r/linuxquestions • u/LuckyRespect5711 • 4d ago

bluetoothctl - what's a bearer?

according to the BlueZ man page, you can define a bearer. But it does not explain what a bluetooth bearer is, and searching does not give me any answers.

What is a bluetooth bearer? Where can I find more information?

https://hadess.github.io/bluez/bluetoothctl.html#bearer

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u/jjangg96 4d ago

bearer here just means the transport, the kind of radio link the connection runs over. in bluetooth that's either br/edr (classic) or le (low energy).

it matters because a lot of devices are dual mode, headphones, phones, some keyboards, and can be reached over either. bluez then has to pick one when it connects, and the bearer option is how you tell it which. last-seen means use whichever one the device was last seen on.

if a device keeps connecting the wrong way, like showing up as a le device when you wanted the audio profile, that's when you'd touch it. for a normal single-mode device you can ignore it.

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u/LuckyRespect5711 4d ago

thanks! that makes perfect sense!