Bluetooth Speaker - What Am I Doing Wrong?

[CharlesdeGaulle]

In an attempt to drag myself into the 21st Century, I recently bought a bluetooth speaker (a Zamkol ZK606 Wireless Stereo Speaker) in order to be able to hear music in my kitchen from where the computer sits in the study. I play from a desk-top, not my phone.

The issue I have with it is that it won't play anything from iTunes at all, and when I play from YouTube the sound drops out after a couple of songs; the computer is still playing but there's no sound from the speaker. If I turn it off and back on again, it usually - but not always - re-starts playing the music, but that clearly isn't right and not at all what I want it to do.

Have I made a schoolboy error in terms of suitability, or is it more likely that the speaker is faulty? What I'd really like to be able to do is play music in a different room from iTunes, YouTube, Windows Player or just CDs on the study desk-top.

Any advice please?

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Thank you for the responses.

I thought it might be range but it happens even when the speaker is adjacent to the computer. As for bluetooth settings, the speaker itself isn't adjustable and the computer settings seem to be all on as far as I can tell.

It's odd; I'm not sure I have any option other than getting some Wi-Fi speakers to do the same job. Does anyone have any recommendations please?

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Thanks Hoofy, good recommendation. I've just tested it and it seems to work fine. I'll see if the dropping-out issue recurs there the longer it goes on, but I want to be able to play from the computer. I don't have music on my phone and I don't like the way YouTube music stops if the screen isn't active on the phone as I reply to lots of messages and want the music to continue.

Might a smart Wi-Fi speaker be a better option overall?

[CharlesdeGaulle]

RogerDodger said:

ash73 said:

Try updating the bluetooth driver on the PC.

+1

Its probably on the driver the laptop shipped with .

You'll find a driver package with the Bluetooth app, on the manufacturers website. Can be a pain to find but I'll bet that's your problem

Thanks chaps, I'll try that at the weekend. Is it the manufacturer of the speaker or the computer that I need to look for? I assume the computer as the old one is likely to be out of date? The desktop is about 5 years old.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

By way of follow-up and closure, I took a slight change of tack and followed the advice of my daughter to download Spotify to my phone and use the speaker from that. I only did it last night but all seems to be working OK as-is, so I'll leave it for now and see how I get on with it. It does mean I can listen to music whilst still using the phone for other things, and the speaker seems a little more stable.

Many thanks for all the suggestions and advice; much appreciated.