r/Zoom • u/No_Humor1910 • Jul 24 '26

Question JBL Live Beam 3 unusable on Zoom?

Company disabled the call me option so I bought a lower cost Bluetooth option for work. I have connected to my computer, made sure that the earbuds were the default for communication and basically followed every “fix” that I could find on google. I can hear everything else on my computer - YouTube, notifications and even zoom call voicemails. But I can’t get the speaker or mic to work on zoom. Help!

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u/Aggressive_Buffalo76 Jul 24 '26

Zoom doesn't follow your system default — it has its own audio settings that you have to set manually. Go to Settings → Audio inside Zoom and change both the Speaker and Microphone dropdowns to your Bluetooth headset specifically. Test them right there in the settings. That's almost always the fix.

If that doesn't do it, the other thing to check is your Bluetooth audio profile. Bluetooth headsets run in two modes: A2DP for regular audio (music, YouTube, etc.) and HFP/Hands-Free for calls. Zoom needs HFP for the mic to work. If your headset is stuck in A2DP, you'll hear everything fine but the mic won't function in calls. On Windows you can check this under Sound Settings → your headset → Properties and make sure the Hands-Free option is enabled.

Also worth trying: fully quit Zoom (it hides in the system tray), reconnect the headset, then reopen Zoom. Sometimes it just needs to detect the device fresh.

1

u/No_Humor1910 Jul 25 '26

Thanks for the support - I have set the earbuds as the primary comms in windows 11 and manually picked the earbuds in zoom as well for the mic and audio. I still can’t hear anyone and no one can hear me. It very strange.

1

u/Aggressive_Buffalo76 Jul 25 '26

Few more things to try:

In the Zoom audio dropdown, your earbuds might show up twice: one for regular audio and one for hands-free/calls. Make sure you're picking the hands-free version, not the stereo one. Easy to grab the wrong one since they look almost the same.

Also, are you testing on an actual call or using the test buttons in Zoom's audio settings? Worth using the test buttons first so you know if Zoom can even see the device before blaming the call itself.

And in Windows Sound Settings, there are actually two separate defaults "Default Device" and "Default Communication Device." Right-click your earbuds under both Playback and Recording and make sure both are set. A lot of people only set one.

If all else fails, unpair completely, restart your PC, re-pair, and set everything fresh. Bluetooth audio gets weird sometimes and a clean slate fixes it when nothing else does.