It’s so frustrating that mono audio+mic has been the norm for so long. The awfully small bit rate for both sink and source channels is just the cherry on top. I have to break out a USB-C DAC with a TRRS connector for discord calls on my tablet, as every manufacturer has done away with internal headphone jacks, just maintain the same audio quality I would have on speakerphone mode.

Android is also pretty frustrating and that you can’t bifurcate your audio syncs and sources. For example on any modern Linux distribution, you can at least direct apps to use your internal laptop microphone by default, and your headphones for full bit rate stereo audio only - to work around and avoid Bluetooth’s ancient HFP protocol. Why Android developers can’t replicate this basic audio muxing is beyond me, but resorting to a device’s internal microphone comes with its own setbacks.

Perhaps that muxing on Android is only possible for Bluetooth headphones without a microphone, but I can’t find any earphone devices that are not also headsets anymore. Just doesn’t seem to be a thing any longer.

I’d like to discover alternative sources if you know any. Most written literature I come across in searches are either technical specifications biased from the Bluetooth consortium, or watered down blog spam of the same consortium’s news releases. Very little in terms of critical analysis or observations of user adoption and real trends in the original equipment manufacturers.

For example, all throughout the news releases of 5.X, no one would discuss if any improvements to bidirectional audio sinks for microphoned headsets were implemented or planned. It’s like the consortium is content keeping us all on phone calls with HFP from the 1990s at bitrates of 64kbps, leaving Discord audio sessions sounding like on-hold music at the DMV.

Yep, this is it…

Thank you so much! Had no idea what that media chip was called. For others, the exact setting path is:

Lock screen and AOD -> Now bar -> Media Player

I was looking through the top level Display settings menu, and didn’t think to look under the lock screen settings. Kind of annoying that I have to disable media controls for the lock screen to disable the flashing animated media chip when the phone is unlocked. Why do they tie the two features together under one setting item?

Interesting! Got a source to learn more about that?

You can use a USB hub dongle which passes through power via USB C with a Google TV (4K) device. That’s what I do for mine to connect it to the rest of my GbE VLAN via wired ethernet connection and avoid Wi-Fi packet drops when streaming or casting 4K HDR content. A dongle is also handy to connect any USB web cam so I can use the TV for large family video calls with the grandparents in the living room, via Android apps like Google Meet or Zoom.

Here is the one I use that also has a combo headphone jack with GbE Ethernet and passthrough charging, so also nice for Moonlight gaming on modern android 120Hz HDR tablets where I don’t want to use low bitrate HFP Bluetooth for discord calls while also listening to game audio and music. Note, when used with the Google TV, I don’t use the USB Hub’s HDMI, opting for the Google TV’s international cord to maintain Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) functionality.

Anker 655 USB-C Hub (8-in-1), with 2 USB-A 10 Gbps Data Ports, 100W Power Delivery, 4K HDMI, 1 Gbps Ethernet, microSD and SD Card Slots, 3.5 mm AUX, for MacBook, and More (Charcoal Gray) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MF6TJLW

Are the two Linux devices on the same IP subnet?
Are any of the other KDE connect features working?

Also, no one like to sit with their back to the walkway corridor, with other guests and staff constantly squeezing past and behind your seat.

It feels like we’re finally, and thankfully, coming full circle. I remember buying my first digital camera in the early 2000s, specifically chosen because it was one of the many that included USB web camera functionality. Aside from downloading the photos on its internal storage, external storage was optional, you could also use the included software to serve as a webcam source.

I can’t remember if it included a microphone, I’m thinking it didn’t. It also ran off on those small stubby film camera batteries, and not off USB power from the cable you connected it to, which was kind of dumb, and made it expensive to use as a webcam. The video quality must have been something around 140p, and any kind of conference call software was garbage back then as well. Yet the premise of a single device having multi-use features was such a no-brainer, given you already had have the PC USB integration to use it as a point and shoot digital camera.

Modern smart phones have such excellent cameras, it felt really odd that you had to use a lot of hacky work arounds and reencoding over network streams to emulate the same functionality that some of the first affordable digital cameras on the market had decades prior. I spend some time looking into weather a custom Linux kernel could be used with Android to emulate the standard USB profile of a UVC camera device, but it’s really nice to hear that this kind of functionality is being pushed through Android mainstream development.

https://github.com/tejado/android-usb-gadget

Guess it only took a pandemic and Apple to showcase the same functionality to spur the core Android development into gear to match feature parity.

The four eyed fish trivolously gives it away, cuz that ain’t no flounder. Also, what cat in its right mind would be stealing a scavenged kill without it tightly secured in its jaws while on the run, let alone clinging a fish to its chest like an anthropomorphic cartoon?

The wide angle composition is kind of cool though, but I prefer photos of real cats.

I do as well. I really appreciate the information density, key bindings, and optional web UI. Although I found if I leave glance is running for a prolonged amount of time, it has a tendency to crash from some python issue I haven’t dissected yet, as it takes so much time to reproduce.