Is there a way to connect 2 BT earbuds at the same time?

[dcrandon]

Was wondering if there is anyway around not being able to connect two bluetooth devices "of the same type" to my Nexus 6P?

For example, my wife and I want to listen to an audiobook playing from my Nexus 6P on our own separate bluetooth earbuds. It appears this is not possible.

I know it is possible to connect two bluetooth devices of "different" types, such as earbuds and a wireless keyboard, but it appears you cannot connect two of the "same" type.

Any apps or workarounds for this?

And, is this a limitation of the Nexus 6P? Of the operating system (I am also using Android O beta, and same problem)? Or a limitation of Bluetooth protocol?

 

[anon(238680)]

I believe this is a limitation of both BT and hardware. The BT needs to handshake with whatever it's controlling and establish protocol. With two like devices there is no way for the phone, or each device for that matter, to know what the controls are as they get mixed between the two devices. Hope that makes sense. Kind of like dealing with the old serial devices and protocols.

Now, that being said, I have an app on my phone that works with two separate BT speakers to control them in stereo mode, but the app is particular to those speakers. Maybe there's one out there that deals with buds?

 

[maverick7526]

no unfortunately not. unless your have BT 5.0 like on a S8/+ then you can stream to multiple devices.

 

[amyf27]

I know I can be connected to Bluetooth headphones and my watch

 

[dty06]

I know I can be connected to Bluetooth headphones and my watch

True, but can you output sound to both devices? I think you can connect to both because they each have different capabilities. One is for sound output (possibly input depending on the device) and the other is for notifications and other connectivity services. I think bluetooth will allow you to connect to multiple devices if they don't have an overlap in capability.

 

[PGrey]

You can't, unless it's a different stream (not the same type of audio), associated with the 2nd device, it's typically have to be a hack of sorts.

BT is a 1-1, per class.

There are lots of good BT receivers out there though, that support multiple headphones, I use a couple when traveling. Handy too, if you just want to use a different (plugged) headset.

They're pretty small, but mine get 8 and 12 hours, respectively, and relatively cheap (the budget one I have was 20, the one with two headphone outputs is a bit more, volume rocker and all, 45).

 

[goadamn]

Not sure if it'll work, as it might be tied to local LAN speakers, but the app Whaale allows you to connect to multiple external speakers at once. That might be a work around

 

[GSDer]

Not sure if it'll work, as it might be tied to local LAN speakers, but the app Whaale allows you to connect to multiple external speakers at once. That might be a work around

This is what the description for that application says (in part): "Bluetooth speakers are NOT supported."

 

[xisruno]

If you use Bose their software allows 2 Bose headphones to work.