Stop Automatically Switching to Bluetooth Audio

audioautomationbluetooth

I have a pair of headphones that I really like. I also spend over 12 hours a day in front of my MacBook. As such, I prefer to use some voice commands using Speakable Items. However, due to the placement of my MacBook on my desk, I can't use the internal microphone without yelling (can't yell in the lab).

Therefore, I picked up a bluetooth earphone/mic combo to solve this issue. The earphones are detachable, so I'm using it only as a mic. I've mapped the correct audio-in in the Speech prefpane.

So my headphones are plugged into the audio-out port, but when I power up my bluetooth mic, my macbook automatically sets the bluetooth as the audio-out device. This is suboptimal, as I have to manually switch the audio-out device when this happens. Now, I could write an applescript to automatically switch back the audio device when this happens, but that's putting a band-aid on the issue.

Is there a way to stop my MacBook from automatically switching to the bluetooth headset when it powers on?

Bonus points to solutions that don't disable automatic audio-out switching entirely as I would like my macbook to auto-switch to the external sound card that I plug in when I go home

Best Answer

This little menu bar app works for me to quickly switch audio sources:

Audio Switcher

It's more of a Band-Aid then an actual fix of the problem.

NOTE: This app is not available in all regions.