AirPods disconnects on calls

Exact same problem.

- Iphone 6S / iOS 10.2.1

- Apple Watch / wOS 3.1.3

- two airpods on calls will repeatedly drop.

- two airpods drop connections on music every 20-25min with iPhone or Apple Watch. Doesn't matter!

If the error is not resolved soon, I will have to return the product to Apple. I am very upset because I bought them 6 days ago.

Take them to the Apple Store. There is a year warrenty. My store was very new to troubleshooting these but they are eager to learn. They replaced mine and did a full test before hanging me the new ones. So far so good. No dropped blue tooth connection

"...Initial reports suggested the dropout issue only occurs if users also have an Apple Watch paired to their iPhone..."

Well, I can say that THAT part is not true. Girlfriend's 6s (10.2.1, build 14D27) drops AirPod audio on longer calls, and she doesn't have an Apple Watch.

I agree. I have been troubleshooting these AirPods since I received them in January. I have an Apple Watch and the iPhone 6s. Dropping blue tooth connection has been contstant. I have replaced the AirPods, reset connections and tried several different options with connecting with or with the Apple Watch. Ultimately I replaced my 6s with a 7 so far they have been working properly. I spend a lot of time on conference calls, especially on Fridays and when I upgraded to 7 the AirPods stay connected to blue tooth. Not once did they drop BT connection and this was after several long conference calls. We will see if they continued to work properly.

You're correct. Exchanging the AirPods did not work. The next day they disconnected. I have tried everything recommended here. The only thing that has made a difference is I upgraded to to iPhone 7. Have not had a loss of BT connection after several long conference calls. Fingers crossed this was the solution.

Third Update:

Latest non-beta updates installed on iPhone 6s and AirPods. AirPods don't disconnect on phone calls unless I'm using both simultaneously. I've drained the battery down on right AirPod, switched, and drained the battery on left AirPod without having it disconnect during phone call.

Apparently, there was a syncing issue which delayed the release of the AirPods. I guess they still haven't figured out how to solve the problem. We're all basically beta testers. Maybe the only solution is a complete hardware redesign.

Agreed - I also upgraded to an iPhone 7 Plus from my 6S. I had been meaning to for some time anyway since I develop mobile software and needed another test phone. Problem mostly solved. I still have occasional disconnects and weirdness with the AirPods, but nothing like it was on my 6S. I'm sure Apple will get this fixed, so long as it isn't a hardware problem with a batch of 6S phones. I would think we'd hear a lot more complaining if it was a widespread problem with the 6S.

Just to sum up for people who gets here with the AirPods who disconnect phone calls on iPhone 6s and 6s plus. For this particular problem, iOs 10.3 fixes the problem. So, if you would still like to go for a ride on an Apple Store and get a new pair of AirPods, rest assured your problem will still be there as soon as it is this particular problem, related to iphone 6s and 6s+.

In many case I observed, ios 10.3b1 and 10.3b2 has left not a single occurrence of the problem. So, while this has not yet been released to the general public, it is available in public beta.

I hope it helps. 🙂

A month ago, I wiped my iPhone 6S Plus, restored from an encrypted backup, re-paired just my AirPods. During this time, my iPhone had no other Bluetooth devices paired to it -- i.e. Apple Watch Gen 1, multiple keyboards, and Tile. I did not experience any dropouts during phone calls (a couple of audio static and slow audio incidences but those have not happened in weeks).

Yesterday, I re-paired my Apple Watch (and no other Bluetooth devices) and will report back if the AirPods call dropouts re-emerge.

Exact same problem - both in calls drop - 1 in more reliable. Also experiencing issues when transition calls from phone to bluetooth / airpods - it hangs phone call and take time to reconcile.

Please fix apple -otherwise need to return and go back to my Bose....

Really hope apple with fix this on ios 10.3 for iphone 7+ as well. Otherwise, I would have to return this. Phone calls become so unreliable. I had 3 bluetooth drops in 20 mins on my conference call this morning.

I have solved this issue, but unfortunately not in the way I hoped. After talking with Apple Support and the Genius Bar, we came to the conclusion it's with the Apple Watch and the iPhone together. Everyone that has been having this issue has an Apple Watch as well. I went home and I unpaired the Apple Watch from my iPhone entirely, and unpaired the AirPods and removed them from Bluetooth entirely. I then paired JUST the AirPods to the iPhone and made test calls for hours with just the AirPods connected. No issues what so ever. After hours of testing, I repaired my Apple Watch and restored from backup. I made a test call and the AirPods disconnected from the iPhone after about 3 minutes. This means there is nothing wrong with any of the devices and we have to anxiously await for a software update from Apple. let's hope this gets fixed soon, this is super annoying. Basically can't use my watch if I want to use my AirPods. Great.

Logging my issue to keep the thread current. I am having the same problem described here. My config is as follows:

iPhone 6s running iOS 10.2.1.

AppleWatch Series 0 running watchOS 3.1.3

2016 AirPods

As mentioned in thread: Audio drops ONLY when making phone calls. Audio changes from audio source "AirPods" to "iPhone" during calls when using 'both' earbuds with microphone set to "Automatically Switch AirPods". Problem occurs when the iPhone's Bluetooth is also connected to AppleWatch.

Spoke to customer service and they had me reset all settings. Problem persisted just as it has for others in this thread. They suggested that I make an appointment at an Apple Store to get resolution in person. Could not resolve the issue over the phone.

I will experiment with the suggestions listed above and report back, if I have any progress.

Ok, I wrote a post earlier, but Apple deleted it due to mention of beta versions. But now the beta is public.

But as I have posted before, I had big problems with loss of connection. The actual case was that the Bluetooth on my iPhone 7 went off, disconnecting both AirPods and Apple Watch.

I tested the trick which involved resetting AirPods, disconnecting all Bluetooth devices and also turning off iCloud on the phone.(and then everything back again) I did all of these steps, and first attempt to make a call was without any improvement. Then, what I did was to make a call, wait for the Bluetooth to drop out, and then at the same moment I did a hard reset of the phone. If it was just luck or if it just needed the reboot, I don't know. But after I did these steps, the AirPods have been working flawlessly. And this was before I installed the iOS 10.3 Beta. And I can confirm that they still work after installing the iOS beta.

I'm using iPhone 7, with Watch 1 st. gen.

Beta OS on both iPhone and Watch.

I'm very satisfied with my AirPods.

A bit of a follow up since I installed 10.3 beta 3 - seems to be much better. So far have been able to reliably pick up a number of calls on the AirPods. Also I have recently purchased a pair of beatsX earbuds and I was experiencing the same problems with 10.3 beta 2 as I was getting with the AirPods with call audio not turning up on the beatsX. So I suspect the problem is a general issue with the iPhone 6 and W1 chip, and it's not specifically the AirPods in my case.