You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Custom transparency mode continues to turn off randomly. I have to go into “audio visual” in settings, then “Headphone Accommodations” then scroll to the bottom and turn on “transparency mode”. In this menu are the settings for adjusting external sounds. The transparency mode toggle button here keeps turning off! I’ve reset the AirPods, reset the settings several times but nothing seems to work. Please advise.
iPhone 13 Pro Max
So it's not just me, then. Yes, very, very irritating!
Worth noting too: it's controlled from iOS. If you get the AirPods configured the way you want, then switch to Mac, you will find that this does not happen; your configuration remains as programmed. Something, somewhere, deep in the bowels of iOS, is spontaneously switching this off, for some reason.
I do notice that this tends to happen more often when I move for some reason, especially when I go to the bathroom and the ambience changes noticeably. Of course, from there, it's irritatingly hard to change it back, because you need to do this from the phone directly and not the pods, so if you're fully occupied and it switches off, you're stuck, temporarily.
I also couldn't help noticing that sometimes the controls showed custom transparency as being on and the amplification set correctly, even though it clearly wasn't actually amplifying, but moving the slider even very slightly would instantly restore the correct behaviour. In other words the state of the pods wasn't actually reflected properly in the UI. Sigh.
Absent contacting Apple Feedback (which you should do), or the Apple Accessibility team directly, anyone have other solutions? Could a Siri shortcut do it?
Just completed the 17.4 upgrade. It still turns off randomly. The AirPods shut off transparency but when you go into headphone settings it is checked ON. Only when you click it off there and then ON again does it restore transparency. It will not turn back on from the AirPods. I do have 6B34 ver. on the AirPods now. Maybe that will help. Not sure when that updated.
@Mac266 "But it's a pain in the butt and should be fixed.". When I had this problem it was worse than that. I was in the middle of the meeting and the transparency would drop, I could barely hear what people said because at the meeting everyone talked in a very low-key voice. I rely on Aitpods Pro as it was a lifesaver for me. I notice that after iOS updates the transparency drops, until the next update, and so on.
Why I asked about the age of the AirPodsPro because I sold my 2 pairs that were 2 years old on eBay and purchased 2 new ones, and my transparency mode does not drop any longer. I am on iOS 17.3.1 My bad experience with dropping for months, makes me skeptical to update to iOS 17.4 I do not want to go through this "pain" again.
I would agree that, at the very least, transparency mode without the headphone accommodations isn't actually transparent, yes. Both because of the occlusion of the pods themselves, and the strangely dark sound signature. Of course, everyone's hearing is different, but even people without hearing loss have commented on that. I think turning on the headphone accommodations is also necessary for phone and media, too, and I have other headphones from Sennheiser and Sony whose signature I'm more than happy with.
Ultimately until Apple get into the hearing aids space (and I sincerely hope they do!) we're basically improvising. I'm an aid user too (mostly moderate but some severe loss in higher frequencies for one ear), switch between them and the pods, but it's arguable that I should be thinking about how best to afford good aids with Bluetooth support. In the meantime, if you haven't yet, let Apple know that you need this feature.
Dunno. It seems to be working for me, but that could just be a good spell, as happens, rather than the result of the iOS update. I haven't checked the firmware versions but I suspect we'd have heard if there were an update to that as well.
I did briefly suspect the "tone volume" setting to be significant, in that it seemed to be reset to 100% when the problems stopped. But right now it's still at 125%. So I don't know, unfortunately.
I replied to this back in December with the same issue. I want to say, for the last month and half about when I installed iOS17x, the problem went away. I swear that my Macbook may have had something to do with it? Not sure but the MacOS now has additional Accessibility features from I can see.
I reported my findings in the feedback section. Also, I reported to the senior advisor and told him to contact the developer himself. I don't mind if he gets all the credit, as long as it's going to be fixed. It's a pain to carry 2 sets of AirPods Pro around my neck and switch back and forth, between making calls, listening to music, and using them as a hearing aid.
@JimRochNY, I had mine working for a few weeks a month ago, and it went back to "normal" disconnecting. Mac OS has nothing tod with this.
I purchased a brand new AirPods Pro second, and the Transparency Mode turns itself off randomly all day. Even In the Headphone accommodation section, there is a checkmark next to this. So I have to uncheck and check it back again. I Googled it and found that many people have been having this issue for 2 years.
Is there a solution to eliminate this annoying issue? I am surprised that Apple still did not address this seriously.
I was going to get a second pair as the battery life is not that long but decided not to, who needs double frustration? I really hope that it will be fixed, as I love the Airpods Pro for other features.
All I can suggest right now, based on my experience, is that when you first wear your AirPods and custom transparency isn't in effect, wait some time (perhaps as long as half an hour) before turning custom transparency back on. I simply don't know how, but this seems to trick iOS into not tickling this bug, or so it seems to me.
Good luck!
My AirPod Pro twos kept turning transparency off and I verified that it’s a hardware problem because I got a new replacement and no longer does it with the same software was going on for two years. Apple sent it in for diagnosis but came back and said they were OK, I think what happened is one of the port got clogged up and that’s what causes it!
Apple is not in a hurry to fix this problem, and they will not lose their customers for two reasons:
A) There is a tiny percentage using transparency mode. According to standard hearing examinations, 1 in 8 people in the United States (13%) ages 12 or older have hearing loss in both ears. Out of this 13%, the majority are using hearing aids. The remaining 2% or less are using the transparency mode as a hearing device, so Apple does not care.
B) No earphones on the market come close in quality to the transparency mode by iPhone setting.
That's why I am still using the AirPods Pro 2nd generation and the custom transparency mode. I know it drops more than a dozen times per day, but I am not ready to spend $5,000 on hearing aids for conversation only, because they do not have the music listening features or the ability to make calls using Siri.
[Edited by Moderator]
Same here. There does not seem to be any setting or condition that causes this. Why has it not been fixed?!?!
Rob354, how old are your AirPods Pro, I have a feeling that I may know a reason why transparency mode gets disconnected.
I have two pairs of AirPods Pro, and the transparency mode disconnecting. After disconnecting one pair "Forget The Device" this pair's Transparency mode is no longer disconnecting. Why?
As of today 3/21 Apple released iOS 14.4.1. I have installed it. There are rumors the problem is fixed. Anyone have good experiences?
Do you mean 17.4.1??
Custom Transparency Mode Keeps Turning Off
