Headphones: Option to not automatically reconnect

Because the headphones must be turned on to enable ANC, and sometimes you just want ANC, without connecting to any device, it would be nice to have the option to require manually connecting from my output device, if I want to.

This would also solve for Apple’s completely insane behavior of reconnecting to my headphones no matter what even if I manually disconnected (from my iPad or Macbook). Or tell Apple to stop doing this! :slight_smile:

Interesting idea!
Don’t forget to vote for your own #wishlist item!

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That is controlled by your phone/tablet not the headphones.
It’s not an insane idea that you would want your headphones to work with a paired device whenever they are on. Could you imagine the complaints if you had to go into settings to enable a bluetooth device every time you wanted to use it?
If you don’t want them to automatically connect to something you have to unpair them.

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Um, or just turn off Bluetooth and turn it back on again as needed. I do that routinely when moving devices around. I thought everybody did. :slight_smile: That’s why they put it in the pull down (Android) and pull up (iOS) main phone menus as a simple touch toggle.

That is an option too if you don’t want any bluetooth devices connected.

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What if that device, e.g. a laptop or tablet, is on the other side of your house, that’s not very convenient. You might not even know which device it connected to.
This is a real problem which some of my other headphones don’t have, and which has a simple software fix. I’m proposing that fix because it would improve the product for me, and we’ll see how many other people agree. Fixing it won’t affect anyone that doesn’t care. There’s no downside other than using some developer resources to add a toggle and make a simple firmware change.

I don’t think you understand the scenario here.

How are you going to toggle it if your device is on the other side of the house?

I guess not. What other headphones do you have that can do this?

Thanks for making me think about this more. I think what I want is actually technically impossible, as there’s no difference between a source automatically reconnecting to the headphones and me doing it “manually”, from the headphones POV. This problem can only be solved at the source, which sadly in this case, is Apple, and they don’t seem interested in giving users that option.

As for the other side-benefit I was envisioning, which was to be able to use the power button as a de-facto ANC toggle (if BT could be disabled), that isn’t possible either, because disabling BT would prevent ever being able to connect to the app again, without some kind of hard reset or something. That’s a bit too edge case and complicated.

I’ll remove this topic, or mark it as “can’t do”. (Edit: looks like I can’t do this, oh well, I removed my vote, at least.)
Have a great day Angus!

(FTR, the toggle I was envisioning would have been a config setting in the app: “Don’t auto-connect to source devices”, so it would require doing anything during use of the headphones, that was the whole point. However, as I said, this isn’t even technically possible because the headphones aren’t the ones doing the auto-connecting, it’s the sources that initiate it.)

I think it would be technically possible for Apple, Android, Windows, et al, to have the option to autoconnect or not. Something like Wifi settings that allow the same.
Other than your headohone dilemma, I don’t know of many uses for it though.
When would you use ANC that being connected to your device would be a problem?
If you are using the headphones to block sounds why would you be playing anything on your phone?

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You’re essentially asking for local control of the Bluetooth profiles stored inside the headphones. It’s actually an interesting idea.

When the device goes in and out of range, like when you’re outside your house and the device is inside, it will freak out trying to reconnect. It’s also an issue of device contention. Sometimes another device, i.e. a laptop, grabs the connection before my phone does, requiring going over to the laptop, opening the lid, signing in, opening the Bluetooth menu and disconnecting. Major PITA. That is specifically an Apple issue in my case, but it effectively means I won’t use these headphones on that device, or my iPad. Unpairing the device after every use is not a good solution, nor is turning off BT because other things, like a trackpad and keyboard may need that.

Hmm, an even simpler solution to your particular need would be a headphone switch or sequence that ONLY turned off the Bluetooth radio but left the ANC circuitry operational.

Edit: hmm, found this. Perhaps just sticking an empty plug into the jack on the headphone would solve your problem?

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Whoa, you’re right, that works! Thanks!! :clap:

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No kidding? Great to hear. :slight_smile:

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That doesn’t work very well with an iPad and Apple Pencil since the Pencil is a bluetooth device.