iPhone SE Bluetooth issues

FWIW I love this iPhone, except of course the BT. I have no other issues with it, not the power button, screen, nor build quality. The size is perfect and it's much lighter in the hand than my old phone. 9.3.1 is great, too.

I did call Apple Care yesterday just to add my voice to those other "early adopters" frustrated with the BT problem and the delay with getting a fix from Apple. I'm hoping that it's not a hardware issue requiring a recall (obviously a worst-case scenario for all parties). But, I'm not worried about Apple's bottom line, as they can easily afford the hit if it comes to that. I'll admit that the delay in a fix is not a confidence-builder.

Here's the only thing I've found that ameliorates the BT problem: lowering the BT volume on the iPhone all the way, and lowering the car audio as low as possible. I have been able to have conversations in this way. Turning off LTE had no effect (I'm on Sprint which doesn't support VoLTE). Unfortunately, car connectivity is a safety and legal issue, it's not an option in a phone today.

I'm driving a '11 Prius with no BT issues prior to the SE.

hey there,

same here as well, bt problems with the se on a suzuki vitara with a clarion radio. works normal with the iphone 5 i still got from work.

strange thing is, when i call my mailbox, the voice is perfect and clear, if i call another cellphone the voice is very bad.

had a chat with apple support yesterday and they told my as well that they haven't heard about the problem, which i really cannot believe as several tech sites already report it, but it might be support politics 😟

I'm using iphones since the first ones and I sadly have to admit, that apple was much more reliable in the past...

greetings

bernhard

Same here in Holland,

Tried several cars, my BT car Audi 2012, works perfect with 4s, 5s and 6.

I love the SE ! exept for the ****** incoming sound via BT into the car (outgoing seems to be fine) .

Week ago I've contacted Apple, I was the first to report to the senior ? and they've had never heard or read about the problem ?

I've done everything possible to get the incoming call acceptable, with no positive outcome.

Now Apple moved the problem on to the engineers.

I don't know what the next step will be, anybody?

Sincerely hope it's not a hardware or a badge problem.

Couple of issues I don't understand :

- They've made millions of phones, you might expect that they know "how to" by now?

- Don't they test phones in cars before going on the market ?

- Why don't they keep the SE-owners informed/posted ?

I will hold on to this phone and hope for a bug-fix soon.

I would suggest the Dutch buyers to report to Apple if they the have same issue, so Apple knows.

apple support suggested to me today to do a full reset and setup the iphone as new, not from a backup (i hate that as you need to set everything from scratch)

if that does not help, they want to exchange my phone.

i told them about the ongoing discussions and i also told them, that i don't think that exhanging the phone makes any sense at this stage as too many people report that problem, although there phones have been already exchanged, but they did not really comment on the fact that this seems to be a common issue, wide spreaded in the web.

i just made a quick test after resetting the phone, just on the parking lot and at least the audio was understandable, will test on my way back home from the office as well.

i really like the se, as it is pretty small and convinient, i will not give it back either, but this bluetooth thing is quite anoying.......and it would be great if apple would state any clear feedback about if the problem is know or not and if they are working on it or not. if they would tell me, it is know and will be solved, i would be already happy and wait for the fix, but this policy of ignoring so many user request is driving me crazy.

@Bwinter,

I also made a clean install (twice) as new (kept the copy), tried the phone in the car (several times),

cleaned the pairing history and re-paird ,re-named the username and so on.

It didn't work for me..

Than re-installed the copy.

Succes and have a good day.

@ Gijsteraar, are you sure it was a success? Because depending of the caller the quality varies about 40-80% compared to working iphones. If you get a 80% caller you might think sometimes it is acceptable / understandable. I think depending on the line quality it strengthens / multiplies the BT problem.

? I wrote: Success and have good day.

Unfortunately I've had no success in solving the BT-problem.

A good day anyway.

I've got as well the feeling, that it depends on the line quality, which makes the bt problems worse or better. This might explain, why it was working after my full reset on the parking lot and it miht return, when I'm driving....

Hi from Portugal
I just want to confirm that I have an iPhone SE and can't make calls in good condition when connected via Bluetooth . I've tried in various bluetooth devices and cars and have no sucess.

Sometimes, 1 in 10 calls, its just difficult to ear what they say on the other side and the other 9 times is just noise.

I've tried all the solutions I've heard and they didn't work out for me.

I don't know whether i should return the phone or wait for a resolution from Apple. Hopefully it's just a software bug .

Greetings.

Return and rebuy if they get this fixed later on, if not your stuck with a phone that is limited in use

Same issue- 2013 Honda Pilot Touring edition. Super crackly so you can't understand the caller.

Genius bar gave me a new SE, same thing happened. The guy at the Apple Store actually came out to my car and paired it with his iphone 6 and saw the difference. (6 was fine.)

Hopefully Apple will straighten this out.

Long story short:

TMobile USA IPhone SE 64GB

Acura SH-AWD/TLX/Tech 2015

Phone pairs perfectly, except for one thing:

After receiving a text on my Navigation screen, when you hit "send" to reply, it won't reply

Acura Nav. lists 6 reply options; none of which work

Phone call quality is flawless; contacts, ditto

Apple Senior Tech told me on Saturday, they should have a software fix shortly

BTW: my other BT device;(Sony clock radio), plays BT audio flawlessly

I talked with an Apple tech support senior advisor again and he said the issue is with the engineering team and he will let me know if he gets any information about the expected time frame when they can be ready with the fix. In the meantime I suggest everyone having this BT problem to caontact Apple and have a Case ID opened , the more the better for us as it does create visibility and this issue remains at the top of their 'To Do' list.

Already created a case file last week

Same problem here. I traded in my 5S for the SE on March 31st because I wanted to stay with the smaller phone. I have a Plantronics Voyager Legend Bluetooth headset and immediately noticed the problem when the person I was speaking to spoke loudly. It was distorted and turned to static. I took the phone back and exchanged it for another SE. Same problem. I went to Verizon to see if they may have heard of this problem, but they had not. I paired to the SE phone they had there and it had the same distortion. I wound up returning my SE for a 6S, which I don't like because of the larger size. I use my Bluetooth headset all the time and found the horrible sound quality to be unbearable. At that time, the people at the Apple Store had not heard of the problem. I'm glad to see that it is now being worked by Apple. I would really like to go back to the SE if they get this issue fixed. Hopefully it will be soon!