Connecting Bluetooth headphones to the XBox One

The XBox One can­not con­nect to a Blue­tooth head­set from the fac­to­ry. A cir­cum­stance that many users find some­what strange. How­ev­er, it is still pos­si­ble to enjoy the sound via head­phones via round­about routes.

Makeshift

The con­troller of the XBox One has a 3.5″ jack sock­et on its under­side. This is a head­phone jack. The XBox auto­mat­i­cal­ly detects when a head­set is con­nect­ed here, so that fur­ther set­tings can be made in the audio menu of the XBox set­tings.
To do this, use the Xbox key to switch to the menu, nav­i­gate to the gear­wheel (sys­tem) and there the menu item Audio should be locat­ed between the options and XBox help.

If the XBox does not detect a device, no addi­tion­al menu will appear. This pre­vents the vol­ume of the con­nect­ed head­phones from being adjust­ed.

Warn­ing pit­fall: The menu only appears when the XBox key on the Xbox con­troller is used to access the menu to which the head­set is con­nect­ed.

This is of course just as unsat­is­fac­to­ry as the fact of using a cable. Basi­cal­ly, this is not a real option.

Adapter

There are var­i­ous adapters on the mar­ket. Often quite expen­sive. The high­light – the adapter belongs to an audio out­put. With a USB Blue­tooth adapter, a Blue­tooth head­set can­not be con­nect­ed to an XBox any more than via the audio input of a speak­er sys­tem.

There are also adapters that can be con­nect­ed via the cinch inputs (the white-red sock­ets). You can argue about whether they real­ly trans­mit the sound bet­ter or more loss­less­ly than the 3.5″ jack solu­tion.

It must also be ensured that the Blue­tooth adapter is not a pure receiv­er mod­ule, but is intend­ed to send music as well. A good indi­ca­tion of this is the jack plug. There are also adapters with a USB con­nec­tion and many, many mul­ti­func­tion­al solu­tions.

For some, it may make sense to buy an adapter that can con­trol more than one head­phone. We will lim­it our­selves to the solu­tion with one head­phone.

Warn­ing pit­fall: The adapter must sup­port aptX LL to avoid trans­mis­sion delays. With­out this tech­nol­o­gy it can hap­pen that the sound is trans­mit­ted a few mil­lisec­onds after the pic­ture, so that the sound does not arrive lip-syn­chro­nous­ly in the head­phones, which is very annoy­ing for movies and games.

Installation

First con­nect the head­phones to the adapter. The adapter does not need to be con­nect­ed to the TV. On the con­trary, it is eas­i­er if both devices are placed direct­ly next to each oth­er. In con­trast to the smart­phone, no con­fir­ma­tion key can be pressed dur­ing pair­ing, but the two devices must find each oth­er and pair auto­mat­i­cal­ly.

The first step is to start the cou­pling process on the adapter (for ours you have to hold down the BT but­ton until the cou­pling is com­plete). The head­phones are then set to search mode. Our mod­el is quite talk­a­tive and tells you when the con­nec­tion has tak­en place.

Often you have to switch both devices off and on again after the pair­ing to get a smooth con­nec­tion (no idea why).

Now you can con­nect a Blue­tooth head­set to the XBox (or TV).

Com­mer­cial