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My mum wanted to play some music from my desktop computer on her stereo(which doesnt have usb support but has stereo jack audio input) - and I was looking for reasons to hack stuff.
so i took  old broken bluetooth headset (that my ex broke...bla bla ) and  hacked it to include a stereo jack - and now she just plugs it in and plays the tunes(audio streaming) :)  

Future improvements:
1. Write a computer program to include voice control so she can just change music or switch of the computer off from her room using a voice command.
2.Hack the stereo to charge the bluetooth headset without unpluging it. (she probably wont let me do that lol )
 
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Step 1: Schematic

schematic.png
This is the circuit diagram
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Pesoen says: Dec 9, 2012. 12:46 PM
In the headset, wich wire goes with the black wire of the stereo jack? the red one or the black one?
dex3844 (author) in reply to PesoenDec 9, 2012. 8:03 PM
Since the headset is mono - it doesn't matter - the black to black or the other way round will work the same
Pesoen in reply to dex3844Dec 9, 2012. 9:12 PM
Thanks man! now it's working fine! This guy it's a genius!
dex3844 (author) in reply to PesoenDec 10, 2012. 5:01 AM
no problem - glad I could help :)
Pesoen says: Dec 9, 2012. 1:10 PM
And the the "bridge" is just soldering one wire to each conection and then soldering both to another wire?
dex3844 (author) in reply to PesoenDec 9, 2012. 8:05 PM
yes it is - its just effectively making the connections into one
tylermthehippie says: Oct 27, 2012. 12:59 PM
so i did it and it doesnt work only because my phone wont find it as a media player. it only works for the actual headset. any ideas about that?
Prophes0r in reply to tylermthehippieNov 15, 2012. 12:17 PM
why would your phone see it as a media player. It is simply a "bluetooth speaker". connect it exactly the same way as you would connect a headset over bluetooth, only instead of the headset producing the sound, you are having the headset pass sound into your stereo Aux port.

If the complaint is that after you connect it, your music does not come out, then that is a setting (or even limitation) of your phone. Phones expect a "headset" to be used for phone calls, not music, and may not even support playing anything other than phone calls through them. check your phone settings and see if there is an option for "primary sound device". If not, your phone will only understand how to send music through something it understands as headphones, the headphone jack, or an A2DP bluetooth device (stereo bluetooth for music).
dex3844 (author) in reply to tylermthehippieOct 27, 2012. 2:17 PM
great that it works to begin with but i dont know of a way to make your phone detect it as a 'media player' - sorry cudnt help you there but you could always use your computer :)
Gomex19 says: Oct 16, 2012. 12:04 PM
Amazing idea, glad to see it worked for you and other people. But if you make that 3.5mm Male into a 3.5mm Female, you can plu ANY headphones you want into it or you can put a small aux cable into it to get the same effect you have ^.^ just saying
dex3844 (author) in reply to Gomex19Oct 16, 2012. 1:40 PM
In theory it should work fine, but the sound level and quality would be affected more because of the increased resistance of the headphones or the aux cable- but that could be fixed by having a better bluetooth headset and adding an amplifier for the headphones,: still gud idea though and glad you like it
ashokaji says: Oct 4, 2012. 6:07 AM
pls help me how to send files without internet to a long distance
dex3844 (author) in reply to ashokajiOct 5, 2012. 7:48 AM
How long of a distance are we talking
Blaise_Gauba says: May 4, 2012. 9:57 AM
Very cool! Great idea! LOVE IT! Thanks!
Jr.2012 says: Feb 12, 2012. 5:36 PM
So if my pc doesn't have inbuilt bluetooth I would follow all these steps but with the bluetooth dongle then make another one for a stereo but with the stereo jack? Sorry if this sounds like the dumbest question but I dont know how the pc would stream your music to the stereo.
thanks in advance
dex3844 (author) in reply to Jr.2012Feb 13, 2012. 3:10 AM
na its not a dumb question... and if u connect the dongle ..streaming settings should appear in volume control options (wat operating system do u have ?)
Jr.2012 in reply to dex3844Feb 15, 2012. 9:27 AM
I have windows 7.
dex3844 (author) in reply to Jr.2012Feb 15, 2012. 2:12 PM
bluetoothheadset streaming option should be in sound controls under playback :)
ianmartorell says: Feb 11, 2012. 5:07 AM
Great! Can the headset be also used as audio input to the PC? Say, for an electric guitar? :P
dex3844 (author) in reply to ianmartorellFeb 11, 2012. 10:56 AM
yes ofcourse...but theres the issue of sound quality ....
ianmartorell in reply to dex3844Feb 11, 2012. 1:37 PM
Really? How much worse would it be? Guitar jacks are mono anyway
dex3844 (author) in reply to ianmartorellFeb 13, 2012. 3:12 AM
depending on the headset..since the guitar is mono too i reckon its not that bad anyway
Irwind Kee says: Dec 11, 2011. 5:52 AM
done, i use for my car.... its great
DSC00897.JPG
dex3844 (author) in reply to Irwind KeeDec 11, 2011. 6:06 AM
great :) - ur headset stereo ?
Irwind Kee in reply to dex3844Dec 26, 2011. 6:27 AM
no.. its mono, just for picking up the phone. this thing help me a lot when i was driving and much more better than before
shad0w19 says: Dec 25, 2011. 12:22 PM
great..........
techboy411 says: Nov 17, 2011. 2:50 PM
Bonne idée! je peu le pairer avec un cell.
dex3844 (author) in reply to techboy411Nov 17, 2011. 3:36 PM
merci, content que je pourrais aider :)
techboy411 in reply to dex3844Nov 18, 2011. 1:59 PM
cest tres gentil de ta part
dex3844 (author) in reply to techboy411Nov 19, 2011. 7:06 PM
merci :)
gemimile says: Oct 22, 2011. 1:56 AM
can you pair it with another headset???
dex3844 (author) in reply to gemimileOct 23, 2011. 5:02 AM
how do u mean ? - i dint know you an pair a headset with another headset
elabz says: Oct 4, 2011. 6:45 PM

dex3844, I applaud the spirit!
(but there's a problem with implementation : )  )

The most obvious being that it's not longer a stereo, so we ought to call it "on her mono"  as opposed to "on her stereo" :) Seriously though, you're not supposed to just bridge the left and right channels. It's a task that requires an op amp and some circuitry but at the very least there should be resistors from the common wire to both left and right. I think in 10K range but you may need to play with the values in attempt to mitigate the impedance mismatch between the stereo's output and the bluetooth's mic. Which mismatch might also explain the bad quality.  Also, a phone headset (BT or otherwise) would only be designed to cover frequency range of 300 to  3,400Hz  which is a FAR cry from what you need to actually enjoy the output of that stereo (I mean, mono :) )

Anyhow, keep up great job hacking things, I'm with you on that! 
elabz in reply to elabzOct 4, 2011. 7:02 PM

I re-read my comment and it made no sense to me either :) , so I had to draw it. All three resistors are 10K or can try a few values as low as 600Ohm if the volume is too low at 10K. This is what I meant:
Schematic-LR.jpg
dex3844 (author) in reply to elabzOct 5, 2011. 7:30 AM
aha thanks - tried the 10k's and volume was too low so i had to up the headset volume to max which drains its battery - i'l play around with the low values like 600ohm :) - and questions : why are you not supposed to just bridge the channels without an opamp ?
and as for the impendance mismatch - the stereo has its own amp and eq - so wudnt that kind of match the mic? (hey am only 1st year electronics so go easy on me lol )
-i also think the frequecy range accounts for the bad quality

thanks for the insight :)
elabz in reply to dex3844Oct 5, 2011. 9:05 AM

Actually, you are correct - you're taking the output after the stereo's amp, not the line level output. In that case the proper solution would be even more complicated :)  - you'd need transformers to de-couple the channels from one another.

You're not supposed to just bridge the left and right channels because you're then connecting outputs of two different amplifiers. So a situation may arise where the left channel is trying to drive it's speaker (headphone's earplug) low while the other one would at the same time try to drive it's speaker (earplug) high.  In the end you'll overload both amps and you'll get neither correct high nor low.

If you have those resistors in place, at the very least that would assure that the amplitudes of signals (low and high) are separated by whatever is the voltage drop on those resistors. In other words, the low would still inhibit the high but just not as much as when you just bridged them.

As far as trying to match impedances, the difference is so big that probably no passive circuitry would do it anyhow: the headphones are in 40Ohm range whereas the electret mic of that Bluetooth headset is in 10K+ range.

So, try to play with those resistors to see what's the best quality / channel separation you can get, keeping in mind that the limitation of the phone line bandwidth set forth some 100+ years ago (300 to 3400 Hz) still applies. In other words, best you can ever get is the quality of music on hold you sometimes hear when you call some busy establishment.

Cheers!


Crucio in reply to elabzOct 19, 2011. 7:05 PM
elabz says:
"You're not supposed to just bridge the left and right channels because you're then connecting outputs of two different amplifiers. So a situation may arise where the left channel is trying to drive it's speaker (headphone's earplug) low while the other one would at the same time try to drive it's speaker (earplug) high. In the end you'll overload both amps and you'll get neither correct high nor low."


Please excuse me if I'm wrong, but, logically, that doesn't apply here, because the source (Bluetooth device) is mono, so there's only one (mono) output. Isn't it, then, safe to connect the single op-amp output to two channels?
elabz in reply to CrucioOct 19, 2011. 8:23 PM
Crucio, you make a good point. Silly me, I got this circuit in reverse! We are not using the BT headset as input, we're using it as output. My bad. Yes, you're correct, bridging L and R won't be a big deal on the input end. Thanks for the correction!
mastelios says: Oct 13, 2011. 3:29 AM
Really nice and clever idea!
dex3844 (author) in reply to masteliosOct 13, 2011. 10:34 AM
thanks :)
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