Hi Everybody! I'm separating out this fix from my last post as I'm getting DM's for people asking how to fix their Airpods with this kext if they didn't use my EFI, but I'd rather keep the discussion in a thread so everybody can have input on their specific situation.

This fix should work for all builds unable to engage a bluetooth mic, whether it be through Airpods or another headset when trying to use the native IntelBluetoothFirmware.kext provided bluetooth drivers on your OpenCore installation, regardless of your build.

I've recently gotten highlighted on the GitHub issue, but hopefully this post will bring more awareness to the project.

The Problem

Below is a description of the problem you might be facing:

Audio would work fine through my Airpods Pro while listening to music and watching videos, but as soon as I hopped into a meeting whether it be Teams or Zoom, any engaging of the mic would cause my computer to freeze or audio will fizzle out and die, unusable until either a restart or a disconnect / reconnect of the device. The same would follow if you went to System Preferences -> Sound -> Input and tried to select an active mic.

I originally solved this by using a USB Mic, or taking the call on my cell instead, but it was getting annoying swapping every time I had to use the mic.

I believe the reason might be because the Bluetooth firmware provided doesn't like how MacOS tries to swap to a lower quality codec as soon as the mic is engaged (Don't forget it's based off of the Intel Drivers meant for PCs). I've posted my findings on the Issues page on GitHub, but since there's no real documentation as to how to contribute to that project, I can't be of more assistance.

The Fix

Windows Dual Boot

If you setup and boot into Windows, you're then able to install the newest firmware / drivers provided by Intel for the AX201 set.

Native Intel AX201 Bluetooth Windows 10 Driver

Once those are properly loaded, you must restart the computer from the OS (Not via the power button) and then select Mac from the Boot (OpenCanopy) menu. Alternatively if you have BootCamp installed you can change the Startup Disk, but I found no reason to because at this point I'll have to boot in Windows everytime the computer restarts anyway to get my Airpods working. This will allow the most recent firmware to persist until the new hard power cycle, and magically your Bluetooth Mic will work without issues.

Bootcamp VM

I do not know how this works if you're running either MacOS or vice versa Windows in a VM with Bootcamp. I do not know how firmware injection takes place in this case. If somebody wants to let me know if it works for them I'll be happy to update this main post for future visitors.

Links

Feel free to thumbs up the issue here:

IntelBluetoothFirmware GitHub

If you'd like to see my EFI:

GitLab OpenCore

In keeping with the rules on the sidebar, if you find issues with my EFI please don't reply to this thread, open up an Issue on GitLab and I can respond there.

There are more credits to be added, but I'd like to thank LuckyCrack for his minimal themes which are currently used in the EFI.