My AirPods Pro 2 arrived today, and after playing with them a bit, I have a couple of questions.
I am unable to get the touch controls to work. I understand I should be able to tap and hold the stem to change noise cancellation. This is the default for both ears, but I change the right AirPod to activate SIRI. Neither the left ear nor right ear work. Is this gesture a simple touch, as the name implies? Or do I need to press until there’s a click? If so, I haven’t pressed hard enough, and if I press any harder, it will dislodge the AirPod from my ear.
Volume up and down, same problem. I understand I simply need to swipe up or down on the stem. This has no effect, neither for VoiceOver, nor for music.
I found a few videos that discuss this problem, but, as we all know with videos, they show the answer without telling. I can’t find the problem discussed in an article anywhere, except an Apple website that advised disconnecting and re-pairing. Did that. No change in behavior.
Finally, I’m unsure how to force them to switch between my Mac and my iPhone. They seem to switch by themselves rather randomly, and so far, not entirely when I would prefer them to switch. Is there a way to explicitly control this?
Thanks.
Comments
Some answers
On the stem of each AirPod, there is a section on the front that is flat. It’s kind of like a flat rectangular surface as opposed to being round like the rest of the stem. To activate the touch controls, you grab the stem like you’re going to remove the AirPod from your ear. When you grasp the stem, your finger should rest on that flat section. That’s the touch sensor. It requires force, but rather than just pressing on it, you squeeze the stem firmly. A single squeeze will play and pause, answer or hang up a call. When you squeeze and hold for about a second, it activates the other controls such as Siri. To turn the volume up and down, you do little swipes up and down, but just swipe along the flat sensor. You get an audible confirmation when a squeeze, hold, or volume adjustment is made. There are different sounds for each thing. I hope that makes more sense. Also, a double-squeeze skips to the next track, and a triple-squeeze goes to the previous track.
As for getting them to switch devices on your terms, I only know how to do that on the iPhone but maybe what I know can help with the Mac. To force your phone to use your AirPods, go to the control center and find the player controls, or swipe around, whichever you prefer. What you’re looking for is the button that says, “AirPlay audio.” When you double-tap that, as long as you have an AirPod in your ear, they should show up in the choices. If you can find player controls like that on the Mac, I would venture to guess there’s an AirPlay button somewhere, and you can switch it to that on your terms. I think there’s also a setting in the AirPods Pro section of your settings app that gives you a choice between always connecting to your phone automatically, or only when the AirPods were last used with your phone. Definitely explore all the AirPods settings, there’s cool stuff in there.
If any of this isn’t making sense, I can try to explain it better or differently. I love my AirPods Pro 2, and I use them every day. I hope you’re able to enjoy yours.
Thanks
It is definitely more of a pinch or a squeeze. That helped a lot. Why on earth did they call it a tap? I was tapping all over the dang things. LOL. And once I found out how to pinch it, I felt that flat touch sensor for volume, so that works too.
The noise cancellation is outstanding. Tomorrow, I'll play with switching devices, thanks for the help there. And then I'll do the hearing test, which is what I'm really excited to try.
Hey Paul
Glad you got them figured out. Enjoy those until next year when the next generation comes out. Lol.
As for why they call it “tap”, because the phrase “tap” is pretty much the standard verbiage for touch surfaces.
Air pods pro II
To answer your first question, there is a certain part of the stem that you need to fiddle with in order to control the earphones. With your fingertips, are you able to feel a small oval indent like a button? If you squeeze that, it will pause your music. If you long squeeze it, it'll either turn Siri on or change the earphones to another noise canceling, transparent, etc. If you slide your finger along that same indented spot, your volume will go up or down. Sorry I can't answer the question about the Mac because I don't own one.
Switching devices
I found this Apple article about switching devices. There is an automatic mode, so if I've got them paired with my Mac and a call comes in, they'll switch to my phone. Also, when paired to my Mac, if I start playing Music on my phone, they'll switch. But simply using VoiceOver on my phone doesn't cause them to switch away from my Mac. Anyhow, I'll wait until I upgrade to Sequoia to dig into this further.
Thanks again to everyone who helped with the touch gestures. I really struggled with this and couldn’t find a clear text-based description after repeated web searches. I’m sure sighted people just watched videos and figured it out from there. I couldn’t even find a text description of how to wear them. As a hearing aid user, I thought the stem must point forward and up at an angle, like and over-the-ear hearing aid. That made it impossible for me to find the touch surface. Even after I figured out the stem points down, and managed to get the swipe to change the volume, it took Amber’s helpful comment here before I could figure out the stem-pinch gesture. To me, that’s neither a tap nor a touch. But I’ve got it all working now, and I really appreciate the help. Thanks again.
I wonder…
I wonder if going into settings, Bluetooth, and then your AirPods device and setting it to something like headphones, or speakers, will make any difference?
I don’t think that option is…
I don’t think that option is even there for AirPods
It doesn't seem like rocket science
If I'm using my phone, the phone's audio should go through the AirPods. If I switch and start using my Mac, the Mac's audio should go through the AirPods.
But, like I said, I'll wait until I'm on Sequoia before I work on this, Until I have a better solution, if the AirPods spontaneously pair with my Mac, I can switch them back simply by playing music on my phone.
In the meantime, I just had my first opportunity to use head motion, and it worked awesomely. My spouse was talking to me, and while she was talking, I heard voiceOver say, "A long message just came in from your friend Natalie. Should I read it?" I shook my head no. Voila. These AirPods are freaking cool.