Q: iPhone SE Bluetooth issues

Hi

I hope to help some of you.

I have a new iPhone SE 64 Gb, and was experiencing the Bluetooth audio issue but now it's fixed.

For the record:

-I updated the phone to 9.3.1 and restored my backup from my 5s

-I experienced the audio distorsion so badly that I could not understand a single word on my calls.

-I contacted Apple through chat with little hope to get a fix, but thinking that it is important that many people report the issue

-I exposed the problem and detailed that I'm not alone providing a link to this forum

-He asked me to reset the network settings, which again I did with no hope. This under Settings > General > Restore and then Restore network settings

-He asked me again to go to my car and try, as he was waiting on the chat

-I went to the car and did three calls to three different people, 2 of them on iPhones, one on Android

-All the calls were ok. One was perfect, the other two were ok, maybe not crystal clear and a bit "saturated" in volume but fairly ok.

-I tried increasing and decreasing the volume during the calls with the + and - buttons, which shows a pop up on the screen with "Bluetooth" word (indicating you are changing the Bluetooth volume) and realized that the volume was not changing on the speakers. It was the same on minimum and maximum.

So apparently restoring the network settings was a fix for me.

I will keep an eye on this and if it fails again I will post an update.

My car is a Seat Altea Freetrack 2009

My carrier is Movistar

I live in Spain

elzale wrote:

 

-All the calls were ok. One was perfect, the other two were ok, maybe not crystal clear and a bit "saturated" in volume but fairly ok.

-I tried increasing and decreasing the volume during the calls with the + and - buttons, which shows a pop up on the screen with "Bluetooth" word (indicating you are changing the Bluetooth volume) and realized that the volume was not changing on the speakers. It was the same on minimum and maximum.

 

So apparently restoring the network settings was a fix for me.

 

 

Sorry pal, but I cannot understand: is it normal behaviour you are not able to change the volume while bluetooth is connected?

By the way I restored my 6S backup and then restored newtork settings, without any luck.

Hi

I have never tried it before, indeed, but as I read that people suggest that the problem is the volume too high, I decided to press the '-' button on the phone and then I saw a pop up on the screen with name "Bluetooth" and you see the dots bar which increases or decreases when pressing + and - 

I guess that means that the feature for increasing or decreasing Bluetooth volume exists, and it's not working. This can be the cause of the problem, on headsets or handsfree devices that receive a signal too loud.

I am sorry that resetting your network settings did not help.

Have you already contacted Apple support?

Everyone in this thread should open a case with Apple, so we make this problem become a big issue which urges them to launch a quick fix.

Changing volume on the phone is only a half workaround, not a solution. I used all my previous phones at the highest volume available. I change the volume in the car if necessary.

Hi Lalamper

Changing the volume on the phone would be a solution if it was possible

What I say is that trying to change the volume on the phone is not affecting the real volume on the speakers, and this can be the cause of the problem.

The pop up on the phone shows "Bluetooth" and a bar made of dots that increases or decreases, but volume on the handsfree device is not changed.

elzale wrote:

 

 

Have you already contacted Apple support?

 

I did it yesterday, and they told me not to trust internet forums, even this one as it's just people's opinion, and not official Apple's statements. Then they tried to convince me to re-pair the bluetooth, and even to update my car's bluetooth firmware... thumbs down this time. I told them my bluetooth works perfectly with any other iPhone model but this one, but they gave me no hint, and did not confirm the issue exists.

Hi Tunezza

The guy that I talked to at Apple support chat was very kind, and took the time to read this forum thread while I went away back to my car to test again.

So I think that this may depend on who you talk to, and even I guess that people from different countries may receive different answers, as I read in this thread that some Apple support people are just blaming the cars firmware while others are taking it seriously and escalating to engineers.

The guy that I chatted with suggested me that if I experienced problems again, it would be better to scale it up and suggested that in that case instead of chat I should call on the phone, and to the first person that attended the call I should ask to be sent to an upper scale. I don't know the name in English... but in Spanish the name is "Asesor principal" (it might be translated as "main assesor", "main assistant"... but not sure what Apple calls them in English)

Thank you elzale,

I suppose you were talking of a "Senior Consultant".

In any case, I don't think calling Apple Support could solve our problems, as we need a software update, hoping it is not an improbable hardware issue. My attempt was to increase by one the number of complaints, in order to get a critical mass and speed up their job to address the bug.

Thanks for the information,

I have the same issue. I hope the software engineers are on the problem, end there will be a fix as soon as possible.

Yep, here's another one with the same issue. UK iPhone SE 64Gb paired with a Volvo V40 R-Design with Sensus Connect. Bluetooth music works fine, but any bluetooth telephone calls are useless.

Yet on the same head unit, her previous iPhone 5C was flawless, as is my iPhone 6 Plus or my daughter's iPhone 6s is perfect for both Bluetooth Music and Bluetooth calls.

Definitely seems to be an iPhone SE issue - will also report to Apple support.

My latest conversation with Apple Tech Support: After reporting the problem last Wednesday to a store Genius Bar and getting a replacement iPhone SE with the same problem, I called and asked for senior support technician on Friday.  I received a call back from him on Monday to tell me he elevated my case to engineering and added it to the growing list of cases elevated to engineering. He figured that the more cases went to engineering, the quicker we would all get a fix. He also believed that it's a software issue, since audio works fine on non-phone call situations.

He promised to call me this afternoon (Tuesday) to tell me if he found out anything about a fix timetable. Based on this information, I will decide whether to return the phone or keep it and wait for resolution.

On the rattle issue... I believe it's a non-issue. Both my SEs had the rattle. My 5C has the rattle. Also friends' 5C, 5S and 2 SEs have it. It's the power button up top that causes the rattle on all of them.

In the meantime, I would urge everyone to report the issue to as many non-Apple blogs and forums as possible. There was only a brief few hours yesterday when some blogs reported the issue, but we would get a much quicker resolution if the issue became bigger news.

I can adjust the Bluetooth volume with the buttons on the side of the phone while connected to my Ford Sync unit. The problem is that the signal is already distorted before the volume adjustment. So all I'm doing is turning up or down a blown out, distorted audio signal. I hope they fix this soon.

I have been following this since my bluetooth pairing on a 2013 MB GLK had the same issue despite the previous 5S working fine.  I could not understand callers but they could hear me fine. Today I tried one more thing. I went to the bluetooth pairing menu in the car and deleted all previous iPhone listings (I had three old iPhones listed and all had the same name). I then re-paired the new device so it was now the only device listed. Now the garbled speech which was present on all calls is gone. I don't think the audio quality is great, but it is totally usable when it was not yesterday. I already had a call in to Apple Support just to get a ticket number on the issue. He stated he had to search hard to find any mention of the SE issue and only on GM cars. Where are all these calls going? I would think they would appear on their same data base. He did have me do a hard reset of the SE and it did not seem to make any change in quality. I am using IOS 9.3.1. I will give this a try the next few days. This may have no application to others' situation, but I thought I would mention it.

My experience (iPhone SE 64 GB plus VW Golf VI bluetooth): I phisically disconnected my car's bluetooth hardware, so it was totally factory reset. Then I plugged it again, switched on the car's ignition and paired the phone: no luck, still bad incoming audio.

I have a Verizon iPhone SE on 9.3. When paired with my 2014 Honda CR-V, I have the same issue of poor-quality audio during phone calls.

One thing I tried yesterday that seemed to help was turning off both WiFi and LTE before making a call to another iPhone.  While not perfect, the audio sounded much less distorted.

The Bluetooth problem seems to be on a large enough scale that Apple will have to either provide a swift software update or a recall to avoid fallout. I'm crossing fingers that being patient is the right decision. My husband and I have already both reported the problem to support, via Apple and Verizon.