$ bluetoothctl
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
396 points (97.8% liked)
linuxmemes
31031 readers
267 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
- Don't come looking for advice, this is not the right community.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. 🇬🇧 Language/язык/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇺🇸
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed.
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Are you even a true power user if you don't tattoo your headphones MAC address on your forearm?
If a power user, perhaps. But for a good UX enjoyers:
bluetoothctl devices
Letters? On my screen? Instead of icons and pictograms that I can click with my mouse? Preposterous!
load more comments
(1 replies)
I just tab and pray
Paired devices are stored and have proper names
What if your heaphones break?
This. Bind connect command to a keyboard shortcut. Live in peace.
Statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged
Joke's on you, it was my keyboard that had connection issues! Wait, no. That joke was on me.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Ngl I really want to know what the tick icon actually does now.
If you hover on it (without clicking, resist the temptation) it says it is for "Mark/unmark this device as trusted".
Which in turn doesn't quite explain what happens. For me, the relevant difference was that 'trusted' devices autoconnect.
Well there's "trusting" a device, "pairing" with a device and "connecting" to a device. Which need to be done in that order
Which makes it even more confusing what the button does
This bastard of an app manages to expose too much of the underlying processes and logic, of which I don't care, in the utterly uninformative format. The OP forgot to mention that upon first pairing my headphones, I have to fend off three different notifications about ‘auth requests’, that provide me with no explanation what happens if I do or don't satisfy said requests. These also reappear after the headphones disconnect for some inexplicable reason, until I give up on learning further details and click ‘always auth’. Which seems to help with the disconnections. Apparently some audio profiles are also occasionally unavailable unless I appease the blue fucker with ‘always auth’.
Sometimes the headphones fail to connect, and all I get is some cryptic error message, with the only understandable word being ‘timeout’.
The tray menu has a shitload of items which I never need, and then always lists devices to which I can reconnect, even when they're already connected and have separate (and dynamic) menu items to disconnect from them. Plus each device is listed like they have titles of nobility, something like ‘audio and input profiles on HeadphonesModel’.
Lmfao sounds like Bluetooth alright
The matter of wonder is that I never needed this ‘auth’ thing or the ‘trust’ thing in Windows, Mac, or Android, and never had recurring disconnection problems, before this experience. I just paired a device and then clicked ‘connect’ or ‘disconnect’ and went about my business. In fact, I was baffled by how people seem to always have some issues, devices connecting randomly, etc.
Even Bluetooth range seems to have dropped compared to other platforms. My phone can reach the headphones over a large apartment, while laptop loses them if I walk behind a wall.
load more comments
(2 replies)
You can pair and connect without trusting. It will ask for authorization.
Afair it pairs the selected bluetooth device. It will then enable the button left to it, to add the selected and connected device as trusted.
My assumption for the key icon was something to do with PINs/passkeys, which kind of reinforces OP's point.
Exactly! Why did two of the icons get icon+text label status, while the others got just icon status?!
Either standardized on icon + text label, or just icon, or just text.
We stopped using pictogram representations of concepts 2000 years ago and pivoted to symbols representing speech sounds, why are we regressing to pictograms again?
Love the format, such shade
I personally like its adamant REFUSAL to be bullied into showing the actual state of devices. DMESG knows, because notifications show the correct state, but Blueman is over here IE6ing.
Wow I see this post exactly one day after spending 4 hours tearing my hair out trying to connect a switch pro controller using blueman only to find out that I apparently have to use bluetoothctl because blueman can't for some reason.
Anyone run into this problem?
I feel like there's something you need to use bluetoothctl for on every system
For me it was trying to pair with a meshcore companion using a passcode
a meshcore heathen? in this economy? serves you right for not using meshtastic
/s
Meshtastic is completely dead here, apart from a few derelict repeaters. Meshcore is alive and linking 4 states on the east of Australia
I've only worked once with a UX person and all they did was order other people to produce design documents before any software was written. Like, he didn't design anything himself and didn't even critique others' designs. He made over $300K and eventually left for a job on the west coast making twice as much. He stopped talking to me entirely after the client had me write a prototype TV guide-type app for Blackberry. I created it entirely myself and the client loved it and wanted it released to the public exactly as it was. UX guy insisted (client didn't care at all) that all software needed a design document before any coding could take place, so he was forced to order somebody else to produce a design document for my app which already existed. He wouldn't even look at me when we passed in the hall after this.
I assume that this is not actually what a UX person is supposed to be doing, but I have no idea what their real job is.
The issue with newly emerging and poorly defined professions is that I could apply to any arbitrary position of that title, pretend like I've got expertise in a universal structure for it (managers love structure) and sound vaguely knowledgeable (hiring managers often don't know the subject matter).
By the time they've figured out that I'm not actually contributing anything of value, I'm taking off to other pastures that aren't about to wilt, my experience serving as selling point for the next sucker to hire me.
Of course, the people I just fucked over have no way of telling whether that's me being a fraud or whether it's the entire profession that's actually worthless and overhyped. Some, like you, err on the side of "I assume that person was a cunt", while others default to "UX is completely useless".
load more comments
(4 replies)
I'm guessing that the design documents might've been something in the vein of ‘user stories’ (if I correctly recall their name), which describe what some typical users would want to do with the app, so that the actual UI design would focus on these features being available front and center. This is a very legitimate design technique, and a good designer should always question why any elements must be present in the UI and whether they solve the user's goals.
This Blueman thing would definitely benefit from such approach, because right now it exposes a lot of technical details about which I don't care, while simultaneously making my everyday operations with it inconvenient.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Yeah that dude was just a dick, but probably confidently, and in a field people don't know much about, so he was able to get away with it.
I work with UX people frequently, and while they do love a good style guide, they're usually more concerned with the overall usability, legibility, and accessibility of an application. They're the people who (should) ensure your application works as expected and follows design and accessibility standards.
follows design and accessibility standards
Ah, this reminded me of another reason this dude hated me. One of my responsibilities with this gig was ensuring that the client's mobile apps passed accessibility testing. Making an app accessible is tedious work and every time we released an update the accessibility would be broken again. I tried to get this dude to bake the accessibility requirements into the design documents themselves on the off chance that the other developers would actually read the documents (lol as if) and make accessibility work from the get-go. He wasn't having it and couldn't be convinced that it mattered if blind people could use the apps or not. I had to sic the client (who faced enormous fines for failed accessibility tests) on him to get him to do it.
Heh.
Design documents are only useful if those deciding the design are making it and are ready before the coding starts.
And then there is this confusion of which "Design Document" one is talking about. It could be a UI/UX document or it could be the software design document, which would comprise multiple flow-diagrams, helping anyone pick up a project for maintenance and extension.
if those deciding the design are making it
This kinda depends. User stories document the typical goals and workflow of the users with the app, and thus should come from the target users or at least the client like a manager. The designer is not qualified to make the user stories since they don't know the business domain, as it's called. But they know how to organize the UI for any particular goals.
load more comments
(1 replies)
In my Head I'm Reading all of this in Tantacrul's voice
Trust the devs
So true
I love this window.
Is there a simple GUI for bluetoothctl?
xterm
most intuitive qt software
That's why I, as a seasoned programmer, keep my fingers out of UI design. I leave that to the professionals.
When received signal strength maxes out, it might be indeed too much to transmit at full power because the devices are apparently close enough for lower power (that uses less energy from the battery and reduces interference, even with itself through reflection) to suffice. But that's the other way around. Also, the desktop Linux device is usually not the more battery-constrained one in the pair.
💯
hopefully a FOSS organization will hire the person who made this
The top right quick-settings panel in gnome does the job for me
view more: next ›