MultiConnect and the Life Q20?

Below is what: The Professor said in his review of the Life Q30…
It explains why I am having so many problems when I connect my old Macbook (mid 2012) with BT4.2 and my iPhone7 with BT5.0… Many times (after I use the iPhone 7) the only way I can get my Macbook to connect to my Life Q20’s is to do a full on reset.
Here is how to reset the headphones: Plug in to charge, Press and hold the Power and the Volume Up for 5 seconds, Until the LED flashes Blue and Red, Then release.

SO MY QUESTION is what is the proper way to connect my 2 devices to the Q20’s (also understanding that they were never advertised be able to multiconnect).


The Quote from: The Professor, On multi point bluetooth on the Q30
Multiconnect

I have Linux and Android systems. If connect to Android first, then Linux will not connect
But if I connect to Linux then Android it connects, and the multipoint works fine. I have this issue of connection sequence with Sony but not Bose. I believe this is because my Boss are the oldest so is connected at older Bluetooth version regardless, while Sony and Q30 are newer and cannot connect to new and old versions concurrently.
say your old laptop is 4.2 and your phone is 5.0, an old headphone is 4.2, it will always connect to both laptop and phone at 4.2 so the connection. Say your headphones were 5.0, if they do connect to the phone first they are now 5 so cannot connect at 4.2 but if you connect to laptop first 4.2 then they can connect to 5. The backwards compatibility means multiconnect must connect to the oldest version first.

If you want to quote then highlight select my words, then hit quote, then select all, cut, close then paste in other thread.

Try connecting to the oldest bluetooth device first. So connect to your Macbook first, then your phone. Works for me.

It will eventually stop working as bluetooth connections do eventually drop so your laptop would drop, your headphones may then switch to BT5 and then won’t connect to BT4.2. But if you at least turn the headphones on and connect to your oldest first, it begins correctly.

I think what will happen is:

  • the headphones are BT5, which is backwards compatible (so can do) 4.2, 4.1, 4.0
  • the headphones when connected to macbook will become locked to version 4.2 (until they are powered off/on) so will appear to your phone as a 4.2 device, your phone is 5.0 so can do 4.2 so it works.
  • if you did the other way round, you connected your headphones 5 to phone 5, they are locked to 5. Then when you connected to macbook 4.2 the headphones will refuse to go to 4.2 as they have to keep the 5.0 existing going so you get a refused connection.

Link to my review

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Thank You Professor… Your explanation led me how to do it…
If the Iphone and the Mac are both ON… and I power up the Q20’s… most likely it will connect to the iPhone (BT5.0) 1st and for me to listen on my Mac (BT4.2) I will 1st have to power down the Q20’s… Then on the iPhone, I will have to either turn off Bluetooth ((or power off the phone) Then Power On the headphones… and they will most likely go into search mode… I need to “connect” to the Q20’s
After that I can turn on Bluetooth on the phone… and I can switch between all I want… UNTIL I switch off the Q20’s… at that point if I turn on the q20’s again… It will connect to the iPhone (BT5.0) and not work with the Mac (BT4.2).
It is a very inconvenient… But at least I understand how to accomplish connecting to the Mac without resetting the Q20’s over and over again. :+1:

OH and one more thing… You need to stop playing “sound” on the device before switching it over to the “other” device
IE: On the mac, watching Youtube… Press pause this will stop the sound. Then you can start the sound on the iPhone… and Vise Versa…

I am learning Bluetooth 101 in a public forum… Thanks folks for being understanding from a noob.

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Glad you figured it out, yes you can avoid reset by forcing the sequence of connecting via what is turned on.

I am a little irked by people who blame Soundcore for these issues, it’s just code running chipsets. Anyone who has to write complex code can develop a mind’s eye of what is happening.

Related to this is all also audio quality, the sequence of connecting determined which version of BT the headphones are locked onto (until they are powered off/on next). Each BT version then determines the profile versions (A2DP mostly) which then locks which codecs, which then locks the bitrate, which determines quality and compression, which impacts stuttering.

So this impacts quality and reliability of connection.

This also impacts permissions of processes. The bluetooth becomes closely tied to the kernel for efficiency, and to talk to it requires root/admin privilages. In OS like Android, everything is root, but OS like Windows it isn’t. So these issues impact differently across OS.

Tomorrow I’ll publish a new thread related to this (kind of) with a radical sideways way to solve this.

So when I owned the Life Q30s, I had the same problem connecting my Macbook (BT4.2) and my iPhone (BT5.0). And I realize why,
QUESTION: When Soundcore (or any other manufacturer) comes out with their New headset (whenever that may be)… Would it be possible for them via the app, Be able to “lock” the Bluetooth on the lowest setting (for me that would be BT4.2) IF the user desired to use multiconnect with different versions of Bluetooth?

Won’t work.

How do you know a disconnect is temporary or not?

Chipsets do exist which can run two different versions of BT concurrently. They cost more.

I think it’s an issue floating to the top faster than anyone expected due to Covid and work from home causing the false expectation a work supplied laptop can share bluetooth with a phone.

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