N.B. I haven’t tested the below with data but intend to soon. This is just to document what I have found so far!
After years on my TODO list, I finally started reorganizing my dotfiles. I’ll link them here once complete.
I’ve pined over Mathias Bynen’s dotfile for years – and thought I’d start incorporating some of his .macos settings to improve my user experience.
I’ve been using [insert bluetooth headphones name and link] for [insert time]. But despite the usual solid audio quality, sometimes my browser audio (youtube/flash/etc.) to be crackly/low bitrate as is widely reported on stackexchange.
So I grabbed this line from Mathias:
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" -int 40
And proceeded along my business. But I wasn’t sure if it worked.
So I needed a way to test the quality. In steps The Bluetooth Explorer, which is available with an Apple Developer account (you’ll also need Xcode). Just search for Bluetooth, or alternately Additional Tools for Xcode. Select your version of Xcode and download. I have Xcode 9.4, for which there’s currently no specific Additional Tools package. So I downloaded the base 9 version, and that worked. Your success here might vary.
You’ll be prompted to download a dmg – choose where to save it and open it to unpack. That should give you several folders and couple pdfs. The tools are in their respective folders. To keep things orderly, make a new directory: mkdir 755 '/Applications/Xcode Additional Tools' so it alpha-sorts next to Xcode.
From there, Open: Xcode Additional Tools > Hardware > Bluetooth Explorer.
If you want to make these available through Xcode’s UI, you can! To do so:
- Go to
/Applicationsand right-click (control-click) on the Xcode application menu. You can also set up a shortcut to do this – but that’s a different blog post. - A popup menu will appear – click Show Package Contents. [insert a screenshot]
- This will open a Finder window with a sole folder called Contents. Open it.
- Then Open the Applications folder inside of Contents. So you should now be at
/Applications/Xcode/Content/Applications.- N.B. take care to not open
/Applications/Xcode/Content/Developer/Applications!
- N.B. take care to not open
- At this point you have two options:
- Either manually copy the nested app(s) into
/Content/ApplicationsOR- N.B. For each batch of files that you transfer, you’ll be prompted for your user password (it doesn’t remember between copies)
- Soft/Hard-link each app from
/Applications/Xcode\ Additional\ Tools/etc directly to/Content/Applicationslike so:
sudo ln -s /Applications/Xcode\ Additional\ Tools/*/*.app /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications- I like this approach because:
- it doesn’t duplicate files, so you’re not being wasteful with hard drive space.
- if you use sym/soft links, they are obvious as icons
- I can keep the original directory structure
- I can easily access the files (without opening the secret Xcode/Contents directory or without opening Xcode itself).
- For Crom’s sake I only have to enter my password ONCE.
- I like this approach because:
- Either manually copy the nested app(s) into
- When you Open or Reload Xcode, and you’ll see the tools you added in Xcode menubar under
Xcode > Open Developer Tool: [insert screenshot]
Again, just select Bluetooth Explorer from the menu option.
No application window will, just a top-aligned OSX menu bar will open. From there you have numerous tools with which to inspect your Bluetooth Audio device quality! [insert screenshot]
I’ll try to fill this in a bit more later, but I needed a way to ensure a higher bitrate. So I opened Tools > Audio Options and set the configuration per this StackExchange post (which still works for High Sierra) to:
Current/Initial bitpool 60
Minimum bitpool 56
Maximum bitpool 64
Then press close and you’re done.