Why Do AirPods Pause or Disconnect When I Move My Head?

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Take a scenario where you are using your AirPods to listen to your favorite music. Then, they suddenly pause in the middle of your vibe because of making a simple gesture such as moving your head. Then you may ask yourself if AirPods pause when you move your head.

AirPods can disconnect when you move your head because it has an Automatic Ear Detection system that causes them to pause when they detect that the AirPods isn’t near the ear. This feature can be annoying to you as a user.

Learn more about solving the Automatic Ear Detection issue and other problems causing your AirPods to function ineffectively. Keep reading the article, as it provides essential information to you.

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Why Do My AirPods Keep Pausing?

There are many reasons why AirPods may pause, Ear Detection is the common one that can make the AirPods pause or not work correctly. The other reasons include the following:

Using a single AirPods and the other moves causes auto pause.
AirPods have low power.
The AirPods have a poor Bluetooth connection.
There’re are apps causing glitches.

Ear Detection Issue

Apple AirPods have an outstanding feature known as the Automatic Ear Detection. The phrase means that the AirPods can determine whether they are inside your ear or not.

This Ear Detection has two things for AirPods Users:

Auto pausing: When you remove an AirPods from one ear for communication with others while playing music, they can pause.
Switching Ears: AirPods inevitably discern when you use one AirPods, and the other is off.

The Ear Detection feature mode on the AirPods is essential and relies heavily on a small component of the AirPods. That crucial bit of the AirPods is known as proximity sensors.

You’ll find proximity sensors find on each earpiece of AirPods. They are infrared sensors detecting whether an object is close (ears) or in contact. When the AirPods are in the ears, the detectors are aware and discern which ear to play music through.

Locating proximity sensors is easy as they’re the black shades on the side of the earpiece of the AirPods. In case the detectors spoil or aren’t clean, the AirPods can tend to pause even if they’re in your ears.

Unstable Connection

AirPods don’t use wires that may make them tangle is an advantage. However, the AirPods are susceptible to Bluetooth interference and range limits.

Bluetooth interference occurs when things like concrete objects or other wireless services dispute the Bluetooth connection between your gadgets. You have to know that Bluetooth uses 2.4GHz frequency to sync with your device. This is still the same case with typical Wi-Fi.

The 2.4GHz is the space where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interact with your device. Wi-Fi takes up ample space and leaves the rest for Bluetooth. However, this is okay if the number of Wi-Fi connections is less, but if they’re not, then your AirPods pause.

Bluetooth range plays a crucial role in AirPods connectivity. The Bluetooth range represents the distance you can cover with your AirPods still connected. The optimal range for AirPods is 10-18m. Therefore, past this distance, AirPods may experience connection problems.

Low Battery

When the AirPods battery runs out of juice, the Bluetooth connection is affected, and you can hear no audio from them again. The audio continues playing from the phone.

Low power content of less than 20% of total battery life can cause AirPods to pause. It is important to note that all devices require enough power for top performance.

Incompatible Firmware Version

Apple devices use the latest iOS software, which has undergone many updates since its first release in 2007. For every release, there’s always a bug in each past device before an upgrade.

These bugs and errors cause issues for the AirPods, such as pausing. To avoid such problems, always ensure that the iOS software and Airpods are up-to-date.

Hardware Defect

A hardware defect may sometimes be a factor causing the AirPods to pause. They may include manufacturing defects such as counterfeit products, damages acquired from use, and other issues.

Defects can cause the AirPods internal electronics to function ineffectively and cause sound issues. Counterfeit products lack proper Apple software, are primarily cheap without proper functions, and are easily damaged.

Audio source issues

If you’re sure that the AirPods are fine and still the audio poses, then the problem may be with the audio source.

The audio source may have several apps running simultaneously, which slows down the performance of the Bluetooth connection needed by AirPods. If that’s not the case, then the drivers of the audio source may be outdated and need a software update.

Some audio enhancement features can cause pausing, this may seem unlikely, but it happens. The AirPods may not be able to comprehend the additional processing weight.

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How to Stop Apple AirPods from Pausing

Discerning the actual problem facing your AirPods is hard, meaning you’ll have to use different methods to solve it. We’ll give you some of the necessary things you need to do if you face pausing issues.

Turning Off the Ear Detection Feature

Turning Off the Ear Detection Feature This is among the simplest steps you may take fixing AirPods. You need to turn off the Ear Detection as shown by the following steps:

Opening the iPhone settings

Click the Bluetooth icon, locate the AirPods and click on the more information icon.

Move the switch, search for the Ear Detection and turn it off.

That’s how you do it. Remember that turning off Ear Detection causes you unable to switch your ears or immediately pause media by removing an AirPods. However, having this feature not on is better than constantly dealing with pausing that you don’t want.

The proximity sensors need to be clean to allow them to work efficiently. Gunk from ears or dirt may cause the proximity sensors to show that the AirPods isn’t on the ear, causing pausing.

Checking Bluetooth connectivity

If the iPhone you use syncs through Bluetooth to more than a single gadget, it can be confused about which one to send audio to. If you’ve connected to the AirPods and a BT speaker, your iPad or iPhone may fail to know where the audio is required. Therefore, check that the Bluetooth connection is not on other devices before stating that the AirPods are damaged.

If it’s connected, disconnect it and check whether the disappearing problem disappears.

Charging an AirPods

An AirPods with low charge percentages can go on and off, decrease volume, lose microphone functioning, and also cause permanent battery life damage.

With the AirPods having low power, then they are almost pointless. You may receive less fun out of dying AirPods. You can encounter much more than pausing when AirPods from Apple aren’t full.

That’s why your AirPods must be at full capacity to avoid further issues. This charging isn’t a long process, as AirPods take in power from almost dead to full in less than an hour.

App Testing

At times the AirPods may have no issue, but the problem may lie with the app you are streaming your media with. This app testing is among the key things most iPhone users tend to forget.

To avoid this, try streaming the audio-visual content via distinct apps and check whether the pausing problem persists. If the problem continues, then the AirPods or iPhone is the issue, and if pausing stops, then the app is the problem.

This solution may be obvious, but our tendency as human beings may seek to overthink rather than handle the issue simply. Therefore, always ensure you check different apps before concluding the AirPods are spoilt.

Restarting Your iPhone

Despite the AirPods being the ones that pause, at times, the problem may fail to be on their side. Like all electronic gadgets, iPhones may sometimes experience software problems or other complex issues. The issues may affect the functioning of the AirPods.

If all other methods, such as disconnecting other Bluetooth devices, cleaning the AirPods, and charging them with no results. Then you may need to restart your iPhone and spot the difference.

Restarting the iPhone may be the actual thing that allows the AirPods’ to return to normal functioning.

Checking Other Devices Connecting to AirPods

Using AirPods with your own Mac close to your phone, then both of them may try connecting simultaneously. This connection occurs a lot of times when using AirPods for streaming media from your iOS device while at the same time utilizing your Mac.

The AirPods may choose to play audio from both devices at the same time. In such a scenario, you need to turn off the Bluetooth of one device to prevent the AirPods from performing double duty.

Solving Patchy Audio and Static Problems

You might be far from the source when you encounter patchy audio. Apple Airpods have an outstanding range of nearly 100 feet, but this can change upon the introduction of obstacles like walls.

If you place your iPhone in your pocket, then no problem is encountered. For static gadgets like computers, you need to stay within a specific range for good audio quality. Other sources of interference, such as Wi-Fi, can also cause issues. For this, you just turn off the Wi-Fi.

Final Thoughts

The current world we’re living in can’t lack several problems. Therefore, the Airpods may sometimes pause or glitch, making you lack the ideal listening experience. However, this article teaches you how to tackle many issues without worry.

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