I’ve finally recently figured out these crazy Sony multi-point headphones that I paid way too much money for (back when I had the money to spend). My situation is probably niche, but maybe typing this out will help someone.

The headphones can connect to multiple devices at the same time, so they’re usually connected to my work laptop and my phone.

My laptop is a Linux host for a Windows VM, and in that configuration if I’m on a Teams call (Teams running on guest, headphones BT paired with host), something will time out and the audio will shut down after a period of time. To avoid that, I have to open the Sound Settings applet to the Recording tab on the guest for the duration of the call.

(Through this process, I also learned that my headphones work in two modes: HQ audio with no mic, or telephonic quality audio with mic. I have to run the latter for Teams, so that means I can only get the HQ audio from my phone in this arrangement.)

The problem I would run into is that I’d open the applet for a Teams meeting, forget to close it after the call, and then later in the day I couldn’t get audio with my phone bc with Windows “listening” (mic icon in system tray), the headphones couldn’t switch to my phone. Maybe it can only switch when the aforementioned modes match? IDK.

Initially I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I’d re-pair with my phone which fixed that problem, but naturally that confused the hell out of my Linux + Windows VM arrangement and I’d have to re-pair there as well the next day.

Obviously the problem was self-inflicted in my case, but I think there are a lot of crappy devices out there with poor BT implementations. Hard to tell which is the case sometimes.

Thinking about this a bit, I could probably improve my situation by sharing the host BT device with the VM as it shows up as a redirectable device in the VMM. Might try that sometime.

Imagine calling the guy who played Dick Jones and Captain Jellico “the evil senator from SG-1”. 😆

Just teasing. Seriously though, he’s great in everything he’s been in. Terrific antagonist.