Bluetooth with Windows 8.1 and WP8.1

[Daniel Meek]

So back in the days of Windows 7 and 8 there use to be a cool way to pair your Windows Phone device to Windows as an audio device sort of like a Bluetooth headset as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2_Q_m7hGxs This is basically a way to use a PC or laptop as a conference calling device, or glorified speakerphone, and looks like it would be pretty handy, but the feature appears to be missing in Windows 8.1

I am running Windows Phone 8.1 on a Lumia 920, as well as Windows 8.1 (with Update) on my new Dell XPS 12 laptop. The devices see each other just fine via both WiFi and Bluetooth, and as the laptop has NFC it is very easy to pair and transfer files between both devices. So I think that things are set up right, but where the option is in Windows 7/8 to use the laptop as an audio device, the setting is just plain missing.

This would be a really cool feature if I could make it work... but not cool enough to justify downgrading to Windows 8 and loosing out on the usability features added to Windows 8.1.

Any help you could give would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[jleebiker]

I'm having the same issue. I used to have a Win7 laptop and it would stay connected to the WP all day just fine. I was using it to pipe the audible alerts from the phone to the laptop when I got an alert.

Now, with a new Win8.1 laptop, I can get it to connect momentarily and then it drops. It seems the BT stack more seriously enforces the incidental connection model and only stays connected when needed. The problem with that is does not work for alerts as you need to stay connected.

I would like to know as well, how to keep the phone connected to the BT stack on the Win8.1 laptop continually.

 

[Daniel Meek]

I think this has to do with the BT LE implementation. I have my phone and laptop paired, but the connection is dropped when idle, but then reconnects the moment data is being transferred again without having to go through the whole pairing dance. This allows for much better battery life for both the phone and laptop as it is a sort of 'active idle' connection rather than being active and maintaining the connection at all times.

I wonder if it is the BT LE implementation that breaks the ability to pass audio information between the phone and laptop? Maybe that requires an active connection at all times and the newer devices are allergic to that idea? But then again we have a whole host of BTLE headsets... so surely something could be worked out.

 

[jleebiker]

I'm suspecting the same thing. I was looking at the GT options on the laptop and I was going to fiddle with the power saving options. Right now, when I look at my WP8.1 connected device, it only recognizes it as a file share type device. No audio or headset capabilities.

 

[Daniel Meek]

Well, I suppose it is not the end of the world. I was just hoping that someone had a work-around

 

[T Moore]

It all depends on what BT profiles the laptop has. The BT profile that a stereo headset has for streaming music is called the A2DP profile. If the BT stack in the laptop has this profile you can stream music from the phone just like it was a headset.
The HFP, hands free, profile does the voice audio.

 

[jleebiker]

Hmm... Interesting. On the other laptop I didn't have to do that. When it paired with the WP device, it automatically created it. I'm betting the Lenovo driver isn't as robust as the HP driver. Is there a way to manually create this?

 

[fatclue_98]

I have a Lenovo laptop in my office with 8.1 and when the pairing is done, the device "control panel" pops up just as it did on Windows 7. If you don't pin it to the taskbar, you need to right click on that device in Devices and Printers. There you'll see the functions available as shown on the screenshot provided by the OP in post 1. BTW, all this happens in desktop not Metro. It took me a while to find this so don't feel bad. The only BT profile I've yet to find is MAP and this is troubling because I loved the SMS Editor to send/receive texts from the desktop.