From the TV side, most modern televisions now support Bluetooth, though it’s missing on a minority of budget sets. If your current model doesn’t offer Bluetooth connectivity, one option is to add a soundbar or speaker set that does. You’re then just transferring the audio wirelessly from the speakers rather than the TV.

Once you’ve connected your headphones to your television, all the sounds coming from the TV set—including beeps and whistles from the menu, as well as the audio from movies and shows—will come through the headphones rather than the built-in TV sound system. You won’t get sounds playing through both places at the same time.

Get Connected

Every TV and pair of headphones will work slightly differently, but the process of getting connected will be broadly similar no matter what hardware devices you’re using. You’ll need to find the Bluetooth connection option somewhere in your television’s settings first, and then put your headphones into pairing mode so they can be discovered by the TV.

If you’re stuck about how to do either, a quick look at the documentation that came with your devices—or a search of online forums—should help you out. Your TV will be able to switch between different audio outputs, through the menus or via the remote (or both), so you can switch between headphones and the TV’s speakers.

On TVs running the latest Google TV software, for example, you can select the gear icon in the top right of the main menu screen, then Bluetooth and Pair remote or accessory—then just follow the instructions on the screen. Many headphones, meanwhile, will come with a dedicated Bluetooth button that you can press and hold to put them in the necessary pairing mode.

If you’ve got a streaming box or dongle connected to your TV, you’ll usually be able to connect this to a pair of headphones as well as (or instead of) your television. For example, on the Apple TV 4K box, open up the Settings app then choose Remotes and Devices and Bluetooth to start searching for nearby headphones.

Sometimes you’ll get extra options if you’ve bought a lot of devices from the same manufacturer. Take the recently launched Sonos Arc headphones: They have a feature called TV Audio Swap that lets you switch between listening to a television program on headphones and listening through the Sonos Arc soundbar at the touch of a button.