Hack the sound

My friend SK an I were knee deep in various conversations this weekend, when I brought up the fact I use my Bluetooth headphones some days to watch movies "on the big screen" at work. By using the headphones, no one ever knows I'm in the room because the doors are shut, the lights are off, and it's usually a day when no one is around (i.e. holiday). 

Trying to explain it to him is convoluted, especially since part of the conversation was that there are some shows he and his girlfriend like to watch together, and there are some that he has to keep the audio on super low for, because she wants to be in the room with him, but doesn't want to watch that show. So by my making various suggestions, here's hoping what he'd choose. 

First, I remember "back in the day" having the rabbit ear antennae headphone kit that attached to the back of the TV and this transmitter station cradled the headset. Whenever you wanted to use it, you'd turn the power on on the dock, turn the headphones on, turn on your TV and have at it. Everyone in the room wouldn't be bothered with whatever you decided to watch yourself and not hinder the grown ups conversation (or a sleeping body in bed next to you... as people tended to use these things for as it is). There are updated versions on Amazon right now. Price ranges from $50 to $100, depending on how knockoff you want to get with brands. "Better" brands (Sony, Bose) are over the $100 mark, but it looks like they're Bluetooth, which isn't great for pairing straight to a TV unless you have a transmitting receiver. So I'd go with the tree thing that used to be everyone's go-to 30 years ago.

Wow, am I aging myself??

The second choices for keeping quiet yet active, would be the set up I've been attempting. 

As I've been doing this mostly at work, I use my handy dandy Lightning to Digital AV Adapter with whatever HDMI cable is local. If I am in the big room with the flying Hitachi projector [which apparently is so old, Amazon doesn't carry it anymore] or the flat screen TV on a rolling cart [same thing. Amazon doesn't carry this TV anymore... it's a no name brand anyway], I have options for size of cabling. It's quite literally a 10 foot cable for the big room and a 4 foot cable for the TV. 

Side note: I personally use the Monoprice HDMI High Speed Cable - 1.5 Feet in my bedroom, as I have the Roku attached to the back of my TV via the TotalMount for Roku (it's the red cable in the next picture). But this is all beside the point. 

Anyway, back to the original concept. 

I take my adapter, plug the lightning into my phone, the HDMI into the adapter, and give it a second to have the phone recognize what I'm doing. 

Then I take my headphones, wake them up, and connect them to the phone. 

From there, it's a matter of getting the connection screen on my phone, to select (and separate) the video output as well as the audio output. 

For those who need to know how to get the screen and what to look for, swipe down from the right hand (top) corner of the screen. You'll see something that looks like the following picture. You'll end up wanting to look at that "Not playing" area. The arrows are pointing to the spots to watch. That beacon thing will be alternating glow between blue and white. It's finding your Bluetooth stuff. 

If you click on the beacon, the next option is the following:

The "Now Playing" area is finding everything you can mirror to. Bluetooth devices or streaming devices. Where I select my JLab headphones, all audio will go to those, while if I had the HDMI connected, it would also show my TV information. But since I can stream to an Apple TV or Roku device, should I select one of those, video will play on my TV (since the devices are connected... Roku in my room, Apple TV in the living room), I can listen via my headphones. 

As I'm using an iPhone 11, I would think this is all similar to the Androids, or at least they have something similar. If anyone has tried this on a Droid, let me know in the comments.

I do have to point out, that the "trick" to being able to watch things without bothering people around you, only works if you have the right setup. Obviously a flip phone won't be able to run this, as well as maybe older model smart phones. I know I am taking a big leap of assumption that Apple users have updated phones (6 and above), but you might be able to replicate this on a 4 or 5. Just swipe up from the bottom instead of down from the top. If I had an Android, I'd talk about this, but I'm sorry, I don't.

I hope it helps, and SK... if you're reading this... tell your woman I'm trying to help the situation so you don't miss any of your programs while she does her own thing in the same room. LOL

Until next time. Happy watching.

Cheers;