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Level 1

0 points

I'm having bluetooth issues with my iphone 4s

I recently bought an iphone 4s and having bluetooth connectivity issues with my home phone and car. Both work fine at first when I initially pair them, but within a couple hours or up to a week, my 4s stops communicating with my devices. More specifically:

Home Phone: I have a home phone that has a bluetooth "link-to-cell" feature that allows me to pair my cell phone with the house phone, so that when someone calls my cellphone, it rings through my house phone's handsets, allowing me to answer and talk through my home phones. Likewise it allows me to make cell phone calls using my home phone handsets. I've had the home phone for 6 mos and it worked perfectly with my previous (LG) cell phone. When i first paired it with my 4s, it seemed to work fine (I could make and receive cell calls through my home phone), but then, after a few days, it stopped working properly. When someone called my cell phone, my 4s only vibrated instead of ringing, and my home phone wouldnt ring either. And although both my 4s and the house phone both showed that they were still paired with each other, I couldnt make or receive cellphone calIs through my house phone. I even tried to replace my home phone (ATT TL92270) with other models (the newer ATT model TL92271 and a Uniden model Uniden D3280-2) and had the same exact experience with all of them (it worked correctly and first.. anywhere from a couple hrs up to a week), and then stopped working. I tried everything from having the devices "forget" each other and re-pair them, to resetting my 4s. I even tried replacing my 4s with a new 4s, thinking maybe my 4s was defective, but I have the same issues with the new 4s (worked at first, but then stopped).

Car Connectivity: At first my 4s (both my original and my new replacement) paired successfully with my 2003 (or 2004?) Lexus RX and worked fine for several days (I could make and receive cell calls through my car's bluetooth), but then that stopped too. After i few days, I started getting a "check cell phone" message on my car's screen when I tried making calls through my cell phone.

I thought maybe the IOS 5.0.1 upgrade would fix the issues but it didnt.

Is anyone else having similar issues?

iPhone 4S, bluetooth

Posted on Nov 15, 2011 9:08 AM

33 replies

Sep 21, 2012 9:00 AM in response to chibud312

I just solved my problem with this BT use of the VTECH BT phone making the iPhone silent. My VTECH came with an earpiece mobile device. It was on. The calls were being picked up going to the earpiece. I turned it off! VIOLA! calls coming thru correctly now. Check to make sure you don't have a BT earpiece on somewhere that is interfering with the taking over the call...which would naturally make the calls silent when it goes thru the earpiece. DUH!

jorgefgr

Level 1

33 points

Sep 25, 2012 7:40 PM in response to Wokiebear

Guys,

It seems that the bluetooth connection problems are gone with iOS 6. I have been able to reconnect my Sony Ericsson HBH-DS205 and keep the connection no matter the enviroment. Give this a try.

Once I gave up on the HBH-DS205 I bought a Belkin bluetooth car device, it performed usually great except when driving through one of the city's FREE WIFI zones. As the phone was trying to connect to the free wifi signal it would constantly stop the bluetooth music streaming, every time just for an instant after which it would resume playing. When this happened I would feel embarrased of my iPhone 4S performance thinking that it didn't handle this wifi-and-bluetooth connections the way I expected.

Anyway, with the upgrade to iOS 6 I noticed that, while driving through one of these free wifi zones, the iPhone kept perfectly the connection with the belkin bluetooth car device and so I pulled the HBH-DS205 from the depths where it was buried and to my surprised, noticed that it is performing rather well pretty much everywhere. Which is exactly where it would drop connection with iOS 5, I mean pretty much everywhere.

One more thing, I can see that the battery on the HBH-DS205 is nearly full after extended playback times, which is also excellent.

So everybody, pull your stereo headsets up and start enjoying!

Sep 28, 2012 9:25 AM in response to jorgefgr

jorgefgr, I'm glad your bluetooth is working again.

Encouraged by your success, I dug out my old Panasonic KX-TG 7624 phone system that had problems with my iPhone 4S running iOS 5 and tried it after upgrading to iOS 6. Dang! Same problems. I have to connect manually, the connects dissapear even when the iPhone is sitting beside the Panasonic, and people on the other end of a call can hardly hear my muffled voice. Same as it always was...

From searching the forums, it looks like iOS 6 is still having the same problems with bluetooth on cars.

Appalling.

pdj

tom2012

Level 1

4 points

Sep 28, 2012 10:34 AM in response to chibud312

I upgraded our two iPhone 4S units to iOS 6 in hope for a fix to this problem. Unfortunately, we still have the same ringer problems (worked at first and not later with vibrate only) with a VTech DS6421-3. No change for us.

jmpnono

Level 1

0 points

Sep 28, 2012 10:49 AM in response to tom2012

I have a jawbone and a plantronic bluetooth which was working fine and paired with my phone until the update. I also have a wireless motorola headset which has continued to work with the update. However, my jawbone and plantronic will not even be recognized on my phone to pair. So, I do not understand why some will work and others will not.

jorgefgr

Level 1

33 points

Sep 28, 2012 7:03 PM in response to chibud312

All,

I'm sorry iOS 6 didn't help anybody but me :-S I'm just wondering at this point, did you un-pair your devices from your iPhone before you assessed the connection once again? It might help.

Good luck!

Jorge...

Sep 28, 2012 7:39 PM in response to jmpnono

There is a new Jawbone update..have you applied the update?

Sep 28, 2012 7:40 PM in response to tom2012

Make sure no other BT device is running close by to interfere.

rsmunnn

Level 1

0 points

Oct 30, 2012 2:46 PM in response to tom2012

I just took my new iPhone 5 out of the box and connected it to the Connect-to-cell vTech DS6421-3 (previously did not work with iPhone 4s) and guess what...It works flawlessly!!! So your fix is to go get a new iPhone 5... Great work around Apple!!!! Unfortunately one of our lines is not upgradable until May 2013, so I will just have to wait. Apparently they (Apple) were reading these postings we have all been writing detailing this problem with the 4s, but chose not to help us out. All the while quietly fixing it with the new phone. That's what I call very weak work. Nobody I talked to at Apple wanted to admit there was any problem, actually blaming vTech and the other manufacturers of these cell-link and connect-to-cell devices, stating it was their problem for not working with the 4s. By the way, stop wasting your time trying to use the 4s with the vTech DS6421-3, it will never work...There is clearly a hardware problem IN the 4s that will prohibit it from working on a consistent basis.

dickday

Level 1

0 points

Oct 30, 2012 5:42 PM in response to rsmunnn

Because of this, Apple made it very easy for me to decide what my next phone will be and for sure i will not be an iPhone.

chibud312 Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 30, 2012 5:59 PM in response to rsmunnn

I'll be very curious to hear if this continues to work for you. I actually bought an iphone 5 too, and no success. But I've noticed this thread is full of notes from people who think their issue resolved for one reason or another, only to find out that it stops working a day or week later, which is the original problem i've had. I've had connections work for a day or several days before the issue re-emerged. Please provide an update after a week or so. Because getting a 5 didnt fix my issue. I think it's likely due to the new version of bluetooth (4.0) which is the new bluetooth stand that was first used on the 4s. I'm thinking these phone systems arent compatible with bluetooth 4.0.

EnricoW

Level 1

0 points

Dec 21, 2012 5:00 PM in response to chibud312

People... read earlier in this post. It's SIRI! I actually like SIRI and it works well with the bluetooth in my car and with all my other bluetooth devices. However, it is definitely the culprit of my vtech connect-to-cell home phone not working.... It actually connects to my phone and I can make calls with my iphone through the vtech home phone. However, it won't ring or allow me to answer receiving calls. After reading earlier in this post about SIRI, I turned SIRI off, and VOILA! It worked as expected and allowed me to recieve calls through the vtech system. Unlike others, I haven't had any sporadic experiences yet. Mine have been consistent. In full disclosure, we've only had the v-tech phone for less than a week so I can't be sure, but I feel really confident about my experiences thus far.

Both me and my wife have iphone 4Ss. I'm running the latest version of iOS 6. My wife is running the latest version of iOS 5. We both experienced the exact same problem that was solved by turning off SIRI. We have the vTech DS6521-2 home phone.

rsmunnn

Level 1

0 points

Dec 21, 2012 5:39 PM in response to EnricoW

EnricoW, I am one who thought it was SIRI that was causing the problems with our vTech DS6521-2 home phone system. I am sorry to say I thought by disabling SIRI that all my 4S problems went away. They did for a very brief period, and right back to missing phone calls because neither the vTech devices or the 4S would ring. The iPhone 5 is THE ONLY solution to this dilemma as it works flawlessly, and has now at my home for 2 months now without a single glitch. I am sorry to say that, but it is absolutely true. I was in an AT&T company store the other day and this very topic came up. The gentleman I was talking to was a very intelligent and knowledgeable agent with a lot of Apple product experience. We both deduced that this 4S Bluetooth debacle was NEVER publicly acknowledged by Apple nor WILL IT EVER be publicly acknowledged by Apple. They (Apple) just produced a new iPhone and apparently rolled back it's technology to still accommodate the lagging technology in these Connect-to Cell home phone systems. They were inundated with complaints, and they (Apple) only QUIETLY realized the problem and QUIETLY corrected it by making the new iPhone. So all the 4S users have to wait until they are upgradeable to the 5 in order for this vTech phone system (and many of the others on the market) to work properly. Sorry to pee in the Wheaties.

rsmunnn

Level 1

0 points

Dec 21, 2012 5:53 PM in response to chibud312

chibud312, The iPhone 5 is still flawlessly working with the vTech DS6521-2 since I wrote the post on October 30th. I don't know why yours didn't work. I do know that there is NO HOPE for a 4S to ever work with these home phone systems. There is something incompatible with the A2DP audio streaming on the 4S (or so someone in another post suggested).

chibud312 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 21, 2012 5:56 PM in response to rsmunnn

Guys, i'm the one who posted the original message on this thread after buying my mom the 4s and having this problem with her AT&T home phone system. As part of out testing, i even bought (end ultimately returned) 3 other bluetooth-enabled home phone systems (a differnt AT&T one, a VTech one, and cant remember who made the other one). ALL seemed to work for a bit until this problem randomly surfaced. Each time we had false hopes that a different system would work better, but they all eventually encountered the same problem. Each time Apple released an IOS upgrade we hoped (and initially thought) that'd solve it, but it didnt. We've tried all the recommended solutions folks have listed (including turning off Siri), and NONE of them fixed the problem long term. In each situatoin, everything would seem to work fine.. anwhere from a couple days to a couple weeks, and then we'd have the same issue.

I've since bought my own iPhone 5. I have a different, but similar AT&T home phone system as my mom's (except mine's the 2 line version, but still bluetooth enabled). I have the same issue with my 5!! One of my buddies has a 5, and has the same issue with his bluetooth home phone system. I truely think the issue is with the new version of Bluetooth that apple started using in their 4s -- bluetooth 4.0, and it not being fully backward compatible with all these bluetooth home phone systems that use the earlier version of Bluetooth. I'll be interested to hear if those of you who think you found fixes experience them long term.

I'm having bluetooth issues with my iphone 4s