AirPods are connected but cannot hear for phone calls.

Hello Lawrence,

I have the same issue and your analysis makes complete sense. However, how come it does works for music and other apps that use audio such as YouTube, but not for calls? I also have Tiles and from time to time audio from phone calls are mute on the AirPods. Restarting the iPhone solves the issue... temporarily. Putting the Apple Watch on airplane mode also restores audio to phone calls on the Airpods.

I found this on the chipolo's web site:

Apple's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus as of right now can only handle 6 Chipolos (no other Bluetooth devices connected) at once...

https://support.chipolo.net/hc/en-us/articles/212718449-Bluetooth-limitation-iPh one-7-iPhone-7-Plus

So, I guess that, if we have 1 Apple Watch, 2 AirPods (1 pair) and 4 Tiles/Chipolos we would already exceed the limit.

It seems that the solution is to either disconnect one of the Tiles/Chipolos (if you have 4) or connect them to another iDevice such as the iPad.

Has anyone found another solution or workaround?

celio-likes-apples wrote:

Hello Lawrence,

I have the same issue and your analysis makes complete sense. However, how come it does works for music and other apps that use audio such as YouTube, but not for calls?

Music and other audio uses a music Bluetooth profile. Siri and phone audio uses a hands-free profile. Each requires a separate connection. So taking a phone call opens an additional pair of connections from the phone to the AirPods.

I have the same Issue. I do own a 6 tiles. It makes sense that the iPhone and Apple Watch just can't handle all the sources. But you would think apple could prioritize things like the air pods. I can play music fine, it is connected but I can't answer a call. But when I turn off the tiles and the Apple Watch. Everything works.

Yup. It is now clear that there is a limit on the number of bluetooth connections that iPhone can handle.

I do agree with you. It could disconnect temporary other bluetooth connections to allow the AirPods to come through.

I wonder if the same problem occurs on iPhone 8 or iPhone X...

I don’t use Tiles but I have TrackR and I experience the same problem. If I have the TrackR Show History in and my iPhone 7 is connected then my AirPods don’t work for calls. Disconnect the TrackR and it works.

Very annoying.

I'm afraid it is a limitation of the Bluetooth standard. A Bluetooth Master can have a maximum of 7 simultaneous "slave" connections. There appears to be no way around this limit, as it is built into the Bluetooth specification, and is not simply because it is an iPhone limitation.

What counts as a slave connection? In my case the only connected devices were:

- AirPods for music (is that 2?)

- Garmin Forerunner 35 watch

- One TrackR device

My uninformed count makes that seem like 4 assuming each AirPod has its own connection. Or does each AirPod make 2 connections and so the count is 6 and then each AirPod needs 1 more to handle a phone call making it 8?

Airpods use 2 connections for audio, and an additional connection for Siri/Phone calls (possibly 2; I'm not sure). Your watch may use 1 or 2; I'm not familiar with that specific watch. You can try turning off Bluetooth in the watch; if that lets you use Siri or make a phone call it's probably 2.

I also use tiles and an apple watch- tiles are my saving grace Esp with my keys so is it impossible to use all at the same time?

Thank you for bringing this up, I have the same issues. Does anybody knows the max number of Bluetooth connection to iPhone ?

Thanks; I have done that and so far it has worked.

I’m super annoyed by this issue. I also use tiles and have an Apple Watch. Is there a magic number ? I could probably pair down my tile usage to 2...

Thanks for the followup. I will give it a try.

ahhh Thank you for posting this! I also couldn't figure it out and turns out I have 4 tiles that were connected to my phone via bluetooth. As soon as I turned them off my AirPods worked again!