Multipoint: headphones connected to your computer and phone at once

Wireless headphones can be paired with many devices, but they're usually actively connected to only one. Hence the familiar ritual: you're listening to music from your laptop, the phone rings — and you pull the headphones off, because the call goes to the phone, not to them. Or you switch manually through Bluetooth menus, cursing the whole way. Yet a large share of newer headphones support what's called multipoint: an active connection to two devices simultaneously. Music plays from the computer, and when a call comes in on the phone, the headphones switch over on their own. You often just need to turn the feature on first.

How to do it

1. Check whether your headphones support multipoint — look in the manufacturer's app or the manual for the words “multipoint” or “connect to two devices.” Plenty of Sony, Jabra, Bose, JBL, and other brand models support it, usually excluding the very cheapest ones.
2. Turn it on in the companion app (e.g. Sony Headphones Connect, Jabra Sound+) — on some models it's off by default, because it limits the audio codecs available for the highest sound quality.
3. Pair the headphones with both devices — phone and computer. Once turned on, they then connect to both at the same time.
4. Test the switching: play music from your computer and call your own phone. The call should automatically interrupt the music and hand it back once you hang up.
5. In the Apple ecosystem, AirPods solve the same problem their own way: they hop automatically between iPhone, iPad, and Mac based on where something's playing or ringing, with no manual switching needed.

A typical scenario

Marketer Klara spends half her day in Teams meetings on her laptop, interspersed with calls to clients. It used to mean juggling: headphones plugged into the computer, phone to her ear, or frantically switching in the Bluetooth menu while the phone rang. With multipoint, she keeps her headphones on all day — Teams and mobile calls both go through the same headphones with the same microphone, and Klara just answers calls instead of managing connections.

What you get out of it

An end to the daily switching, digging through Bluetooth menus, and missed first seconds of a call. One pair of headphones covers an entire workday across devices — which, incidentally, also means the microphone is right at your mouth even for phone calls, not just video meetings.

Pro tip

When multipoint behaves erratically (audio “jumps” to the wrong device), it helps to clean up your paired devices list: unpair the headphones from old laptops and tablets you no longer use. The shorter the list, the more predictable the behavior. For why keeping headphones on is worth it for focus too, see noise-cancelling headphones.