Bluetooth Speaker and headphones with OS 10.4.11 on a iBook G3 or G4?

[macjunkie2013]

I am looking to pair a bluetooth speaker to ether my clamshell G3 (w USB dongle) or my iBook g4 1.42

1. In both cases the bluetooth detects various, non Keyboard and mouse, devices including the speaker (Anker Soundcore) but always asks for a passkey (not needed nor supplied)
2. I have tried all the settings, but other than detection, says paired, but will actually connect.
3. I tried various recommended keys, eg. 0000, 1234, 000000
4. Both G3 and G4 work fine with bluetooth mouse.
5. Maybe the dongle is too new?

What options are there for wireless speakers and headphones for old macs?

 

[macjunkie2013]

I found something called

Softick Audio Gateway for Mac OS X. (link is dead, try https://macdownload.informer.com/audiogateway/ )

OSX 10.4+ needs a A2DP audio driver for bluetooth. Apparently Softick Audio Gateway provides that?

More discussions here tho:

Paired, but not Connected Bluetooth - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

A2DP (Stereo bluetooth) on Mac OS Tiger (10.4) - (1)

If you are still using Mac OS Tiger (10.4) and haven't upgraded to Leopard (10.5), there are two workaround solutions to get A2DP (stereo bl...

linkopia.blogspot.com

 

[macjunkie2013]

Intel 10.4 only?

Stereo Bluetooth Profile (A2DP) on Mac OS X Tiger with Jack Audio

The tutorial below is outdated and should not be attempted. If you want A2DP, upgrade to Leopard. Low latency Stereo Bluetooth Audio is now possible on tiger thanks to Tim Hewett’s a2dpcast which uses Jack for recording from the system mixer or indeed any specific coreaudio application. To use...

blog.david.connolly.name

 

[staso28]

I've never tried it with Tiger, only with Leopard, but my exprience is, that bluetooth headphones are unusable. It was quite easy to connect via bluetooth, but when listening to music the playback was interrupted every few seconds. It looked like the machine has not enough power to feed the music to the headphones. I've tried it on several G4 machines and even on my 2GH dual core G5 - none of them could handle it....

 

[Dronecatcher]

I connected a Powerbook with it's native Bluetooth to a Soundbar but the results were awful - I had to look up some Terminal commands to improve fidelity (slightly) but then dropouts occurred. You might have luck with a dongle with dedicated drivers?

 

[macjunkie2013]

Thanks for responding, sadly it looks like PPC mac cannot manage wireless audio streaming. 🥲

Has anyone tried Sorbet Leopard w bluetooth audio?

Maybe Airplay...?

 

[Alexis Trinquet]

Perhaps one of those 3.5mm jack to Bluetooth dongles could work? Granted you'd lose the audio jack but at least you could get a Bluetooth speaker connected.

 

[eyoungren]

My experience with a 17" PowerBook running Leopard and a Harmon Kardon louspeaker and a different portable BT speaker over the years has been hit and miss. Switching from the internal BT to a USB BT stick didn't really help.

At the times I was able to get things to work, it was smooth. But if I had to disconnect for some reason and then reconnect later all bets were off. Most of the time it just started skipping or jerking during playback. Typically I found things to be the absolute worst whenever there was hard drive access. Since most of the time there is hard drive access then most of the time there were problems.

The HK speaker I have is circa 2015 and the portable speaker is something like 2018 I think. Both fairly old by today's standards but 12 to 15 years beyond my 2003 PowerBook.

I just chalked it up to the speakers being too new and started streaming music from my 2009 Minis instead. It's bit of a rock and a hard place. Either find really old speakers that will work or a newer adapter. If you go with a newer adapter though, you run the risk of it not working with the older Mac.

 

[macjunkie2013]

Perhaps one of those 3.5mm jack to Bluetooth dongles could work? Granted you'd lose the audio jack but at least you could get a Bluetooth speaker connected.

Your suggestion works perfectly, thank you.
I bought this:

Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter Receiver for TV to Bluetooth Headset, Low Latency Bluetooth Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Jack, Plug and Play, Power by USB, for Car Speaker, Home Stereo, TV/PC,Headphone

Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter Receiver for TV to Bluetooth Headset, Low Latency Bluetooth Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Jack, Plug and Play, Power by USB, for Car Speaker, Home Stereo, TV/PC,Headphone

www.amazon.com

Fits great and has good range.

 

[eyoungren]

Your suggestion works perfectly, thank you.
I bought this:

Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter Receiver for TV to Bluetooth Headset, Low Latency Bluetooth Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Jack, Plug and Play, Power by USB, for Car Speaker, Home Stereo, TV/PC,Headphone

Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter Receiver for TV to Bluetooth Headset, Low Latency Bluetooth Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Jack, Plug and Play, Power by USB, for Car Speaker, Home Stereo, TV/PC,Headphone

www.amazon.com

Fits great and has good range.

I just went and bought what you linked to. Would love to have my 17" PowerBook actually using the loudspeaker in my garage with no issues. Thanks for posting that!

 

[swamprock]

I just went and bought what you linked to. Would love to have my 17" PowerBook actually using the loudspeaker in my garage with no issues. Thanks for posting that!

I'm glad I saved my Belkin external BT transmitter/receiver dongle when I bought a new car three years ago. I used one with my old car stereo and didn't need it for my new one. It works great on every old Mac I've used it on, including my Wallstreets.

 

[macjunkie2013]

I just went and bought what you linked to. Would love to have my 17" PowerBook actually using the loudspeaker in my garage with no issues. Thanks for posting that!

Cool let us know how it goes?

FYI: I tried several and they all worked the same, so I chose the smallest and cheapest one. 🤪

 

[eyoungren]

Cool let us know how it goes?

FYI: I tried several and they all worked the same, so I chose the smallest and cheapest one. 🤪

So, the device arrived today. Just for testing purposes I have the PowerBook on my desk inside the house. Once I figured out how this is all supposed to work the device had no issue connecting to my BT Soundbar.

Quite some time since I last opened Songbird, but this is why I use this app on my PowerBook (instead of iTunes) and Nightingale on my Intel Macs. Songbird is adding all the music that's been placed on my NAS since it was last opened. Hooray for music libraries in ONE location!



And…we are streaming the Homeworld (game) soundtracks to the soundbar without issue!



@Alexis Trinquet thanks for the suggestion and @macjunkie2013 thanks for posting what you bought!

I should no troubles streaming to the loudspeaker in the garage!

PS…17" PowerBook G4, 1.0Ghz with 2GB ram, 128GB SSD. Silent!