes the sound effects are to quite with headphones on compared to the music level, but when connected to the BoomBoxit BB2 the sound is very nice, plus I can turn it up beyond the default. With the PSX emulator I notice that sound seems to be in one ear more then the other with headphones and makes the experence not as enjoyable. I do not notice this with the BoomBox as it seems to combine all sound channels as it only has one speaker.

After searching some more I found this http://fosswire.com/post/2008/01/a2dp-stereo-linux/ he list a bash script. I am interested in looking through it and compairing it to the above steps, not sure if it will work with them emulators or not.

After reading sript it lead me to his website were I found this http://fosswire.com/post/2009/06/pulseaudio-bluez-screencast/  I searched the panda files and do not see PulseAudio Bluez, what do I need to do to get this to work on the pandora?

 

[mcobit]

Do you use an apple headset? Because of the non standard pinout, it will have bad sound until you press the button on it.


Please try with normal stereo headphones.

 

[levi]

My reading of the linked threads may not be comprehensive (I don't have this problem personally, sorry), but I seem to remember that only a couple of music players works, and at least one of the SNES emulators explicitly couldn't be configured to use A2DP.


It's a shame no one's been able to come up with a way to be able to redirect all audio over bluetooth, but every Linux distribution I've ever used has had too many ways to handle sound and too obscure configurations for the same, and quite a lot that explicitly can't be made to work, so if the Pandora had a rational sound configuration it'd be quite remarkable.

 

[Eddie]

It is not an apple product. iFrogz’s Vertex headphones http://www.zagg.com/ifrogz/headphones/vertex-headphones-dj-on-over-ear-mic?utm_source=shopping&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=zagg (warcraft2)

His last link has a video were the PulseAudio + Bluez is able to redirect all audio output over bluetooth with limited config.

So I am looking to port/complile PulseAudio to the pandora. http://pandorawiki.org/Porting_guide

I'm not yet sure if the Bluez is required, and if it is, how to get the two working together. Also this will be my first linux port so it may take me a long time (if someone eles that has the knowhow wants to hit it)

  But I have programed in C and use an Arduino, so I can proably figure it out when I get some time.

It appears that this would work as a one stop, stream all audio over bluetooth solution. (in the instance that it performs like it does on other linux boxes)

Reading the PulseAudio site (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Download) It states that typically PulseAudio would be provided by your OS distribution. As PulseAudio forms part of what is typically preferred to as the plumbing layer of Linux userspace, it is a non-trivial job to integrate it fully to form a complete system. This is why we strongly encourage you to go via your distribution whenever possible.

 

[edgex004]

The post linked from the wiki that Levi provided contains the method I used.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/1244-how-well-is-bluetooth-audio-working/#entry23104

I used this + exaile and BT audio worked perfectly.

In regards to pulseaudio and bluez, I'm not sure how many people still use the angstrom repos, but that always used to be my first stop when looking for dependancies:

http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/repo/?pkgname=pulseaudio

http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/repo/?pkgname=bluez4

I believe armv7a is what you are looking for.

The video didn't show up for me, but the FOSSwire link you gave mentions pavucontrol, which isn't on the angstrom repos. However I believe there is a package for debian, so you could use a debian extend or maybe try running slackware.

Once I get my pandora back into working condition (actaully waiting for link to provide more 1GHz upgrades) I will work on this with you. I am at best a linux amatuer and don't even have a pandora to try this out with.

 

[Eddie]

I wonder if those angstrom repos will work, I just got debian installed so I can start expermenting with the cross compliler. Thanks for the links, and anyhelp would be great, I'm studying for the Linux+ cert so I need to complie some programs from source. The first link, some say it dosnt work for snes and that's really my gaming system of choice, although a lot of that depends on what you grew up with  . I hope you get your pandora soon, I really like mine.  I purchased from Link and delivery was fast and he was very supportive.   Currenty working 5, 12hr days a week so I will mess with this on my spare time.

*Still working on this.. I do not understand why Debian would include a compiler gcc 4.3 when the kernel was compiled with 4.2  uughhh...  Hopefully will get some time to test once I can get all the stuff working on my laptop

*Wow, I got started on another project and ran down a rabbit hole with it.. Anyways, I learned some stuff and now I'm considering setting up the os on a SD card boot so that I can add packages to the os without having to worry about the nand limit. Looks like it would be easyer to back up and restore it as a testing environment this way.

 

[lingenfr]

As most of the other bluetooth/A2DP threads are old, I thought I would post here. I got BT/A2DP working with Gnome Mplayer and my UConnect system in my car. Works fine. Controls aren't very conducive to driving, but it works. In another thread, someone asked for a script to switch alsa devices so I thought I would share mine.

---

#!/bin/bash
# Script to enable bluetooth sound output for devices
#
# You need to create .asoundrc.<device> files for each device with the device MAC

echo "(1) OT Tag - Earbuds or (2) Uconnect - Jeep or (3) Internal"
echo -n "Which sound device do you want? "
read device
# rm .asoundrc
if [ "$device" = "1" ];then
    cp .asoundrc.otbttag .asoundrc
elif [ "$device" = "2" ];then
    cp .asoundrc.uconnect .asoundrc
elif [ "$device" = "3" ];then
    cp .asoundrc.internal .asoundrc
fi
echo "Your sound device is set to $device"
echo "Don't forget to set your sound device to alsa in your application"
#end of script

---

So I have asoundrc files, one for each device in my case, my OT Bluetooth Tags (headphones), the UConnect system in my car and the P's speakers. Hopefully you get the idea. For all you real programmers, there are certainly more elegant ways but this works. You can modify this script for however many devices you have. My guess is that it will work for any player that uses alsa and is installed on the nand. I don't think it will work for anything. Althought Deadbeef is uses alas, it won't work from SD. Would be nice if this could be a lot easier. Next nifty step might be to integrate this with the bluetooth applet to allow you to switch from there and set up a profile for each device that only included the MAC address.

 

[Wally]

Would be nice if this worked in all applications and automatically by changing a setting pane in the control panel