How to (re)connect to a Bluetooth headset in Windows 8 Christian Donner, January 8, 2013February 4, 2013 One of the many things that have confused me for a while after switching to Windows 8 is the UI for the Bluetooth stack. The way one interacted with Bluetooth devices in previous versions was always a little haphazard. It became worse in Windows 8, because the Bluetooth Device Control dialog appears to have disappeared. This is the dialog that had the Connect button. When we click on the Bluetooth icon in the tray, or access the devices via the PC settings in the Charms menu, all we see is a list of paired devices, and the only option here is to unpair them: Bluetooth devices in Windows 8 However, I have a little bit of relief for you. While many user complain that they have to unpair and re-pair a device to get it to connect (for examples see this thread), there is a way to access the old Bluetooth Device Control dialog where you can initiate a connection and enable/disable Bluetooth protocols. But it requires that we switch into “Tablet”-mode. Windows 8 actually created a tile on the App screen. So press the Windows button, right-click on the screen, select “All Apps”, and find the “Bluetooth” section: Bluetooth device on the Windows 8 Apps screen When you click on this tile, the familiar Bluetooth Device Control for the device will appear. Bluetooth Device Control dialog in Windows 8 From here, you can initiate a connect or disconnect with the device without having the unpair first. Why it is not possible to get to this dialog from the device list is incomprehensible. PS: A few weeks after writing this I am no less frustrated. Even though the Connect button still exists in Windows 8, it rarely works. I often have to reboot the host to get the headset to connect. Without a reboot, Windows most of the time just throws an error after a failed Bluetooth connection attempt. My solution here isn’t one. Related Posts:OpenVPNEnphase Envoy Local AccessTyreWiz not working after battery changeThe Voip.ms SMS Integration for Home AssistantComputer Build 2025 Hardware Information Technology Mobile Devices BluetoothConnectWindows 8
I was really annoyed by this too. After messing around, I’ve found that you can also reconnect headsets by locating the disconnected device in the sound control panel, Right-Clicking and selecting “Connect”. I’ve only tried it once so far and it worked flawlessly for me. It would be nice if it weren’t such a pain to get to, but it sure beats unpairing and pairing again.
Hi The solution is when you get the bluetooth device control dialog just pin on the taskbar and it works flawlessly.
As simple as that 🙂 http://superuser.com/questions/498320/how-can-i-easily-connect-and-disconnect-my-bluetooth-speakers-in-windows-8
I’ve added a shortcut to the “Devices and Printers” area in the Control Panel to my Start Menu. When I want to use my Bluetooth speaker, I can right-click on the device and choose Advanced Operation > Connect to audio sink device. Truly aggravating.
Thank Ainuddin Faizan, that is the simplest solution so far. Hopefully the next Windows update won’t bugger that up as well.
You can also pin the bluetooth device(s) in the tablet screen to the taskbar by right clicking on the device and selecting pin to taskbar it will pin to the windows 8 desktop, Go the the desktop right click on the item if you have more bluetooth devices on task bar to see which one and select it or if only 1 device just left click on it and the bluetooth Device control will open then just hit the connect tab!! Hope this helps!!
I am running Windows 8.1, I did this for wireless headphones. 1) To reconnect your device, right click on the Sound icon on the taskbar and select Playback devices. (If you don’t have it there click on the triangle next to icons you see. For example the Touch Keyboard, the Solve PC issues Flag, or the Power. Click Customize, find the Volume and choose Show icon and notifications.) 2) Right-click on the device and click Connect, you can also click Set as Default Device. -You may have accidentally selected Set as Default Communication Device. -Two devices appeared for my headphones, I had to choose Headphones rather than Headset.
Thank you very much for this blog article! Unfortunately Window 8.1 didn’t create an entry in the App Menu Screen, therefore I can’t find the old bluetooth control dialog. Is there any other way to enter this dialog? I can’t find it via the control panel 🙁
To answer the question above, the old Control Panel dialog can be found by creating a shortcut to: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{28803F59-3A75-4058-995F-4EE5503B023C} Hope this helps.
I had a similar problem with the JBL Flip3 speaker & Windows 8.1. Everything was working properly and one day I couldn’t get any sound from the speaker, despite it showing as paired under Manage Bluetooth Devices in Settings. My laptop could see the Flip3, the Com ports showed the speaker connected, but it just wasn’t sending any sound to it. The problem turned out to be that when the Flip3 updates its driver, Audio Services in Bluetooth Operations gets disconnected. To fix it, you need to go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Devices and Printers. R click on Flip3. Choose Advanced Operation -> Connect to operations window. This brings up the Bluetooth Operations window. You can then Connect Audio Services. What a pain in the arse Win 8.1 is! This solution took me ages to find. I assume it will work with other Bluetooth devices which suddenly stop playing.