Friday, 27 July 2012

Problems with MacBook and Bluetooth speakers

I recently bought a Bluetooth speaker (Creative D100), and was really annoyed about how badly it worked with my Macbook. As soon as the sound stopped for a little while (even 30 seconds), the pairing would drop and the Mac wouldn’t be able to reestablish it on its own, and would start playing sounds from the embedded speakers. I had to reconnect the speakers manually a few times before they’d start working again.

Conversely, on my Android phone they work very smoothly - the pairing would start as soon as I enable the Bluetooth.

After a little bit of googling, I found the solution. It helped a lot, although I have the impression the connection isn’t quite as smooth as with my Android phone yet. But then, I haven’t tried it much so I might be wrong.

For the lazy who don’t want to click the link:

  1. Find the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent and double click on it. It should open on the plist editor.
  2. Change the value “Apple Bitpool Min (editable)” to 50.
  3. Save and close.

That’s it. Should this cause problems, just follow the same steps again and change the value back to the original (35 I think, or whatever it was on your system).

Edit: Mountain Lion seems to have solved these issues.