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What do you hear in the Bose A20 headset with Bluetooth?

I am considering buying a Bose A20 headset with bluetooth. As I understand it one can listen to music and make phone calls over the bluetooth (is that correct?). But what about the warnings from apps like the AirspaceAvoid which will warn you about entering an airspace? If I have my headset on and the app is trying to warn me only through the speaker of the phone/tablet, I will probably not hear it. I have the experience with my Garmin 495 which I only hear very quietly and usually need about 2 minutes to figure out what that sound is.

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland

The only thing I have done with my A20 so far is canceling my flight plan after landing and picking up a clearance by phone before departing. It works great for that.

LFPT, LFPN

You can’t listen to music over Bluetooth, but you do have a 3.5mm jack to attach a cable to so that you can listen to music. The Bluetooth does phone only, when connected to your phone. I just tried to connect the iPad and play spotify through it but it didn’t work.

I have used the Bluetooth to make calls and the sound quality is very good. My gf says she can’t hear the plane but can hear me clearly, and I her.

Really recommend them.

EDHS, Germany

There are different bluetooth profiles that have to be supported by both sides of the communication: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles. So the question becomes what profiles the A20 supports and what profiles the phones/tablets and their apps use

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland

I have just done a 3:15 flight from Annecy to Shoreham, FL100-120, and had a play with the A20’s 3.5mm music input connection over the 2.5hr totally boring bit over France north of the Jura.

It’s fun, it works, but with all the ATC interruptions (which fade out the music) it is almost unusable. You would need to be flying non-radio or close to, generally speaking.

I also have the same facility in the aircraft (factory fitted music input) which works the same way so I was sort of familiar with the idea, and I didn’t buy the bluetooth version of the A20 because I didn’t think it was worth it for my long trips which are all IFR so the radio is fairly busy.

You can’t listen to music over Bluetooth

I wonder why such an obvious limitation?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Patents are the root of most problems.

I use the jack plug to get audio alerts from other devices. Music – maybe in the middle of the night when the airwaves are quiet

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

I used my Zulu with bluetooth only in my car as my smart roadster was a bit noisy.
Since I have an electric car there is no need for it.
I doubt that bluetooth in a headset is much useful.

United Kingdom

My kids use the 3.5 mm audio inputs of the A20s all the time with their iPods and iPads, and it works great. There are 2 versions of the A20, one with, one without BT. I bought 1 with BT only (out of 4) and I paired it with my iPhone. It works, but I never use it, because my iPhone is already in Flight Mode when I have the headset on.

It’s fun, it works, but with all the ATC interruptions (which fade out the music) it is almost unusable. You would need to be flying non-radio or close to, generally speaking.

Agreed… It would be good to be able to link it to Skydemon via Bluetooth for audio alerts though.

EDHS, Germany

I don’t think I would use it for music (maybe passengers would but not me) but I would be glad to hear the audio from alert applications.

In my car I have two bluetooth receivers (retrofitted) and one only receives music, the other only phone calls. However the one receiving the music also receives the voice of google maps navigation, so they are both mixed in the output. That’s why I would assume audio for music and audio for alerts is the same profile. That may however depend on the app.

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland
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