I have recently switched to using sway window manager, and a key piece of functionality disappeared – which is automatic changing of output from my speakers to my 3.5mm headphone output when my headphones are plugged in.
If I open Pavucontrol, I can see that I have two profiles for the sound card:
- “Play HiFi quality Music (HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Mic1, Mic2, Speaker)”
- “Play HiFi quality Music (HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Headphones, Mic1, Mic2)”
I asked a question here, which means I think I now have the tools to automatically switch the profile when I plug headphones into the socket, but the answer I accepted there has caused me to reflect on whether that is the right approach – and whether this should be able to be handled natively by pipewire/other related linux tools.
I have looked at the pipewire documentation, which seems to link out to alsa and pulsaudio documentation, and I found the whole thing quite vague and confusing.
Is it possible to create a new profile in which both outputs are present in a profile and the sound is switched automatically from the speakers to the headphones using pipewire or some other related software (wireplumber)? If so, what is the process for this?
