How to Use Your Wireless Headset or Airpods for Xbox One Party Chat

We wanted to drop a quick little reminder and PSA for all of you Xbox One and Xbox One X gamers who are needing a more convenient way to communicate with your online parties! Don't you miss the good old days when you could just plug in your wireless Xbox 360 headset and start chatting with your squad right away? Aren't you frustrated with the Xbox One's lack of a convenient wireless headset?! Well stop freaking out, because you can use any of your Bluetooth microphones or earpieces right now!

The secret sauce? The Xbox app on your smartphone! Not too long ago you may remember our report that the Xbox app had been updated to allow you to create, join, and chat in Xbox Live parties straight from the app. We pointed it out back then, but it's worth reminding you guys that this means you can now use pretty much any phone headset or microphone you have laying around -- anything that you can use with your phone. We were inspired to write this reminder after seeing the above image on Reddit.

It's not an ideal solution by any means, and Microsoft definitely needs to make some quality of life upgrades to Xbox One soon that allows for USB microphones to be used. On PS4, for example, I love to plug in my Blue Yeti microphone for communication, and my Bose headphones plug right into the Microphone for game audio and chat audio. It's perfect, but things don't work like that on Xbox One. That needs to change soon.

In the meantime, this is a brilliant little workaround that, as long as your smartphone is charged, offers a convenient way to communicate with your squad mates, even if you don't have an official Xbox headset. If you look around your house or apartment, we're willing to bet that you can find a pair of ear buds or headphones with a microphone attached, which you can use with the Xbox app for party chat. Just keep those bad boys by your gaming station, and you'll have a plug-and-use headset in a pinch whenever you need one!

And you're going to need it soon! Next month we finally get to play Sea of Thieves. That game is going to be the perfect excuse to get your entire group of Xbox buddies together, and for anyone who doesn't own a headset, this is going to be a life-saver! Don't forget that if you have Xbox Game Pass, you get Sea of Thieves for free on launch day. More on that here.