The latest PlayStation Console by Sony, the PS5 is full of innovative features and comes with a fresh design. You can stream music from Spotify, play the latest titles in 4K at 120FPS, immerse yourself in 3D audio, and do many other fun things. However, one little problem still plagues the PlayStation consoles; the ability to connect third-party headphones such as AirPods to the PS5. If you’ve been wondering why that is, I’ll be answering your questions and show easy workarounds that would help you connect your AirPods with PS5 or any other headphones. Let’s begin.
What’s the Hold-Up
Sony boasts of next-generation graphics, amazing sound, immersive haptics, and yet you can only connect Sony PS5 compatible headphones. The problem is more nuanced than just corporate greed.
Latency Express
A major selling point of all the PS compatible headphones is that you would get a high-quality chat-audio experience with a low-latency audio output. The headsets use a proprietary mode of data transfer using a dongle instead of Bluetooth. This is a legitimate issue and Bluetooth with its limited bitrate causes latency. These are the main reasons why Sony’s own WH-1000XM3 and other Bluetooth headphones aren’t supported by the PS5.
The PS compatible headphones either take the wired-route and or use a USB dongle to offer wireless connectivity. So if you’re someone that doesn’t care about latency too much and just wants to use an existing pair of AirPods, there are multiple ways to connect your headphones to the PS5.
Can You Connect AirPods to the PS4
Similar to the PS5, the PS4 had the same problem. I’ve covered the steps to connect the AirPods to the PS4 in vigorous detail. You can check that out if you wish to connect your Bluetooth headphones to the PS4.
Connect AirPods to PS5
Connecting AirPods and PS5 isn’t difficult at all but some methods are better than the others. I’d list every method with detailed steps and recommend you use the mic on the Controller for online chats during the game because none of the methods listed below would give you a better experience.
1. Use Remote Play App
This is one of the easiest ways to get audio routed through your AirPods without any additional setup. You just need to connect the Remote Play app on your iPhone with the PS5. After that, you can listen to audio through the AirPods.
Advantage: Using the Remote Play app is easy, minimal setup is required, and works over local Wi-Fi.
Disadvantage: When playing games using the Remote Play app, you need to connect the controller with the iPhone instead of PS5. This may introduce some input lag because your input signal would go through the app first. Also, your iPhone needs to be on iOS 14.5 or a newer version or you’d have to use a PS4 controller. Android smartphones don’t have this limitation.
1: Install the Remote Play app on your smartphone from the Play Store or the App Store. Log in with your PS account.
2: Enable Remote Play on the PS5, open the Settings app, and scroll down to System Settings. Find Remote Play Settings, and flip the switch ON next to Enable Remote Play.
3: Link your PS5 with the Remote Play app by entering the code being displayed on the TV screen connected to the PS5.
4: Begin the session on your smartphone app and connect the PS5 controller with the smartphone. You can now connect your AirPods or any other Bluetooth headphones to the smartphone and enjoy the game.
2. Use Samsung Smart TV to Connect AirPods with PS5
Samsung Smart TVs are incredibly innovative and one of the features is the ability to stream your TV’s audio by simply connecting a wireless headphone using Bluetooth. If you have a Samsung TV and wireless headphones except for AirPods, this method works like a charm. During my testing, AirPods just didn’t work with the TV but there is a simple workaround for that as well. Read the next method if you wish to connect AirPods with PS5 using the Samsung TV.
Advantage: Unlike the Remote Play app, you would only be connecting the AirPods with your Samsung TV and your controller would be connected to the actual PS5, hence reducing the input lag in your gameplay.
Disadvantage: This method only works if you have both Samsung Smart TV and Bluetooth headphones.
1: Use the Samsung TV remote and navigate to Settings > Sound > Sound Output> Speaker List > Bluetooth device > Pair and connect.
Put your Headphones in the pairing mode, and use the remote to authenticate the connection and connect the Bluetooth headphones. That’s it, you can start playing games and the audio would be routed from the TV to your Bluetooth headphones.
3. Connect AirPods to PS5 Using SmartThings App
If you want to connect AirPods with PS5 and have a Samsung Smart TV, you’d need a Samsung smartphone as well. The Samsung SmartThings app allows you to route the audio from the TV to the smartphone and then you can connect your AirPods with the smartphone to get the audio from the PS5 on the AirPods.
Advantage: It’s a seamless process if you have all the devices with you.
Disadvantage: Using this method would introduce a lot of audio delays as the audio is first routed to the TV then to the smartphone and then to the AirPods.
1: Install the SmartThings App on your Samsung smartphone and login with the Samsung account. If you don’t have one, you can create one here.
2: Make sure your TV and the smartphone are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Fire up the app and add your TV by tapping the + button on the top left.
3: Tap the TV tile and go to options by selecting the options button on the top right and select Play TV sound on Phone.
4: Now, the audio from the TV will stream to the smartphone and you can connect your AirPods to the Samsung smartphone and play games on PS5.
4. Use a Bluetooth Dongle
Bluetooth dongles such as AvanTree Leaf allow you to connect Bluetooth headphones to devices lacking inbuilt Bluetooth hardware. In our case, we can use it to connect AirPods directly to the PS5. I’ve used it in the past to connect the PS4 with AirPods and it runs like butter.
Advantage: Using the Bluetooth dongle allows you to take the shortest route in transmitting your audio from the PS5 to AirPods. This gives you the least amount of audio delay and the experience is quite good.
Disadvantage: You don’t get to use 3D audio feature with this setup and the AirPods mic will not work with PS5.
1: Connect the AvanTree dongle to the PS5 USB port on the front. Press the pairing button on the dongle until the white light starts blinking.
2: Bring the AirPods near the dongle and put them in pairing mode by pressing and holding the button on the case.
The Dongle and the AirPods will connect to each other. Now you can simply start your favorite games and enjoy the audio on the AirPods.
If you don’t hear any audio on the AirPods, make sure that the audio output is correctly set in the PS5 settings. Navigate to Settings > Devices > Audio devices > Input and output > Avantree USB Headset.
5. Get a Premium Hi-Fi Transmitter
If you don’t mind shelling out around $90, are an audiophile, and love the 3D audio feature, you can get the FiiO BTA30 and get the full aptX support. As you may know, AirPods don’t support aptX. However, if you have Sony’s WF-1000XM3s or WH-1000XM4s, or any other headphone that supports aptX codec then this transmitter would come in handy.
It works just like the previous method. You connect the transmitter to the PS5 using the USB cable and then pair your Bluetooth headphones to the transmitter.
How Do You Connect AirPods with PS5
These were a few different methods you can use to connect AirPods with PS5. Granted, there are even more ways that I didn’t cover as I couldn’t vouch for their reliability. For instance, you could use the aux port on the back of the TV to connect a transmitter and route your audio from there. However, I’ve noticed that it introduces a significant amount of audio delay. What do you think? Let me know on Twitter.
Also Read: How to Stream Music on PS5 With Spotify While Playing Games
The post How to Connect AirPods with PS5 (Or Any Bluetooth Headphones) appeared first on TechWiser.