LG HBS-730 & iPhone 5

Being a tech geek myself, this is what I think is happening and a recommendation to Apple on how to fix it. BT 3.0 (the protocol used on the 730s) has a battery saving feature that allows the headset to go into a 'standby" mode whenever there is not an active signal being sent from a paired device. Couple that with Apple's new battery saving features that attempt to only send a BT signal when there is actual data to be sent (i.e. a song is playing) and you have a phone and a headset that sever their active data transfer whenever there is a slightest break in continuous sound (like speech silences in a podcast or audiobook). Some of the lower quality podcasts I listen to don't have this problem because there is enough background noise bleeding through to keep the data transfer active and prevent the headsets from going into standby mode.

The only way I see to resolve this is for Apple to reconfigure their handler on the LG Tone BT profile. They need to set iOS to force an open connection until the pause button is pressed on whichever audio program is dominant.

I would love to hear from someone at the Apple camp as to whether this is even an option or if we should start looking for a new BT headset or phone.

Please upvote if you found this helpful :-).

Thanks!

TheSophist87, I feel that you're telling truth, because problems are not that severe with music, the connection drops only in-between the words of spoken material (audiobooks, podcasts).

But I believe, iTunes (on PC) does some kind of "ensuring continuous play" operation when it first scans for media on HD, doesnt this mean addin kind of inaudible signal to all the tracks so that the playback is not interrupted for power saving reasons?

How did you set up your 5s? Was it a restore?

If so, you might wanna try to "reset all settings".

When I upgraded my 4s to ios 7, its Bluetooth was not working properly, but after a reset all settings, it works just fine.

Great job morph21! I think that Apple fixed the BT 3.0 "hibernate" issue in their last update, but the old protocol may have been saved in preferences settings. Resetting all settings fixed my issue.

Thanks a million!

Yay! Thanks for sharing!

Every "major" OS release that is one of the things I will to do from now on.

Had weird issues from iOS 5 to 6, did the reset, helped with other things too.

Then from iOS 6 to 7 I remember going into General settings and checking sounds and things were strange, some options were not set to default, and bluetooth was not good. There I go to "reset all settings" and things get much better, in my case, still with 4S, bluetooth got MUCH better.

Glad to know it worked for you too. =)

I tried reseting my settings and it did not help my situation. I have the 730s with iPhone5 iOS 7.0.4. Is there anyone who is still having trouble with iPhone5 and the 730s having a video lag? Anyone have any luck talking directly to Apple about it?

despite what others saying, no resetting will help you and support will not help you either.

This is clearly power-saving bug(s) that exist in iOs 7 bluetooth 4 stack.

Your options are: downgrading to bluetooth 2.1 device, using phone other than iphone 5.

Personally I ended giving my HBS-730 to my wife, she uses it with iPod nano and simplistic Samsung phone w/o any issues (to be honest, there's a bug in iPod that prevents it to automatically reconnect to the bluetooth devices, but she can live with it). Have to use wired headset for now.

So you have to either sell HBS-730 or you iPhone, there's no other cure.

A Samsung Android Note 3 user here with same problem.

I truly believe it's something with the headset. It used to work fine and was happy with it for most part. Now

I lose connection or it wont Automaticly pair unless I turn it off and back on.

I'm having a different issue, with a 64 GB iPod Touch 5 with iOS 7.

In my case, whenever I pause and then play again, there's a 50/50 chance that either the headset will work fine or it will hang and simply cut out for up to 30 seconds. The audio keeps playing during this, so I end up 30 seconds farther in my music or video, without hearing it!

When I pair the headset to my iPod for the first time, everything's great; no hangups to speak of.

However, when I switch the headset off and on again and it reconnects, the problem's instantly back.

When I send Bluetooth audio to my computer, there's no problems, so it's either the headset, or the way my iPod handles the headset.

Honestly, if you can just return it and get something that was "designed for iPhone" but actually WORKS with it.

If I could, I would have returned mine, because LG not even recognize the problem with their own device. All my other 4 bluetooth headsets work prefectly with my phone, which leads me to point the problem to the HBS-730.

I am having the same issues

LG HBS-730

iPhone 5

Music - works perfectly

Podcast - works perfectly

Audiobooks via Audible app - HORRIBLE. sync issues, disconnects, skipping audio

Total dealbreaker for me. The headset otherwiseis awesome, and great improvements over my much loved HBS-700. But the bluetooth issues with audiobooks it soo much. Going to return it for a new 700, and wait till this gets fixed....which could be a loooong time

JK

JK,

I did a search for "audible bluetooth problems" and apparently that is not isolated to iOS devices. Found articles with people complaining about bluetooth issues with cars, external speakers, and all that using Android devices too.

Have you tried to contact their customer support?

just finished up with Audible tech support...which was awesome, they are great.

This is definitly an issue with bluetooth between the HBS-730 and my iphone5.

I have the same issues playing audiobooks via the Audible app, Audible app playing through itunes and staright through the apple music app/audiobooks. Audiobook was removed and restored, account settings reset, and full reboot of iphone.

I would rate their playback as follows

Audible App - bad

Audible App playing through itunes - horrible

Apple Music App/Audiobooks - bad

Well, I am going back to my old 700, and returning the 730.

JK

I am not sure if this helps anyone, but I have found that since an update to iOS7, this issue only occurs when my 730s are low on battery. If they are "Battery High" or "Battery Median," as they so lovingly like to say, I do not drop audio even on audio books through audible.

Mine was on "Battery High", and was horrible.

Just removed my 730, and pair'd up my old 700. Works perfectly.....

while listening via the 730, you can hear a slight audible sound right after each sentence spoken, or gap in sound, and another one when it starts up again.

It sounds almost like the connection is dropping out and reconnecting after each sentence. Like a slight skip sound on the track.

At this point its like a "disconnect" "re-connection" of the bluetooth. The "re-connection" sound which proceeds the next sentence is not syncing up fast enough, which leads to missed words in the sentence. Sometimes these gaps are 1 word, or an entire sentence