Hi all. I’ve got HA-OS running on a Pi5. Managed to get bluetooth connected to a Bose speaker but the range was terrible and it wasn’t possible to move the onboard antenna.
I had a read through the suggested chipsets and found nothing newer than Bluetooth 4 seems to be supported and even then, some need some extra setup. I’ve tried a cheap CSR based bluetooth dongle and it worked but the range was terrible, the quality and volume degraded (or even stopped completely) like analogue radio if you walked between the dongle and the speaker. It’s not near the wifi point in the house and I’ve tried separating it from zigbee and RFX antennae. A phone’s bluetooth to the speaker is bang-on so I don’t think it’s environmental.
I have managed to find a Feasycom BP119 with external antenna for sale but it’s £35. Question is, will it make any difference or am I just trying to do something that’s doomed to failure?
Internal bluetooth on PI’s is terrible. It fights with all the interference. It is often always suggested to use a good external dongle and use a meter or more extension cable.
I think the mfgr’s intention is to use it for a keyboard mouse and thats about it.
Thanks. So you think a better dongle like the Feasycom is likely to be much better than the cheap no-name dongle with internal antenna? I’ve already got an extension through the wall with a 3-port usb hub on the end. That has my ZigBee antenna and RFXCom attached. I did try and extension from there to get separation and I did try and extension direct off the Pi in case I was demanding too much over one USB2 port.
Meant to say originally that I’m using the Spotify Connect add-on as the source and that the distance between dongle and Bluetooth speaker is 3m with a direct line of sight apart from the cupboard door being closed over the dongle (wood only and still didn’t work with it open).
I do also have a Bluetooth controlled string of LEDs upstairs that it would be nice to control but that’s definitely a would be nice rather than a must!
Just for the record…no, it doesn’t improve the sound quality. With a Feasycom and it’s external antenna I do get better range for picking up every young driver with their insurance iBeacon…but that’s not a lot of help. I can now add the UniLED controller and add my son’s LED strip to the system. This may earn me as much as an “Uugh.”!
But in terms of Bluetooth audio, no it didn’t help. There’s probably a bit more range but there’s a persistent crackle even at point blank. I wonder if it’s the volume of other traffic going to/from the Bluetooth controller. It’s constantly reporting (if you use bluetoothctl in an SSH terminal) the signal strength of everything in range so it could be that it’s time-slicing between different tasks and not managing to keep up a stream.
For those wanting to try it, you need a source of sound (I’m using the Spotify Connect add-in) and the Terminal & SSH add-in.
Open the terminal.
bluetoothctl
list [show bluetooth controllers and their address]
select DC:0D:30:50:00:C1 [address of bluetooth controller if you have more than one]
scan on [start scanning for devices]
pair 08:DF:1F:AA:D5:03 [pair with address of your speaker]
scan off [stop scan]
trust 08:DF:1F:AA:D5:03 [trust the speaker to reconnect?]
connect 08:DF:1F:AA:D5:03 [connect to it]
Does this happen before or after you play the music on the phone and then select the pi-ha host as the output?
Also looking that up; someone tested disabling the pi’s wifi and leaving only the BT on which fixed that crackling issue but I am not sure if you can do this through HA for testing (I will need to reinstall HA on my pi3 to check next I get a new BT speaker unless someone else already has more info).
I think the crackle is in the stream of music rather than being there when no music is being played. I think that’s what you’re asking. I can’t honestly claim I specifically tested it but I think that’s accurate.
I did disable the Pi Bluetooth in HA in Settings > Integrations > Bluetooth > Three dots > Disable.
Not sure if that’s enough - I didn’t disable it in hardware nor reboot after doing this.
The wlan interface down in the post you refer to is interesting though. I’m not using wifi on the Pi - it’s connected and powered by ethernet (PoE) but it might be worth trying to down the wlan interface and see if it makes any difference.