[nzlug] Bluetooth headsets

[Daniel Pittman]

Robin Sheat <robin at kallisti.net.nz> writes:

> I'm considering getting a bluetooth headset/earpiece thing to work
> with my laptop and Ekiga. Does anyone know much about these, and their
> Linux support? Do they all pretty much work, or do you have to be
> careful in your selection?

In general they vary pretty wildly in quality and performance; search
for general reviews -- but the difference in quality and range is huge.
The comfort of the device over the longer term is also pretty varied.

When I did my research, about a year ago, Platronics headsets were
consistently reviewed better than the competition.  They were reasonably
priced (in .au) in about the middle of the market.[1]

I have an Explorist 510, and I am very satisfied with the audio quality,
comfort for extended wear, battery life and range.


As to Linux: at a BlueTooth level they /mostly/ just work.  The
Plantronics certainly did, being immediately identified and easily
paired with the laptop.

Standard headsets support SCO -- mono voice -- and don't have an ALSA
driver shipped with any distribution that I am familiar with.[2][3]

So, it turns out that Ubuntu Edgy, at least, has all the needed drivers.


Anyway if you need a driver to get this moving you can get it from here:

    http://bluetooth-alsa.sourceforge.net/

The current "best practice" driver is a user-space ALSA driver, no
kernel patching required.  It simply pipes ALSA applications over SCO to
and from the headset.

The older in-kernel method seems to match up to the bluez-btsco tool,
and the appropriate kernel driver is shipped.


So, baring any wilding problems compiling their driver you should be
able to have the headset working pretty easily.

I have not, however, actually tested this myself.

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  Well, except for their absolute top end headset, which was right at
     the top of the price bracket.

[2]  Well, it may have been added to RedHat or SuSE in the last few months.

[3]  ...of course, on checking that I find that Ubuntu Edgy has packaged
     the bluez-btsco tool -- which claims to be able to get voice
     quality audio to and from a headset.

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