Bluetooth is a popular method of wirelessly transferring
data between two devices such as your phone
and your headphones, your media player and a speaker, or
your iPad and a keyboard. It’s one of the most widely used wireless
technology in the world, according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.
More than 3 billion Bluetooth products that were expected to ship last
year alone, and that number will likely almost double within the next three
years.
Bluetooth is all great when it works. But if you’re someone
who likes to play around with these kinds of connected gadgets, you know it can
be frustrating when there’s a hang-up pairing the two. Here are some common
causes of pairing problems as well as advice on what you can do about them.
Why Bluetooth pairings fail
Bluetooth depends on both
hardware and software to work properly. So if your devices can't speak a common
Bluetooth language, they won’t be able to connect.
In general, Bluetooth is backwards compatible: Bluetooth
devices supporting the Bluetooth 4.2 standard, announced last year, should
still be able to pair with devices using, say, the ancient Bluetooth 2.1,
launched back in 2007.
The exceptions are gadgets that use a low-energy version
called Bluetooth Smart, which works on a different protocol than older, or
"Classic" Bluetooth devices. Bluetooth Smart devices are not backward
compatible and won't recognize (or pair with) older devices that support
Classic Bluetooth. (For example, an old Sony Ericsson phone sporting Bluetooth
3.0 won't be able to connect to a Bluetooth Smart device.)
However, if a device supports Bluetooth 4.0, it can
potentially recognize both Bluetooth Smart and Classic. If it does, it's
officially labelled Bluetooth Smart Ready.
Gadgets that commonly use Bluetooth Smart include personal
health gadgets such as fitness bands or heart-rate monitors. These gadgets will
only pair with a smartphone or tablet that also uses Bluetooth Smart – or are
Bluetooth Smart Ready.
iPhones running iOS 7 and newer should be Bluetooth Smart
Ready as should Android phones running 4.3 or newer, Windows Phone 8.1 devices,
and all BlackBerry 10 devices. Ensure your phone is running the latest version
of its operating system – but if your device isn't new enough to run relatively
current software, you may not be able to pair it with that fitness band.
Devices also come with specific Bluetooth profiles. If
Bluetooth is the common language connecting devices, you can think of a profile
as a dialect associated with a certain use. For example, you probably aren't
going to be able to connect a mouse and a camera because a camera
doesn’t support the Human Interface Device Profile. But if both a mobile phone
and a wireless headset support the Hands-Free Profile, you should be able to
pair them.
However, if the pairing failure is a matter of user error,
there are steps you can take to get your devices happily communicating with
each other.
What you can do about pairing failures
1. Make sure Bluetooth is turned on. You
should see the little Bluetooth symbol at the top of your phone’s screen. If
you don’t, go into the settings to enable it.
2. Determine which pairing process your device employs. The
process for pairing devices can vary. Sometimes, for example, it involves
tapping a code into your phone. Other times, you can just physically touch your
phone to the device you want to pair it with. Or in the case of the Bose
SoundLink, you only have to hold down a button on the speaker to pair it
with a phone.
If you’re not sure how to pair a device, refer to its user
guide; you can usually find one by searching online.
3. Turn on discoverable mode. Let’s say you want
to pair your phone with your car’s infotainment system so you can enjoy
hands-free calling, texting and navigation. First, go into your phone’s
settings and tap on Bluetooth; doing so makes the phone visible to the car.
Then depress the buttons on your car's infotainment system, usually on the
steering wheel or center stack, to get it looking for the device.
Once it finds your phone, the car may ask for a numeric code
you need to confirm or input on your phone. After you do so, the devices should
be paired. Keep in mind your phone or your car may only stay in discoverable
mode for a few minutes; if you take too long, you’ll need to start over.
4. Make sure the two devices are in close enough proximity
to one another. While you wouldn’t think someone might try to pair an iPad
with a keyboard if the two weren’t sitting right next to each other, it’s
probably worth noting that you should make sure any devices you're trying to
pair are within five feet of one other.
5. Power the devices off and back on. A soft reset
sometimes can resolve an issue. With phones, an easy way to do this is by going
into and out of airplane mode.
6. Power down likely interferers. Say that faithful
Bluetooth speaker usually connects to your partner's smartphone instead of
yours. If you're having trouble pairing your phone with the speaker, it could
be because the speaker is trying to activate its usual connection. Some older
devices are very simple. They just try to connect with the last thing they
paired with. If a Bluetooth device was previously paired with something else,
turn off that other gadget.
7. Charge up both devices you're trying to pair. Some
devices have smart power management that may turn off Bluetooth if the battery
level is too low. If your phone isn't pairing, make sure it and the device
you're trying to pair with have enough juice.
8. Delete a device from a phone and rediscover it. If
your phone sees a device but isn’t receiving data from it, sometimes it helps
to start from scratch. In iOS settings, you can remove a device by tapping on
its name and then Forget this Device. In Android settings, tap on a device’s
name, then Unpair. After removing a device, start at step 1 on this list.
9. Get away from the Wi-Fi router. Another potential
obstacle to successful pairing is interference from devices that use the same
spectrum, such as your Wi-Fi router. “Wi-Fi has been designed to cope with
this, but it might not be a good idea to have your devices directly on top of
the router,” Powell says.
10. Move away from a USB 3.0 port. “Interference from USB
3.0 is also possible,” Powell says. Newer laptops, for example, often have the
higher-speed USB 3.0 port, so if the connection isn't happening, try pairing
your Bluetooth gadgets away from the computer.
11. Make sure the devices you want to pair are designed to
connect with each other. Whether it’s a headset, speaker, mouse, keyboard,
camera or something else, your device has a specific profile that spells out
what it can connect with. If you’re not sure, check the user manual.
12. Download a driver. If you’re having problems
pairing something with your PC, you might be lacking the correct driver.
The simplest way to figure this out is to do an online search for the name of
the device you’re trying to pair along with the word “driver.”
13. Update the hardware’s firmware. Some automotive audio
systems have been known to not pair with phones because the Bluetooth
drivers in these systems didn’t work with Bluetooth 4.0. If you’re not sure how
to get the latest firmware for your hardware, check with the device
manufacturer.
14. Limit data shared between devices. Android and Windows
devices let you choose the information you share between devices. So, for
instance, you can choose to share phone audio, media audio, contacts and text
messages with your car. If you don't need to share all of the data, deselecting
one or more of the types of information may enable the devices to pair.
For Android devices, go to Settings > Bluetooth and
select the device. If there are options to select, they will appear. For
Windows, go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers
and right click on the Bluetooth device in question. Then select the Services
tab to choose which types of information to share.
Not all wireless devices use Bluetooth
Keep in mind that not all wireless devices use
Bluetooth. Alternatives include the Wireless Gigabit specification,
Wireless HD, ANT+, ZigBee, NFC as well as Wi-Fi Direct. These other
technologies typically won’t work with your phone, tablet or PC without some
kind of additional hardware.
