MotoRokr S9 Bluetooth Headphones
Using the MotoRokr S9 Bluetooth Headphones in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
I am able to use my Motorola S9 bluetooth headphones in Hardy after following the same setup steps that I used in Gutsy. I have had them installed for a few days and they are working flawlessly with VLC, Amarok, and Totem. Here’s how I did it:
Install Blueman bluetooth manager from http://blueman.tuxfamily.org/
Get the hardware address of the headphones. With the headphones turned on, they should show up with an address in Blueman, or it should come up via a scan run from the terminal:
$ hcitool scan
Open a text editor and create a file in the home folder with the filename .asoundrc. In the .asoundrc file, paste the lines:
pcm.bluetooth {
type bluetooth
device XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
}
Where XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is the hardware address of the headphones. Open Blueman and click the Inquiry button. Motorola S9 should appear. Click the List Seen button and then highlight Motorola S9 and click the Bond button. If asked for a passkey, enter 0000.
To setup the device for audio, go into the Edit menu and choose Services. Turn on the Audio service and set it to Autostart. Click the Configure button. Add Motorola S9 as the device and connect the Sink option.
After all that, the headphones connect automatically whenever I turn them on in range. However, they still won’t really do anything until I set up my media players to use the bluetooth audio sink.
Amarok
Open Amarok and choose Configure Amarok from the Settings menu. On the Engine tab, set the Engine to xine, set Audio to alsa, and set Stereo to bluetooth. There will be no need to change this setting later, as Amarok will automatically kick back to the normal speakers when bluetooth is not connected.
VLC
For VLC use a text editor to open the configuration file hidden in the home folder, ~/.vlc/vlcrc and enable the alsadev line by deleting the comment symbol # and change the line to:
alsadev=bluetooth
After that VLC will use the device when it is connected and automatically revert to the normal speakers when its not connected.
Totem & Other Gstreamer Apps
A Gstreamer setting will have to be turned on and off through the terminal to switch back and forth between bluetooth and the normal speakers.
Turn it on with:
$ gconftool -t string -s /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/musicaudiosink "alsasink device=bluetooth"
Turn switch back to speakers by running:
$ gconftool -t string -s /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/musicaudiosink "autoaudiosink"
Tip: Create panel launchers for quick click access to these commands.
References
As is typical in working with Linux, I spent a great deal of time reading through a variety of resources to get this complete set of instructions. Thanks to all those posters who shared their ideas and results!
- The settings for Amarok and most other programs can be found at the official Bluez wiki
- I found the VLC configuration way down in the comments of a blog
- I also read through forums here, here, and here
sean said,
September 7, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work at all. I’m trying to get my S9 to work with VLC and Amarok. I can get it to connect properly but no matter what I try I can’t get the audio to be passed over to the headset. It’s as thought the .asoundrc file that I created isn’t doing anything. Any ideas?
sean said,
September 7, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Found a script to automate everything. Check it out
http://fosswire.com/2008/01/11/a2dp-stereo-linux/#comment-20209
griffin said,
September 7, 2008 at 8:26 pm
so i did everything here, and not only do my headphones not work (not a huge concern, because i mainly use them for my phone) but now my speakers won’t play anything in gnome. i basically worked through everything i did backwards, uninstalling blueman and all that, and still can’t get them to work. any ideas?
all2ez said,
September 7, 2008 at 9:31 pm
@sean
I’m not sure why it wouldn’t have worked, I’m glad that script got it going for you. Thanks for the tip, I’ll try that on my other laptop if I ever get around to it.
@griffin
Well, I don’t think any of my steps should have had any effect on the global audio. For me the headphones only affect the first application that connects to them and if the headphones aren’t on, VLC automatically reverts back to the speakers. Perhaps you tried something else before this?
You might try going into System > Preferences > Bluetooth and turn off the audio service. Not sure if that would matter but it’s worth a try. I guess you could reinstall Blueman and do the same there in case it set something in a file that persisted even after you uninstalled it.
Also, I would go into the Volume Control Preferences and check for anything amiss. Look in the File menu under Change Device and make sure that the correct mixer is marked (Mine is 0: HDA Intel (Alsa mixer)). Also check the Preferences in the Edit menu and make sure none of the relevant tracks are muted.
You should also check the settings in whatever program you are using to test the audio and/or be sure to try more than one program. Sorry I know it’s obvious but I don’t know what you’ve already tried. YouTube is good for audio tests.
I know its a long shot but you might also want to hook up some normal wired headphones into the speaker jack to rule out any problems with the speakers.
Michael said,
September 16, 2008 at 9:40 pm
can the S9 be used with the IPOD on the new IPhone 3G??? If so, how. I can use the S9 for the phone pprtion and it works great. Just can’t get it to play the music through the S9….
all2ez said,
September 17, 2008 at 9:02 am
I don’t have an iPhone, but my understanding is that it does not support the A2DP stereo bluetooth used by headphones like the S9. This is reported by Cnet:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9963760-1.html
So most likely you will not be able to use bluetooth headphones natively. However, my S9 headphones came bundled with an iPod specific bluetooth adapter ike the one shown here:
http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=179
It works great with my iPod touch and is probably compatible with the iPhone. If you don’t mind the flashing bulge at the bottom of your phone, shop around for one of those.