Raspberry pi audio/video jack

JimS

Senior Member
What's up with the weird combined audio/video jack on the pi?  I was using a beagle bone and a USB sound dongle but am switching to a pi and thought I would use the built in audio.  It appears I would need a cable to convert to RCA and then back to 3.5mm audio plug?  Or make up my own custom cable adapter.  I am not interested in the video.  Might be easier to plug the USB sound dongle in since the later pi's have multiple USBs.  Also was surprised to see that the sleeve is not ground - seems strange.  If I just insert a standard stereo plug with shorting out the video damage anything?
 
This four pin audio jack thing has become a nightmare. It seems the pin-out has become fairly standard across most manufacturer but Apple (yeah leave it to Apple to be different) has created a proprietary protocol for signals.
 
IIRC the outer sleeve is now for headset signals...like pause, stop, play, rewind etc.
 
It seems just when you catch up to the latest technology, somebody has to modify it again. Just wait until the USB and HDMI become obsolete next. :(
 
from a bit more reading it appears nothing can be damaged on the pi by inserting the wrong plug as long as there isn't power on the plug being inserted.  And again from what I have read a standard stereo audio plug can be used for audio.  That will short the video output (I think) but the output can tolerate that. So I may be able to plug a set of old style amplified PC speakers in directly.  That's all I am looking to do.  The board won't have a display.
 
JimS said:
from a bit more reading it appears nothing can be damaged on the pi by inserting the wrong plug as long as there isn't power on the plug being inserted.  And again from what I have read a standard stereo audio plug can be used for audio.  That will short the video output (I think) but the output can tolerate that. So I may be able to plug a set of old style amplified PC speakers in directly.  That's all I am looking to do.  The board won't have a display.
I have tried every online article I could ever find about using BlueTooth speakers with the RPis but I can never get it to work. The three RPis I tried with dozens of different software styles, connecting  with Amazon, Google Home and a few other miniature BT speaker systems, would always pair but never actually talk,always  saying the speakers refused the connection. There seems to be some protocol problems there.

Right now I have a PiCar with a RPi3 onboard and would love to make it talk with a small BT speaker I have. Wired speakers always need an amplifier and power is a premium on batteries there.
 
I had an external BlueTooth transmitter connected to the 1/8" audio output of a ZeeTroller (HomeSeer PI) and that worked ok.  I know this isn't exactly what you wanted.  I just used the plug that came with this transmitter (I could check how many 'pins' it has if you would like).
 
BraveSirRobbin said:
I had an external BlueTooth transmitter connected to the 1/8" audio output of a ZeeTroller (HomeSeer PI) and that worked ok.  I know this isn't exactly what you wanted.  I just used the plug that came with this transmitter (I could check how many 'pins' it has if you would like).
Yes, that would be helpful.  I think the plugs are the same length regardless of how many rings they have and so your plug just lacks the ring closest to the wires which would be the video (I think).
 
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