Russell Kurtz

Q: iOS 10 bluetooth loses pairing over and over

After updating my iPhone 6S Plus to iOS 10, my bluetooth has gone haywire. I only have one device I connect to the phone (a link to my hearing aids) and it is paired to the phone. My phone connects with it for less than a minute, then disconnects for about the same amount of time, over and over. Not only does it make it impossible to use bluetooth for the phone, it drains the battery about 5x as fast as today, when I left the bluetooth link at home.

 

I have done all the standard tries – shut everything down, unpaired the device then repaired it (twice), restored my phone to new phone status (four hours reenabling apps), etc. Under iOS 9.2, this worked correctly. Under iOS 9.3, I would get the cycling behavior only if I had more than one bluetooth connection available for the phone. But now the bluetooth connection is totally unusable. Not only did my connections all work two days ago, under iOS 9.3, the bluetooth-hearing aid link still works correctly with everything else it connects to.

 

Is there a workaround until Apple fixes the problem? (Assuming, of course, Apple will do so; they have not yet fixed any other problems I gave them, such as the cycling among bluetooth connections, the fact that playing music almost always defaults to the first song in alphabetical order in my music, and eBooks that were lost – purchased from the iBookstore, then for my convenience removed, but can't be redownloaded because the iBookstore no longer carries them).

iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 10, 128 GB

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 2:17 PM