IPhone 4 Bluetooth Issues

I just want to say that Bluetooth has never been line of sight with anything but the 4 for me.

I would start the car in the garage and if my wife was the last one connected to the car and on the phone in the house

it would switch to the car 50ft or more away.

Ron,

I agree with Oliver. Bluetooth is not line of sight. Take a look at the link below. There is definitely a problem with the 4 and I believe the 4s as well.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/bluetooth2.htm

Robert

You know if I was my son who's now just experiencing a cell phone for the first time I probably wouldn't think twice about the Bluetooth problems. But I know that my Free! Razor from 2004 had flawless Bluetooth and so did every phone after that. So I know what the technology is supposed to do and for a $500+ billion dollar company like Apple to miss and/or deny this as a problem just ****** me off to no end.

I guess that's why this post is number one on my favorites.

And me being a sucker twice is even worse. I knew that the 4 had the problem but I figured that a company like apple would fix it in the next version the 4S so I bought the new phone thinking that it would be back to the quality of the 3g. I was so wrong!

We shouldn't be hear searching for a earpiece to make up for the inadequacy of the phone. Though it is great that we're all trying out options to get by till we're forced to upgrade in hopes that the next phone addresses the problem.

All I have to say it that if the problem isn't solved with the 5 I will never buy or let any family member or business buy another apple product again if I can stop them.

I've been getting by with my Jawbone era which is sad for such a high end full featured earpiece just to be getting mediocre rating due to a flaw in the phone.

The earpiece is everything I expect when paired to my work blackberry curve.

Oh well cross your fingers for the 5 🙂 Because we've all bought so many non transferrable apps for the iphones that we're kind of stuck. Don't even get me started on that 🙂

Guys,

Several years ago when I bought my first bluetooth headset, the instructions stated that too many objects between the phone and the bluetooth radio could interrupt the signal. Ever since then I have always taken note of that advice. Often, I will leave my phone in the house and work in my yard with my headset on and I have have had no problems with walls blocking the signal between me and the headset.... knowing that when in a far part of the yard, with a lot of house between me and the phone, that I probably was disconnected. The cool thing about the HM1700 is that it tells you when that happens and now I know when I'm disconnected and when I re-connect.

I understand and agree that bluetooth is supposed to go through walls. but personal experience tells me that the first bit of advice still holds true. Roberts link is very specific about that, but I'm talking from a lot of personal experience with headsets. I talk to customers all day long, and always on a head set. BTW, the HM1700 has never registered a complaint from any of my customers. No one believes that I'm using a headset when i tell them.

I am in no way saying that there is not a problem with Apple's iPhones and bluetooth reception... there is a major problem and one that they must address. But, I think that I've found the best headset to combat that problem for now and that is why I tout the advice I do.

It's just me, but it works for me.

Ron

Definitely Ron and my posts are in no way directed at you. And it's great that everyone is trying out other options.

I tried the Jawbone thanks to a post on here.

I'm just voicing my frustration that I've had $15 knock off Motorola ear pieces work better on any other phone and apple still denies that there's a problem.

We really shouldn't have to try 9 different earpieces to find one that works with our $200/$500 phones.

But I really do appreciate peoples successes I should just pick up the 1700 and see.

It's so cheap compared to what I've already spent trying to work around this problem.

Bad news for you: While I was impressed with the overall quality and value of the HM1700, I have all the same issues using it with my iPhone 4s as I do my far-more-expenseive Plantronics headset.

I have no doubt at all that the 4s is to blame. My daughter recently told me she has simply given up the dream of cordless headphones with Apple, and has gone to a wired headset. I will soon follow suit :-(

I would first like to say that I appreciate the hard work people here in this forum have done to try to find and share solutions for what is obviously failure of the 4 and 4s phones. We've not heard a peep from Apple, so one can only assume there's more investigation going on here than at Apple. It's really unbelievable that a high-end phone can be so deficient on what is considered a commodity, basic function on even cheap phones today. I understand finding a shortcoming once a product is out in use with millions of customers. What I don't understand is a company that seems to simply say, tough luck. Buy our next phone. Maybe it'll be better.

Some of you have been able to find solutions by changing your BT device. While it shouldn't be necessary, it is at least a work around.

However, my situation is different. I have severe hearing loss and gradually was losing my ability to use a cell phone until hearing aid manufacturers began to build bluetooth capabilities into their systems. I first adopted this about three years ago, purchasing a device with my hearing aids that acts like the headsets you all use, but it couples with my hearing aids to enable me to hear. It worked so well with my old Blackberry that people were amazed to find I was on a BT device. It had a long range and great quality. Now I'm stuck with people asking me if I don't have something else I can use because they can't understand me, the timbre is so tinny it is annoying or it is just garbled. Sometimes if I cold start the phone, it works better for a while.

I don't have the option of trying a different brand of BT device. Although I like the iPhone for many things, it has severely crippled by ability to use it as a phone. I use a cell for work and travel frequently. This is a major problem for me. I have no confidence that it is going to get any better so unless I want to pay hundreds of dollars to buy another phone, I'm stuck for a couple of years. Apple needs to acknowledge and deal with this issue.

You are correct themikado2005 the HM1700 is no better or worse than the Era.

It just came in and I still do not get good reception when I put the phone in my pocket.

And there are less features. Oh well Ebay time.

still for the price the HM1700 isn't bad.

I just borrowed a friend's plantronics 640 and it worked flawlessly with my iPhone 4s. I have to say I really think it has something to do with the 4s noise canceling and it not playing well with certain headset's built in noise canceling. Does anyone know if there is a way to turn off the 4s noise cancellation when using a bluetooth headset? I vaguely recall this being an option on older iPhones but can't find anything close on the 4s. Still seems like something apple should look into for the next round of updates.

Hi guys I had the same problem my iPhone 4 running on iOS 5.1 wouldn't find my headset but when I turned on my headset just hold the button until your phone finds it..try it hope it works for you aswell.

Basically, there is an issue for the 4/4s with Bluetooth. After reading many posts as they get sent to my email, I've found a couple of "temporary" fixes. My earpiece (I've tried a great number of them, and it is the phone-not the earpiece/car) will get that static-y crackle or disconnect/ won't connect. I can hold it near my earpiece and it does fine, but that kind of defeats the purpose. After trying various things, here's what I do that seems to work pretty well: Every morning, I go to my multitasking bar and delete all the apps from it. I then do a two-button reset (pressing and holding both power and home buttons until it powers back up with the apple showing). Someone suggested this resets the Bluetooth stack. After it regains regular function and has found signal, I turn on my Bluetooth earpiece right next to the phone. It finds it easily and works pretty well. The problem I ran into, was that it would get that static part of the way through the day. Another suggestion that the Wi-fi continual searching affected the Bluetooth (antenna doesn't like being shared) was worth checking on. When I'm not intentionally on Wi-Fi I turn it off. It made a significant difference as well.

Hope this helps others. Again, not a permanent fix, but it kept me from chucking it out the window.

Great suggestion here from Sean, turn off the wi-fi because it competes with the blue tooth. I tried it and after two days the difference is amazing. I didn't need to reboot or hold the earpiece close to the phone. I'm using Plantronics Voyager and 4S.

Thank you Sean.

Too bad Apple hasn't put 5Ghz 802.11a/n on the iPhones. If it were available (as it is in the iPad) I could just attach to my wifi router on that frequency range and not have any interference problems with Bluetooth. As it stands, that workaround is not useful to me since I don't wish to use my AT&T bandwidth from home.

BTW, I am having more success with the HM1700 than the expensive Jawbone ERA. While the Jawbone has better fit and features, it is cheaper to replace the HM1700 when I eventually throw it off a bridge in a fit due to these BT issues. (I can get 3 or more HM1700s for one Jawbone).

Reporting yet another BT issue with iPhone 4 playing stereo music to Sony IS800 BT Stereo Headset. Calls are marginally ok with the phone in a case and holster. Playing music over the BT Headset is only possible when the phone has a direct line of sight with the headset and less than 6 ft away.

I will try the reset ritual as Sean described.

Apple, please get this fixed already.

My brand new 4S sees no devices at all around it although the ipad next to it is searching and it sees 4-5 devices. I am trying to use my iphone as a remote for the new Keynote and I can not even get the ipad to see the phone or vice versa.

This is a mess now I am starting to regret buying this phone.