AirPods won’t connect after iOS 14 update

Do you have a Apple Watch? If so go into settings on the watch and turn off blue tooth, at that point you should be able to connect to the AirPods. It’s a pain because I will usually forget to turn the blue tooth back on, but that works for mine. I do have to do that every single time I connect them and it’s frustratingly. Not sure why Apple won’t address this since they can see these posts

There is no need to turn the watch off; it is only required to turn off bluetooth on the Apple Watch while connecting the AirPods to the iPhone. Then you can easily turn it on again and both Watch and AirPods will work fine at the same time.

I hope that Apple will add a fix to the next software update as it is quite ridiculous to do it each time you want to use the AirPods. I talked to Apple Support and was instructed to erase both the Watch and iPhone and spent several hours on setting them up from the scratch. It did not help at all, the issue is exactly the same, so it is a software glitch, not related to specific Apple Watch or iPhone. Also, my friend has a very same issue while using his Under Armour Bluetooth headphones...

Same for me, I can only connect to listen to music after doing an ear fit test each time. I read somewhere that the Apple Watch was creating a problem with the connection and found if I turn off my Apple Watch the AirPods work as expected. This has to be a software issue seeing how I am on IOS14.4 Beta

I have been able to get mine to work by turning off my watch, connecting the AirPods, then turning my watch back on again. It’s a royal pain but at least they work after.

If you’ve got an Apple Watch connected then turn it off, connect your AirPods then whilst listening to music turn the watch back on! Not great but it works

I have done everything I even spent over 2 hours with an apple rep trying to help me... to no avail the only way I can get it to work is one I connect them go into the settings for them, play the ear fit test 3 times and then they work but I. Have to do this every time.... it’s insane and stupid. Give me back IOS 13 till it’s fixed

While updating my Apple Watch to the new WatchOS version, I noticed my AirPods were again functioning with my iPhone properly (at that point the watch not connected to the iPhone). Once the WatchOS update was completed the issue returned.

I was able to confirm that stopping the Apple Watch Bluetooth prevented that trigger of some delay/race condition which impacted the AirPods connection. Apple Watch Bluetooth off enabled me to use the AirPods with my iPhone without any issue.

Reimaging the Apple Watch (factory and reinstall, while keeping the Cellular plan) helped resolve the issue completely.

Hope it helps.

guys I hope everyone sees this. I deleted widgetsmith. And it immediately worked again

Try deleting widget smith if you have it. Worked for me. Completely back to normal

Delete widget smith!! Changed everything for me

So I turned off my Apple Watch and now my AirPods work.

I put my phone in airplane mode, disabled Bluetooth, disabled airplane mode, and re-enabled Bluetooth. This fixed the problem for me.

Hi this happens to me as well. I guess it’s some kind of glitch that has to do with the new widgets or something. To fix this glitch, I restart my phone and reconnect the AirPods and this seems to work. Hope it helps!

This happened to me and it's very frustrating. The only way I fixed it was that every time it says it was connected, I would have to do the ear fit test and then it would connect and the music would play through my airpods. It's frustrating but it's the only way it worked for me.

Hallo all,

I had the same issue with my airpods.

After the update to iOS14 the airpods stops to work fine with my iPhone 11 pro Max... I tried al the suggestions found on this community but nothing helps...

I've just installed iOS14.5 beta public and magic! now my airpods are working fine again with my iPhone!