Ubuntu – make calls via the android phone over the desktop (and the bluetooth headset attached to the latter)

Bluetooth daemon

In the default installation a daemon (bluetoothd) runs in the background (run from the file /etc/init.d/bluetooth). This daemon takes care on recognizing and connecting to known bluetooth devices and may be cofigured with configuration files in /etc/bluetooth. For autoconneting a headset the following line in audio.conf should be uncommented (remove #):

AutoConnect=true

To restart the daemon type sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart.

_{Remark: Using the command line tool sudo hcitool cc <MAC-Adress> did not lead to a stable connection to a known device in the test environment here when the daemon was running.}

DBus

In order to connect a disconnected but physically present and paired headset we can use D-Bus from a script. Here's an example in python:

#!/usr/bin/python
# Toggles headset connection

import dbus
from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop

dbus_loop = DBusGMainLoop()
bus = dbus.SystemBus(mainloop=dbus_loop)

#Get dbus interface for headset
manager = bus.get_object('org.bluez', '/')
iface_m = dbus.Interface(manager, 'org.bluez.Manager')
adapterPath = iface_m.DefaultAdapter()
adapter = bus.get_object('org.bluez', adapterPath)
iface_a = dbus.Interface(adapter, 'org.bluez.Adapter')
devicePath = iface_a.ListDevices()[0]  # assuming first device
device = bus.get_object('org.bluez', devicePath)
iface_h = dbus.Interface(device, 'org.bluez.Headset')

#Check state of connection
connected = iface_h.IsConnected()
print 'Toggling connection. Please wait'
# toggle connection
if not connected:
    try:
        iface_h.Connect()
        print 'Connecting: ', devicePath
    except:
        print 'Device not found'
else:
    iface_h.Disconnect()
    print 'Disconnecting: ', devicePath

In case we have more than one Bluetooth device we will have to adapt the devicePath appropriately, of course. The example above will connect a Headset. Change the interface to a different protocol for any other service (e.g. AudioSink).

Pulseaudio

If you know the MAC adress of your Bluetooth device you can connect it as an output sink for pulseaudio by:

pacmd set-default-sink bluez_sink.xx_xx_xx_xx_xx_xx

Where xx_xx_xx_xx_xx_xx is the MAC address (replace ':' by '_' for pulseaudio to recognize it).

See also this answer for more details.

It turned out that the connection sharing has to be enabled on the phone. I installed an app on the phone which shares the connection (for the N900, it is called bluetooth-dun) and on the new pairing, Ubuntu automatically offered to use the phone's Internet connection. I guess that I must have seen the option when pairing with somebody else's phone before.

Then it showed a wizard for the setup (choosing a provider and a plan) and after I filled it out, it worked. At least that's how it works on 11.04.