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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss a ban on cellphones for kids, a 98” 8k TV, and more.
Brian in Scotland is participating with the App and asked: As I’m well into my seventies, my hearing isn’t so good. My daughter, when she comes around to visit, tells me to turn the TV down because well… it’s a little bit loud. She says it’s blaring, but I think it’s okay. She said I can get some kind of Bluetooth buds or headphones or something that should be able to connect to my TV so I could listen independent of her – I can listen on them and she could listen on the normal speakers. But I’m not sure how to do this, so do you have any ideas about the best way to do this?
Brian, unfortunately that will depend more on your TV rather than external devices.
Most TVs will shut off the internal speakers when theyre provided with a Bluetooth audio output and they will pipe all of the audio to the Bluetooth speakers or headphones.
If your TV allows you to, there will be an option to pair a Bluetooth device in its settings menu and an option to keep the speakers working, but thats fairly rare.
If youre not watching over the air or cable TV your options may improve. For example, you could get an Apple TV, which does allow you to output the audio to both the TV speakers and a Bluetooth headphone and it will take care of the audio synching for you.
That audio sync is a big part of the reason why this is rare, Bluetooth needs more of a buffer than a wired speaker, so putting a system together that allows you to keep both sources in sync takes work and there just isnt enough demand for manufacturers to bother building that into every set.
If you happen to have a Samsung TV, look under its accessibility features on the menu. They do support dual audio streams, specifically to cover your use case of a person having poorer hearing than others in the household, requiring audio streams at different volumes via a Bluetooth device. Some more expensive Sony sets do as well.
Youll likely have better luck finding this feature if your TV cost you more to buy.
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