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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Bluetooth Headphones: Threat or Menace?

I love my Jabra bluetooth headphones both on the go and sitting at my desk; not having cables wrapped around your neck is incredible. But I've wasted hours with the common "paired but won't connect" error after the PC wakes from sleep (often having to pop the case and un/plug the usb header on the bluetooth module to get it working). It works pretty reliably on my android potato. Did I just buy a shitty wifi+bluetooth card, or is there some better alternative entirely?

I'm nervous of USB dongles, because I've had really awful static interference from them before, albeit on an old case with badly shielded headphone jacks next to the ports.

@FiveHourMarathon @aqouta Sorry for the ping, but this is basically a reply to both your comments about earbuds in the thread below.

I mainly use Sennheiser brand ear buds and headsets. They can sometimes have had the problem where the connect but then don't actually take over the audio for desktop but not phone. I suspect it's frequently caused by the fight my phone and desktop get into over who gets to control the headset. I've found turning my phone bluetooth off when using my desktop bluetooth helps. as for dongle I had used a cheaper desktop one for a while but have switched to this one which gives me much better range through multiple walls allowing me to continue, with some slight quality loss, listening to my basement desktop from the second story of my house. One strange thing that tends to cause me audio problems is the spotify desktop app sometimes spins up a bunch of weird process that need to be killed and those processes seem to hold the audio hostage or something.

Thanks, that dongle's cheap enough that it's worth a try just to ditch this awful PCI card.