Bluetooth not working on IPhone XS

I had the same problem with my new iPhone XS. I had transferred everything over from my iPhone 7. It wasn’t until I went back to my iPhone 7 and unpaired/forgot all of my previously paired devices and then turned Bluetooth on my old iPhone that I was able to connect to my Bluetooth devices on my new phone.

Hi. Posted this elsewhere and your mmv. I unpaired my Xs from one car (the other one never paired so there was no unpairing to do) and then Reset Network Settings by going to Settings>General>Reset Network Settings...you may need to enter your passcode and you will be asked to confirm (make sure you ONLY select Reset Network Settings). I then powercycled the phone (though I don't think this step is necessary, just insurance). For some reason, the phone's name is wiped out when you reset the network settings, so I reentered the phone name by going to Settings>General>About>Name. I then paired with bluetooth once by having the car search for the phone and another time by having the phone search for the car. Both cars paired successfully and both autoconnect now when I enter them. This also worked for my wife's Xs. When I recently rented a car, the phone was detected and paired without a problem. Reset Network Settings worked for me, so it's worth a try. Good luck.

rover3d wrote:

Hi. Posted this elsewhere and your mmv. I unpaired my Xs from one car (the other one never paired so there was no unpairing to do) and then Reset Network Settings by going to Settings>General>Reset Network Settings...you may need to enter your passcode and you will be asked to confirm (make sure you ONLY select Reset Network Settings). I then powercycled the phone (though I don't think this step is necessary, just insurance). For some reason, the phone's name is wiped out when you reset the network settings, so I reentered the phone name by going to Settings>General>About>Name. I then paired with bluetooth once by having the car search for the phone and another time by having the phone search for the car. Both cars paired successfully and both autoconnect now when I enter them. This also worked for my wife's Xs. When I recently rented a car, the phone was detected and paired without a problem. Reset Network Settings worked for me, so it's worth a try. Good luck.

Tried this today, and I am happy to say that it is working so far. Thank you!

Then this should have been recommended some time ago. Restore your from and NOT from backup. Take it back to it's just out of the box new state. Sign in with your Apple ID. Try to connect to your car. If you can, there is something that was contained in the backup causing this issue. You'll then need to move things back from the cloud, like Apps, Contacts, Photos, Messages, and reset up your mail boxes. Make sure you are saving everything to the cloud before you restore the phone.

I had this problem on my XS Max and had done all the troubleshooting - soft restart, hard restart, toggled bluetooth on and off, reset network settings. My iphone could not detect any bluetooth devices (spinning wheel on the Bluetooth page), could not find other phones for Airdrop. I contacted Apple Support who opened a support case for me. in preparation for returning the phone turned off Find My iPhone (Settings/iCloud, turn Find My iPhone off) and also signed out of Find my iPhone app. Then this morning I noticed i could see other devices to Airdrop, and then managed to pair to my fitbit, bluetooth speaker etc. I turned FMiP back on and signed back in and all seems to be fine! Hope this helps.

For all of you having a Bluetooth issue, you may need to put your devices themselves in pairing mode to pair with the new phone. Some devices are discoverable without the need to be in pairing mode, but most need to be re-paired with a new device.

My XS would not maintain a connection to my Watch (series 3) or my car. I solved both by doing the following:

1) Reset Network Settings on my XS, and reboot.

2) Rename the phone to something new, reboot.

3) Reset my watch, re-pair with phone.

4) My car requires you to pair a phone via the hands-free system (on the steering wheel) rather than the head unit. If you pair via the head unit, it forgets every time the car starts. Every time I get a new phone I forget this and have to re-learn it.. 😝 It was the car's fault.

Now everything works perfectly.

Make an appointment with the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store.

They have Bluetooth devices there, so if you can’t connect there it’s your phone, if you can it’s your Bluetooth device.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

I had to have the Bluetooth on my old device forget my Fitbit and then I set it up on my new phone and it worked fine

royalbaer wrote:

@rbrylawski -> I already did that more than once. Also tried "ignore this device" and so on, but didn't fix the problem. I have resetted my network settings completely now, but I don't think that this helps, cause it's a brand new iPhone and I didn't restore a backup.

If your new phone is having this issue, schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar and have them test the Bluetooth receiver. My new XS Max paired perfectly out of the box with my Bluetooth devices.

I just got off an hour long phone call with apple support, there is a work-around that helped with the connection with my car, that you could give a try (it didn't help with connection to portable blue-tooth speakers). Go into your settings, general, and finally about; there will be a selection at the top of that settings screen with "Name", change the name of your iPhone, that seemed to work for me. Support said that they think this issue will be corrected with iOS 12.1, as 12.0.1 didn't really help.

Apple will never fix it globally, because it is a problem with your phone. If you have failed to solve it with all of the standard troubleshooting steps make a genius bar appointment to have an Apple tech look into it.

You need to put a Bluetooth device into Pairing mode, then go to Settings/Bluetooth and tap its name to connect. Even if the device connected to a previous phone. Depending on the device, you may need to reset it to it's factory settings first, as some devices have a limited number of devices they can pair with at the same time.

No I didn't.

I had to return 2 XS Max's & 1 XS all having bluetooth issues.

2 of the phones were returned before IOS 12.0.1 came out. The 3rd one returned after IOS 12.0.1 as it didn't help.

All phones were returned within 14 days so I got the refund.

Now I have the XR 256GB with no bluetooth issues or LTE issues.

Im not sure what's happening with the XS model phones.

I had this same problem with my new XS Max and it was super frustrating. I was able to solve it by resetting my network settings. Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings. This is inconvenient because it wipes out your known networks (eg Wifi at home, work, etc.), but worth the hassle because now my devices are paired and haven’t had trouble since the reset. Doing this did not wipe passwords or any other data as far as I know. Good luck!

I love the canned responses to issues with bluetooth. Let me tell you I had an iPhone 6s without any bluetooth issues, then got the Xs and nothing but headaches ; at least with my Bose Soundlink Mini . It connects I hear the music, then it randomly disconnects in which I can't get it to work again. The iPhone even says it's connected to the Bose but no sound comes out. I then have to go through the whole 'forget device' and repair it - rigamaroar. Now, I challenge any Apple engineer to repair every time you want to use your device and let me know how long it takes for you to want to throw your iPhone out the window ?

I'd be contacting the manufacturer of the other device to find out why it apparently isn't following standards.

Why? Because there are few issues connecting with the vast majority of Bluetooth devices extant, and though new Bluetooth standards are backwards-compatible, that doesn't work if the original device didn't properly implement the spec to begin with.

What does Bose have to say? Have you contacted them to ask?