Hi,
Through a Christmas ordering frenzy I ended-up with 2 Sony bluetooth radios (think Dr.Dre Beats “The Pill”).
Instead of coming with a remote, you control it with your phone. So I paired one and then the other one, since it is the same model of Sony of course, the same info populates in my Bluetooth menu. I then renamed them thinking maybe my phone considered these to be the same connection, but no, not the problem I guess.
When I try to connect the second device it warns me it will end my session with the first connection. My phone specs say that is has Bluetooth v3.0, A2DP, EDR. I’m thinking the issue (if resolvable) should be resolved from the phone side.
My question is, Does Bluetooth v3.0 support multiple streams of music transmission? I checked Wikipedia, but no simple answers. Is there a way to push music from my phone via Bluetooth to 2 separate Bluetooth receivers so that music would come from both at the same time?
Short answer is that you’re going to be out of luck.
I’ve seen some mixed info as to whether or not Bluetooth is capable of doing this (multicasting audio streams from one source), but it seems pretty universal that devices don’t support doing it even if it might be possible. I was able to locate references to Android apps claiming to do it, but nobody reporting success with such apps.
It’s interesting that the actual Beats “Pills” can be wirelessly paired to each other so that both play the same BT stream (either both mono or one playing the left channel and other the right.) Not sure how they make that happen.
It’s a second connection. Not sure if they use bluetooth or a seperate wireless connection, but basically you have a situation where the mobile device sends the audio to speaker 1, speaker 1 processes it and sends it to speaker 2. The mobile device itself likely has no awareness of speaker 2.
Yes, it’s possible to have one audio source connecting to multiple sinks, but your streaming device has to support that feature, which I doubt your phone does. (It’s normally used in home theatre multi-speaker sets.)
If you purchase a separate bluetooth multi-streamer device to connect to your phone, you can have both sets of speakers to play the from the same audio source.
Thank you for the lead Saturn Dreams, I’ll look into the pricing. Funny how such things are not yet possible with Bluetooth being on the cusp of IP address networking. It was always my assumption that it was one of the points of BT to make multiple outputs occur from just one source as long as it was in a small proximity. To have to add an additional “link” in this chain of connectivity boggles my mind.
Hm, I’m not sure where you got that assumption but BT was never about “multiple outputs from one source”. Multiple device pairings yes, but most devices can only handle one-to-one (unique) service.
If you can interpret the meaning of my words you quoted then why are you splitting hairs about the way I said it? It’s exactly what I meant and well, Android and iOS based devices really changed the face of one-to-one connections. Once you inject an operating system capable of managing this technology and not have OEM based nodes working with each other it’s really no stretch (potentially) to link more than one receiver simultaneously.
However, that’s where my argument falls apart, because while more than one connection has become a staple of BT technology, more than one connection at the same time has not been so popular. I’m certain BT will reach a point where this is a native function. Unless of course progress finds a better technology that is cheaper and easier that fills the same need.
Differentiating multi-streaming (output) and multi-connections is not splitting hairs. They are two totally different functions, (which you have seemed to combine). BT has never been able to make multiple “outputs” and was never intended to stream to multiple devices simultaneously, no matter what your arbitrary assumptions were based on. You need a splitter/transmitter to do that, which I recommended to you. On the other hand, having multiple connected devices hasn’t “become a staple of BT technology” – It’s been a core standard right from the beginning of BT.
I have no idea what this means. “Inject an operating system capable of managing this technology”? “OEM based nodes”? WTH are you going on about?
Whether multi-streaming becomes a native BT function, only time will tell, but my money is on no. Its uses are limited and narrow. And if you think about power management especially for mobile devices, there are bigger battery priorities than multi-streaming.
Bluetooth 4.2 was released on December 2nd 2014. It Introduces some key features for IOT and is a hardware update.[63] But some older Bluetooth hardware will receive some Bluetooth 4.2 features, such as privacy updates via firmware.[64]
The major areas of improvement are:
LE Data Packet Length Extension
LE Secure Connections
Link Layer Privacy
Link Layer Extended Scanner Filter Policies
**IP connectivity for Bluetooth Smart devices will soon be available via the new Internet Protocol Support Profile (IPSP).
IPSP will add an IPv6 connection option for Bluetooth Smart, making it ideal for connected home and other IoT implementations.**
Bluetooth 4.2 transfers data even faster by increasing the capacity of the Bluetooth Smart packets.
Bluetooth Smart gets smarter with industry-leading privacy settings that not only lower power consumption but also make it difficult for eavesdroppers to track a device through the Bluetooth connection without permission.
A consumer can have higher confidence they aren’t being tracked by beacons or anything else
Look Saturn Dreams, again thank you for the lead. The simple fact is, I don’t have patience to argue points whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong. I honestly don’t care enough to do this. I know what I’m saying, and I did the research into the standard. I’m glad there was simple answer and you were the reason that came about, but this site wears me out.
Everybody has to run their mouth and tear every shred of credibility from those that do not triple-check the words used in their statements. Everyone seems to get a damn hard-on from from mentally thrashing the OP or each other instead of being a bit more forgiving in demeanor . If I didn’t need answers so bad I’d never come back to this damn place, but of course give all the intellect to the assholes. I guess smart assholes still beat dumb/ignorant assholes so of course I’ll be back here again for another round of this @$&#^.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve been a Bluetooth developer - the last stack I wrote was when the in 2000 or so…but I thought you could open SCO connections to multiple devices simultaneously and stream whatever you wanted over them. Am I remember incorrectly? I know you could do it over ACL connections if you wanted to.
Well, I am not an engineer, but from what I know, all SCO connections are point-to-point. Each device (both master and slave) can support multiple links simultaneously but not be active. In practice, what this means is, you can have one headset connected to both a home phone and a work phone at the same time, (as long as the headset supports this protocol) but will only take calls one at a time. It’s possible to have one phone connected to two headsets as well, but the practical need for this is very limited. Even then, you would only be able to transmit voice to one of the headsets, not both at the same time.
Technically speaking, by spec, the master can have multiple connections open effectively simultaneously (give or take a few microseconds). I believe there is enough bandwidth to have SCO connections to two devices, although I’d have to look it up to make sure I’m not remembering.
Also, it’s perfectly possible to stream data over ACL connections, and I’m positive the master can do that to multiple slaves. In fact, it could broadcast it to multiple slaves if it wanted to.
It’s much more difficult for a slave to do this, because it involves following the clock of two different masters.
Now, from a profile and real world perspective, I don’t know if many (or any) devices actually use this. The spec, like many specs in engineering, allow for lots and lots of things that people don’t really do.
So basically I’m agreeing with your conclusion - it isn’t done - but for the sake of completeness (and SDMB pedantry), disagreeing with the statement that BT was never intended to be able to do it.