Hi,
I was used to switching between laptop speakers and Bluetooth speaker on the normal audio menu.
But one day, I needed to use a TV's speakers through HDMI, and couldn't find it, so I initially thought it was a driver issue, but never found a fix, so I had to use a friend's Windows laptop at the last minute because people were waiting to watch something.
Today, months later, I have the same issue, but on a different laptop with more recent hardware, so I was hoping to have better luck, and I didn't... Until I accidentaly notice that the HDMI device is available under a submenu of the laptop's speakers, WTF ?
Attached to this post is a screenshot showing a Bluetooth speaker, the laptop's speakers and HDMI speakers. Why isn't the latter available at the same location as the former two ?
The submenu could be kept for selecting between 2.0/5.1/7.1, just like for Bluetooth devices it's used to select between aptX/LDAC/SBC, but I don't understand what's a whole different device doing in that submenu of the laptop's speakers.
Thanks
To clarify a little bit for OP: the same sound device is shared between the laptop's speakers, headphone jack and its video outputs like HDMI.
It's the same sound card but under a different profile to send the audio to the HDMI instead. Technically the same also happens but more automatically when you plug in wired headphone, it triggers a port switch. It's an either or situation: it can only do one at a time except on some chipsets. That used to be an interesting audio quirk back in the days: plug in headphones and it keeps playing through the laptop speakers.
Plasma only shows independent audio devices because it's not just a global audio device selector, you can also select individual apps to go to different audio devices, for example an external mixer and a dedicated music channel.