Can't select paired bluetooth speaker as sound output (Windows 10)

windows windows-10 audio bluetooth speakers

25,079

Windows does not appear to play friendly with bluetooth pretty much at all. Rather ridiculous but whatever.

My Fix was to go to settings; Bluetooth & other devices; then from there go to your device and just completely remove it. Then add your device again and you'll get your setup prompts (if any originally) again and it'll function as it's supposed to.

25,079

Tobbe

Motorcycle riding software developer SOreadytohelp

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Tobbe over 1 year

I just got a new bluetooth speaker, an Urbanears Stammen (concrete grey)

I can connect to it from my phone, using Bluetooth, and play back sound without problems. But I can't get my Windows 10 laptop (Dell XPS 15) to use it as a playback device.

I can connect and pair to the laptop without problems, as you can see in the screenshot below

It also shows up under bluetooth in the device manager. It's not listed under "Audio inputs and outputs" though, which I thought it should be, but I can see it under "Sound, video and game controllers".

But I can't select it as a playback device.

I found this relevant superuser question Windows 10 computer paired w/ bluetooth speaker, but doesn't send music to speaker and I tried the suggested steps listed there, but nothing helped.
- Daniel B over 5 years
  
  Try removing the Dell Bluetooth drivers.
- Tobbe over 5 years
  
  You mean to uninstall the Dell Bluetooth device from the device manager? Tried that - no luck :(
- Daniel B over 5 years
  
  No, you’ll most likely have to uninstall it from “Add or remove programs”, then let Windows install the default driver. It’s a long shot anyway, but in the early days of Bluetooth on PCs, the drivers varied widely in functionality and stability.
- Tobbe over 5 years
  
  Tried that. Windows automatically reinstalled the same Dell drivers again
- Brad about 4 years
  
  I always put the device in pairing mode and re-pair. That works for me.
Trilarion over 2 years

Had the same problem. Sadly removing it and adding it back again was the only thing that helped. Before it was shown as connected but couldn't be used. This is such a typical Windows solution, but I thought maybe in 2021 they would be a bit more advanced.