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Mac as Bluetooth Headset?

ipedro

ipedro

macrumors 604
Original poster
Hey everybody. As much of a mac-head as I am, I'm sad to report that Windows has a one up on us when it comes to Bluetooth support.

When receiving a call from a phone paired with your Mac via Bluetooth, you are able to pick up or decline the call from your screen.

In Windows, you can use your PC as a headset. Your speakers work as they would on your cell and your PC's mic picks up your voice.

Why is this not possible on a Mac? Apple is so Pro-Bluetooth, I'm surprised they've overlooked this.

This technology is known as "Voice Gateway". I've googled "Voice Gateway OS X" and I've come up blank. No idea when Apple will implement this. Anybody?
 
So basically there is a set of bluethooth services that the mac os doesnt provide, I checked out BluePhoneElite but it doesnt support a lot of features either, due to limitations with the mac os bluethooth services... I would bring it up at the apple support forums, let apple know we want them to update their bluetooth stack.
 
Bluetooth

If you are willing to downgrade your bluetooth firmware you can do headsets on the mac. There was a time when headsets were enabled with bluetooth headset support. I don't remember the firmware revision now but a little research would tell you what it was. If you really need it I bet it is in my archives. You can downgrade it. I know because I did it on a Panther tiger machine when I was playing with trying to run voice commands with a headset. It did not work but regular headset functions did.
 
pheidius said:
If you are willing to downgrade your bluetooth firmware you can do headsets on the mac. There was a time when headsets were enabled with bluetooth headset support. I don't remember the firmware revision now but a little research would tell you what it was. If you really need it I bet it is in my archives. You can downgrade it. I know because I did it on a Panther tiger machine when I was playing with trying to run voice commands with a headset. It did not work but regular headset functions did.
Click to expand...
I think you got a little confused. Or maybe I did.
I think the OP wants to use the Mac as a headset for the phone, not a headset for sound input on the Mac (which you can do with iChat, but I don't think system wide works.)
 
yo somebody figure this out. It would be tight to use my computer as my headset. My computers always closer to my cellphone then my bluetooth headset.
 
car use

yeah this would also be a sweet feature for people that have been installing mac minis in their cars. http://www.macvroom.com/ i've been thinking of putting a mac in my car, and it's unfortunate that the mac for whatever reason does not allow you to use bluetooth in this way.
 
huh?

maybe I'm too sleepy to understand wht you really want to do, but I have one of these:
daoconbleutooth100.jpg

http://www.elaconta.pt/prod/1524
one of these:
28131640.JPG

http://shop.pcmag.com/shop/product/Nokia+HS26+Wireless++Headset/28131640.aspx

plugged into a mac USB keyboard hub on a G4 Powermac, with OS X 10.3.9
I use it as mic and speaker for that computer. Actually I wasn't keen on replacing a wired headset for a bluetooth kit... trouble was I could hear people talk to me over skype but they couldn't hear me.

Now what I'd like to find is some quick way of switching the output sources. that way, skype conversations can remain private and music can be loud 🙂
 
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