Apparently you can use your Linux PC as a BT DAC

So, I recently got a Nintendo Switch and wanted to hear my games through my speakers.

I originally tried doing it through the headphone jack with a loopback to my output, but when Docked the Switch power supply causes some nasty noise on the output. It seems like a ground loop but considering i run all my equipment through a UPS and none of my other audio equipment experiences this Im not so sure thats the case, its something Switch specific.

I didnt want to have to deal with that so i thought maybe i could send the audio via Bluetooth. All i could find online said that you couldnt, but that was mostly referring to pulseaudio and even then Im not sure this is true. I decided to just try it anyway, what could it hurt?

I just paired my Switch to my PC and Pipewire detected it and automatically routed output to my speakers with no fuss, no tinkering, just works. Im not sure how this behaves on Windows or Pulseaudio but if youre looking to hook up a bluetooth capable device to output via your PCs speakers Pipewire makes it effortless at least in this case. Also the latency seems to be pretty good, no real delay that i can see/hear personally.

Just figured there might be someone around looking to do this sort of thing and figured I would share it with everyone. :+1: :upside_down_face:

2 Likes

It’s not true, it has worked for a while. But, PipeWire certainly works better for me than PulseAudio (and e.g. Bluetooth is more reliable) so I’m happy. :partying_face:

4 Likes

Great to know it works with Pulseaudio too.

I figured it would, but when I was researching the threads I kept finding said it wasn’t doable.

I guess that’s just one more example of taking what you find online with at least a grain of salt lol plenty of good and bad info

1 Like