Don't have a microphone? Don't worry, UT can do this for you...

Capsia

Hi,
this is an experiment I've done with Ubuntu Touch and I would like to share. If someone needs a microphone for conferencing during the pandemic but doesn't have one, here is how to use your Ubuntu Touch phone as a microphone for your pc.

Things you need:

Your Ubuntu Touch phone
A jack to jack audio cable

Step by step:

Plug the cable into the microphone port of your pc and in the jack port of your phone.
Check that you've done the step 1 before going to step 2.
Check in the sound panel that headphones are plugged.
Run the following command in the terminal:
pactl load-module module-loopback
Note the number in the output, you'll need it to stop microphone sharing.
Enable silent mode to prevent notifications from going into the microphone.

To stop sharing microphone:

Run the following in the terminal replacing number_to_replace with the number you have noted before. Do not unplug the cable before running the command.
pactl unload-module number_to_replace
You can now safely remove the cable.

Please check that you've done the operations in the correct order. (Don't hurt your ears).

Tested on Nexus 5 Dev

Pulsar33

Hello
Nice solution, thank you.
Could it be adapted to a cable free solution (WiFi, Bluetooth) ?
BR
Pulsar33

kugiigi

If this works on most, if not all, UT devices then I guess this can be added to UTTT
I wonder if it works on laptops though. I think the audio has to be able to carry both sound output and microphone.
I myself would want to use it because my headset broke in the most unfortunate time LOL

Capsia

@Pulsar33 yes, it could be probably adapted to be cable free, but I don't know how...
if someone could point me in the right direction, I could try

@kugiigi It should work on all the devices running Pulseaudio, so all Ubuntu Touch devices (with a jack output) and also on laptops and desktops. If someone wants to check, let me know how it went.
If your laptop has a speaker jack, then you should be able to do the exact same thing as with UT.

Nice idea for UTTT

tigerpro

I wonder if this solution could also be adapted to make sound on a HDMI connected screen work

dobey

@tigerpro said in Don't have a microphone? Don't worry, UT can do this for you...:

I wonder if this solution could also be adapted to make sound on a HDMI connected screen work

It cannot. You can of course use a 3.5mm to RCA or such adapter, to connect the headphone jack to the audio input on your TV, to get sound that way, but there is no support in the pulseaudio hybris modules currently for sending audio output over the HDMI when a Slimport/MHL cable is connected.