Talking with earbuds/headphone connected

[enyalius]

Greetings!

I am loving my new Thunderbolt (and am in the process of rooting it ), but I do have a gripe that I really haven't seen anyone mention up to this point:

Is it not possible to talk on the phone with normal earbuds plugged in?

On my Droid X, I used to be able to have my Klipsch earbuds (no inline mic, just normal earbuds) plugged in and be able to talk using the built in mic on the phone while having the call audio come through the 'buds. This was particularly useful when I would have it mounted in my official car mount and had the DX hooked up via 3.5mm cable to my car stereo. Same story there: I could drive and talk through the built in mic on the Droid X while the call audio was piped through my car stereo.

It seems, though, that the Thunderbolt is incapable of doing this. I connected my Klipsch earbuds and tried to answer a call, only to find that the person on the other end couldn't hear me (despite my being able to hear them through the 'buds).

Help or advice would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance

 

[tycedeano]

There have been a lot of complaints about this. According to HTC tech support, it's a "feature", not a "bug". Sure hope they change this in a hotfix soon. I like having my phone plugged into my car stereo, but having to manually unplug it everytime the phone rings is unacceptable. Can't wait until the Bionic comes out so I can get rid of this PoS.

 

[enyalius]

Thanks for the reply, tyce; not sure why I didn't find more threads talking about it if it's being noticed so much.

Why do you refer to the Thunderbolt as a piece of sh*t, if you don't mind my asking?

 

[tycedeano]

In a lot of ways it seems like a step back from my D1. It's fast, but the battery life sucks. I bought extra batteries (including the extended battery) to compensate, but it complicates logistics on trips. Having to unplug it from my car stereo to use as a phone is a deal breaker. I've had other issues as well. Occasionally when plugged into my car stereo it appears to randomly quit playing MP3s (the radio kicks in for a few seconds, then the MP3 player will start playing again). Maybe I just got spoiled by the D1. Hopefully the Bionic will do everything my D1 did, faster (like the TB), and last more than 4 hours without a battery swap or oversized appendage for an extended battery.

 

[dark juggalo]

if thats the best HTC can do i'm going back to the X..unplug my car dock to answer calls...rediculous!!

 

[enyalius]

Have any custom ROMs or apps made any progress with this?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Hampton]

Bump! This really needs to be fixed. I loved that feature of the droid x where i could just answer calls and listen through my speakers but talk into the phone. This is a big deal to me as I drive all day long.

 

[tycedeano]

For what it's worth, until HTC fixes it I bought a "Monster iSoniTalk Microphone Headphone Adapter for iPhone - Microphone with Headphone Jack" from Amazon for $9. It works pretty well, if you don't mind the 1" protrubance on top of your TB.

 

[Hampton]

For what it's worth, until HTC fixes it I bought a "Monster iSoniTalk Microphone Headphone Adapter for iPhone - Microphone with Headphone Jack" from Amazon for $9. It works pretty well, if you don't mind the 1" protrubance on top of your TB.

Just ordered one! I was thinking about looking up something like this.

 

[bwpopper]

Work-around

I saw this in another forum somewhere.

Settings -> Call -> TTY mode -> TTY VCO

It works for me.

 

[AllenEllis]

I just tried that tty trick and it seemed to work with my earbuds and the phone mic - the caller could hear me. Unfortunately it adds a few extra icons on the notification bar, and I'm not sure what the other side effects might be.

Swiftly keyed from my Thunderbolt using DroidForums

 

[bwpopper]

AFAIK, there are no side-effects. VCO forces the phone to leave the mic on. Something to do with TTY devices for the hearing-impaired who prefer to speak for themselves. Extra icon is a bit annoying, but not as much as it not working.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

 

[tycedeano]

I saw this in another forum somewhere.

Settings -> Call -> TTY mode -> TTY VCO

It works for me.

Thanks! I tried it this morning and now I can ditch the extra gear. I'm surprised this isn't better documented in the owners' manual!

 

[sportadic22]

THANKS FOR THIS.... i loved having my droid 1 plugged into my car stereo and being able to talk to someone with their voice going thru my whole car stereo. im going to have to try this tomorrow

 

[tycedeano]

I saw this in another forum somewhere.

Settings -> Call -> TTY mode -> TTY VCO

It works for me.

Thanks! I tried it this morning and now I can ditch the extra gear. I'm surprised this isn't better documented in the owners' manual!

I went back and double checked the owners manual and there is no reference that I could find about this setting. I also never heard anything from the complaint I filed on the HTC site. Since it's such an easy fix, I'm surprised they aren't advertising it more, since apparently a LOT of people were upset about this.