AudioPlaybackConnector 1.3.1

AudioPlaybackConnector turns your Windows PC into a Bluetooth speaker.

Pair a phone to the computer, pick it from the tray icon, and whatever the phone plays comes out of the speakers already sitting on your desk.

It is about 169 KB, open source under the MIT licence, and there is nothing to install on the phone.

Why This Needs an App at All

Windows 10 version 2004 added Bluetooth A2DP Sink support, which is the part that lets a PC receive audio from another device rather than send it. Microsoft shipped the capability but no way to manage the connection, so on its own it does nothing you can reach.

Another application already filled that gap, but it could not hide in the notification area and was not open source. Richard Yu's GitHub project is the answer to both complaints: it lives in the tray, it is MIT licensed, and it does one job.

Setting It Up

The one thing worth understanding first is that pairing and connecting are separate steps. Windows handles the pairing; this app handles the connecting, and skipping the first means the second has nothing to offer you.

1. Run AudioPlaybackConnector. There is no installer - it is a single executable and it goes straight to the notification area.
2. Pair your phone in Windows Bluetooth settings, which you can open by right-clicking the tray icon and choosing Bluetooth Settings.
3. Left-click the tray icon and pick your phone from the list to connect it.
4. Play something on the phone. It comes out of your PC.

If the phone is paired but the list is empty, the usual cause is that the phone has since connected to something else, since most phones only send audio to one destination at a time.

What You Get, and What You Do Not

The tray icon is the entire interface, and that is deliberate rather than a limitation. Being able to sit quietly in the notification area is the stated reason the project exists.

So there are no settings to configure, no profiles and no per-device options. Volume stays where it always was, on the phone and in Windows.

There is no equalizer either. If you want to shape the sound arriving from the phone, that is a separate job for Equalizer APO or the simpler FxSound, both of which process whatever your PC is playing regardless of where it came from.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell is which direction you want the sound to travel. This app brings audio from a phone into your PC; if what you want is your PC's audio going out to a Bluetooth speaker, Windows already does that natively and you need nothing extra.

If the problem is instead that sound keeps coming out of the wrong device, that is switching rather than receiving, and SoundSwitch or Audio Switcher are the tools for it.

And if you are trying to route phone audio into a recording or a stream, be careful. It works, but the latency above lands in your recording too, so check a short test before committing to a long session.

Compatibility

Windows 10 version 2004 or newer. On anything earlier the A2DP Sink support simply is not present in Windows, so the app has nothing to connect to and no workaround exists.

Your PC also needs working Bluetooth. If the adapter is flaky or missing after an update, the driver is the place to start - the Realtek Audio Codecs package covers the audio side on many desktops, though the Bluetooth radio itself usually comes from the laptop or adapter vendor.

On the phone side, anything that supports standard Bluetooth audio works, which in practice means any modern iPhone or Android handset. Nothing is installed on the phone and no account is involved.

Incoming audio behaves like any other playback on the PC, so it reaches whichever output device Windows is currently using, and the interface is translated into several languages.

Where It Fits Alongside Your Other Audio Tools

This is a small piece of a normal desk setup rather than something you interact with daily. Once the phone is connected it stays out of the way until you need it again.

It sits happily alongside a normal music setup - foobar2000 or AIMP for your own library, with the phone as an occasional second source when someone wants to play something.

Lighter players such as XMPlay and Dopamine work the same way.

The full media players list is worth a look if you are still choosing one.

If you want to capture what arrives rather than just hear it, Audacity records from the Windows default input.

OBS Studio and the rest of your capture tools can pick it up as a desktop audio source instead, which is usually the easier route.

The rest of the audio utilities on the site cover the neighbouring jobs.

Quick questions

Download AudioPlaybackConnector 1.3.1 and see how it handles your phone, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.