Problematic bluetooth biosensor connections after iOS26

My 12mini (updated automatically, now on 26.2) just struggled to connect to my newest Stelo CGM biosensor. It did, finally, but I've never had trouble connecting to these devices before. And I'm wondering where the glitch is, because I've not had any issue with bluetooth connections to headphones or other audio devices, to my laptop or my car, but I did have trouble when I tried an alternate brand of biosensor (Lingo), and 3 in a row failed to pair with their app in the last 3 weeks.

I have not changed my phone, phone case (a thin silicone case, not much to it), and I've followed these troubleshooting steps:

Restart apps

restart phone

unpair from previous sensors

move away from old/removed sensor

verified apps have bluetooth permissions under settings > Privacy & security > Bluetooth

and before I gave up on the Lingos, I also redownloaded their app multiple times, and did a soft reset on my phone.

I was able to reconnect to the old sensor more than once while it was still inserted, before I took it off to try to help minimize the distractions for the bluetooth antenna/software , so basic pairing function still worked with that previous Stelo CGM and it had no problem connecting unlike the newer device.

I see lots of web pages coming up in googling about audio device pairing issues after iOS26 updates, but can't tell the useful from the repetitious bot-generated stuff.

Should I worry that my bluetooth antenna has a problem?

Is problematic pairing a known issue with iOS26?

Has iOS26 caused new conflicts with corporate security software and bluetooth connections? Work IT does not believe there have been any changes to the security software they require on my phone regarding bluetooth devices.

I'm wondering now if the failed connections was my phone or software and not the Lingo or Stelo devices.