Using AAC on Fairphone 3+

[Calon]

Hello!

I just got my new Sony WH-1000XM4 bluetooth headphones and don’t seem to be able to use AAC with them, allthough multiple users appear to have been able to do so in the past:

Fairphone 3 and aptX?

As far as I know, the Fairphone 2 didn’t support the aptX codec (even though the chipset could do it). I wonder if the Fairphone 3 does? Since it comes with Android 9, it should be easy to find out. Connect via Bluetooth to an aptX capable device, and check in bluetooth settings if the codec says aptX there, or if it falls back to the lowest common denominator SBC. Could somebody who already owns a Fairphone 3 check this? Or maybe even a Fairphone employee? Thanks, Roman

Has this feature simply been removed? It’s a bit of a dealbreaker for me to be honest. What is the point of selling the hardware and telling people that they might even be able to upgrade in the future, when you just disable the features that make this hardware worth having in the first place?

It is even more frustrating because judging by other forum posts, users of the fp2 and the fp4 are able to use better audio codecs.

If I am wrong I would really appreciate some help with setting the connection up properly.
If not, I would appreciate a statement from FairPhone explaining why they have simply disabled all good audio codecs for the FP3+.

Cheers, Calon

[yvmuell]

@Calon

f not, I would appreciate a statement from FairPhone explaining why they have simply disabled

For a FP statement you need to contactsupport

Reg Codecs, did you check the specs on the FP Homepage? There might be some settings in the developer settings, did you check this?

Screenshot from my FP3 with earphones connected

[Calon]

Hello yvmuell, thank you so much for replying!

The FP-homepage is unfortunately not very clear on the specs, but multiple users have said that AAC should work, and your screenshot seems to indicate that as well. The problem is, it looks like this for me:

I have the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones which DEFINITELY support AAC. They also use AAC with my ipad. But I can’t get them to use anything other than SBC with my FP3+ and that is very sad.

Can I ask you whether you have the FP3 or the FP3+ and which Android version you are using?
Also, when you go to the Bluetooth settings for your headphones, do you have the HD-Audio-option like in this screenshot ? It doesn’t exist for me either…
Thanks again for your help!

[yvmuell]

So the specs are this ( taken from FP3 Product page) and AAC is clearly included I would say

Supported audio codecs

• PCM playback, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, MP3, WMA (v9, v10), WMALossless, WMAPro 10, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, FLAC, ALAC, Vorbis, AIFF, APE

I use some not very high end tech in ear Huawei buds and with those I dont have the greyed out options, if its headphone or FP fault or combination, I dont know. I have the FP3 (dont think that makes a differnence) and Iode OS (did not check with FPOS when I had it installed)

AAC is available and enabled in the Headphone settings on the FP, so you dont have this at all? Can you test other headphones?

Do you probably need to enable something on the headphones? Did you use them first with the Ipad and later on only with FP3? can you reset the headphones?

Maybe a logcat as indicated here can give some hints (you could use e.g. the App Matlog).

Changing bluetooth audio codec

My earbuds dont support LDAC, but aptX and aptX HD don’t seem to work for me either. AAC seems to work fine though, there is an option “HD Audio: AAC” in the settings for the bluetooth device which can be enabled and stays active even after reconnection. Extract from an ‘adb logcat’: E a2dp_vendor_aptx_encoder: A2DP_VendorLoadEncoderAptx: cannot open aptX encoder library libaptX_encoder.so: dlopen failed: library "libaptX_encoder.so" not found E a2dp_vendor_aptx: init: cannot load t…

[Calon]

Thank you for your help!

In the meantime I was able to test both the Headset with other phones and my FP3+ with another Headset from Bose.

The results are:

I was able to use LDAC and AAC with the Sony headset connected to other phones. I was also able to use AAC with the Bose headset connected to my FP3+. I am assuming that Lineage OS would solve this issue, but from what I can tell I would have endless problems with banking apps and Google Pay.

So in conclusion:

• My headset does support AAC and LDAC
• The Fairphone 3+ supports AAC but refuses to use AAC with this specific headset

I will contact Fairphone Support with this issue.

[Milchmann]

Plesse let us know what the outcome is. I think many have that issue but simply care little about it.

[Milchmann]

I am not sure how it is for you, but the last update fixed the AAC - SBC issue on my Sennheiser CX.

[urs_lesse]

Uh oh … given a new bluetooth issue arose with this latest FP3 update, I really hope (but doubt) that this is not related and might be reversed with a future fix for the audio control issue.

[Calon]

I can confirm that HD-Audio is now working on my FP3+!

Very happy about this, I almost gave the phone away already because of this ridiculous issue and the only reason I still have it is because my friend didn’t want it.

I will tell the FP-support that the issue is resolved for now and beg them to not ruin everything again.

[Milchmann]

Same here!

Also found out that aptX is on the FP4 of my wife. Did not know that. Hard to find the supported codecs to be honest.