Liberty Air vs Zolo Liberty Connection Mode Difference?

[kumar.sachin]

@AnkerOfficial
I’m curious to know why Soundcore Liberty Air connects to Mac or PC via Serial connection? while every other anker earphone/headphone uses bluetooth headset, hands free, CSR etc type connection mode.
This is causing lot of issues with frequent disconnections. Please note that this issue is only seen in Mac or PC and not on my iPhone.
I grabbed the following info from my mac system info about connection mode for Liberty Air vs Zolo Liberty and it is confusing me why Anker chose to use Serial connection for Air. Every other Anker earphone/headphone that I have don’t use Serial connection. I have seen similar connection mode with my Win 7 PC (work computer) and I had to tweak the connection to get it to output any sound.

Zolo Liberty Mode

Liberty Air Mode

I’m not expert in this area so any expert comments are appreciated to understand the reasoning behind choosing this connection mode.

[mraneri]

Something definitely doesn’t seem right. I tried connecting my Airs to both my home and work Windows PCs with BT 4.1 and 5.0 respectively and they paired as “Audio Headphones”. In both cases Widows switched to them right away and had sound in both channels.

[Tank]

It’s weird that your connecting via serial mode, I just paired mine to my MacBook and it paired via Bluetooth without issues. Same with my windows 10 laptop, both connected via Bluetooth without issue

[Chiquinho]

When I connect speakers they show up with different connection types under LINUX. eg. headset, stereo, speaker.
I suppose different bluetooth protocols of the source are creating different types of connection at the item they are connected to.

But of cause the bt works fine.

When I connect a bose mini, it shows first up as a mono telefony duplex.
After reconnecting it is growing up to a stereo speaker…
But that’s LINUX.

[kumar.sachin]

I have found some interesting facts about various Anker earphone/headphone connection mode and supported codes. I’ll report my findings soon. All this is done using Macbook Air with Mojave as the source and so far I find that only Soundcore Curve connected to my Mac is using aptX codec. Rest (Zolo Liberty, Soundcore Spirit Pro, Liberty Air, another confidential product) all connected via AAC or SBC codec.
I’m still compiling the list with inclusion of Soundcore Space NC, Soundcore Vortex, Soundcore Arc etc and will see how they connect. Some in the list don’t support aptX but many do so we will see…
Liberty Air is the strangest of the lot that uses a bluetooth SPP (serial port profile) for connection.

Correction: Curve, Spirit Pro and Vortex connected via aptX all of the rest via SBC.
@elmo41683 I do have an LG XCharge will give it a try

[Chiquinho]

Exactly:
If you use LINUX it is easy to take a look to the protocols or better connection mode you said.

May be it is possible under “Windoofs” or Mac-OS too.
I don’t know and I don’t care, but please dont call me an ignoramus,

[kumar.sachin]

I promise I won’t
This will be just for educational purpose. For real world performance it won’t make much of a difference anyways.

[Tank]

Any chance you have a newer Android phone? Or can get your hands on one? The reason I ask is because whenever you pair Bluetooth headphones to a newer Android phone it will automatically switches to the best codec available for the connected device

[AnkerSupport]

@kumar.sachin Thank you for your questions. Please know the SoundCore Air used a different Bluetooth chipset (not CSR), therefore, the connection mode may be different on different computers. We tested the stability of the Bluetooth connection before the earbuds shipped out. Therefore, the chipset is not the reason for disconnections. Please test the earbuds with another PC to see if it works better. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us via support@anker.com. Thanks!

[ktkundy]

That’s interesting thanks anker

[kumar.sachin]

You are correct. I see the following info about chip.

Audio graphs below

As far as connection is concerned, it has robust connection to my iPhone everytime. It is just the mac and win 7 pc that has some connection issues.