Questions about AirPods Pro 2

By PaulMartz, 31 October, 2024

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

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.

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Comments

By Amber on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By Brian on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By Erika Gilbert on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By Brian on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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?

By PaulMartz on Thursday, October 31, 2024 - 21:33

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.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

I botched this comment yesterday. Let me try it again.

I’m having several problems answering calls while my AirPods are in.

First problem: When a call comes in, my phone vibrates, but I don’t hear it ring, neither through the phone speaker nor through the AirPods.

Second problem: While VoiceOver announces the caller ID, and I hear that through my AirPods, it is very faint, much fainter than the level VoiceOver is set at. And in fact, it’s so faint that I didn’t think it was announcing the caller at all, until I did a test in a quiet room with my spouse calling me.

Third problem: I should be able to answer a call with a nod. I know I have this feature enabled, because a long text came in, and my phone asked if I wanted to hear the whole thing, and I declined with a shake. However, when a call comes in, my phone doesn’t ask whether I want to answer or decline, and head motion has no effect. I want it to work the same for calls as it does for texts.

To investigate the first issue, I went into settings, sound & haptics, and call volume is set at 81%. If I flick up or down, the phone rings through the speaker, not through the AirPods. I’m unsure whether that’s normal or not. But it’s clearly at the correct volume, and it rings just fine when my AirPods are stowed.

For the second issue, when a call comes in, I attempted to adjust the volume up with the physical volume buttons, hoping to increase the volume of both VoiceOver and the non-existent ringing. Let me describe step-by-step what happens.
1. My spouse calls me, my phone starts to vibrate, and I very faintly hear VoiceOver announce the caller ID. Great so far, except for the lack of ringing and faint VoiceOver volume, as already noted.
2. I press the volume up button once. Expected behavior: The phone should continue to vibrate, because I haven’t answered the call yet, and if the ring volume was somehow at zero, maybe I should hear it ring. As for VoiceOver, I would expect a small increase in volume.

Observed behavior: The phone immediately stops vibrating even though I haven’t answered it, and I’m on a call answer screen, which VoiceOver reads at full normal volume (despite just having read the caller ID at an incorrect faint volume). The increase in VoiceOver’s volume is much greater than I would expect from a single up volume press.

For the third issue, the head motion, I’m unsure what to try, because there do not appear to be separate head motion settings for texts versus calls, from what I’ve found.

Any advice or guidance? Thanks.

By Brian on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

Unfortunately I cannot give you any real advice on to how to "fix" your AirPods, save for not using them because AirPods never seem to work as intended these days. I can, however, tell you 2 things that are inconveniences of iOS.

1. Adjusting ringer volume from within the Sounds and Haptics screen will always, always play through your iPhone speakers. Been this way forever.
2. Pressing up volume or down volume is "supposed" to silence the ringer while an incoming call is happening in realtime, but not "supposed" to actually answer a call.

I do have a question. Is there an AirPod exclusive setting outside of Bluetooth settings, that would allow you to adjust the volume?

By PaulMartz on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

Resetting my AirPods per Apple's instructions addressed the ring issue. Ring volume is now okay, and VoiceOver announces caller ID.

Head motion is still an issue. In SIRI settings, announce calls has been set to always for as long as I can remember. I switched it to hearing aids, but that didn't seem to make a difference. I guess I can try headphones next. But I'd really like it set to Always.

By Igna Triay on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

This is just a hunch, but I guess the reason why this is not working is because whenever you get a call, it is always voiceover that will announce the caller, not siri. And the shake and nod to answer is specifically a setting for siri, not voiceover. This is probably why the head gestures don't work for calls. Which sucks, tbh. Will have to send feedback to apple regarding this, as its a bit ridiculous its not working if voiceover is on.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

Thanks, but whether VoiceOver is on or not makes no difference. Also, changing the SIRI announce calls setting from Always to Hearing Aids did not make a difference. I simply can't get my phone to announce a call and give me the option to use a head gesture to accept or decline.

By Igna Triay on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

I thought it was something to do with voiceover but maybe not. Maybe its not fully implemented?

By PaulMartz on Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 21:33

Here are the settings I've looked at. I'm surprised there are so many places where this could be turned off. But they all appear to be on.

1. Settings, Apple Intelligence & SIRI, Announce Calls, currently set to Always. And I've also tried setting it to HeadPhones Only, not Hearing Aids as I mis-stated previously.

2. Settings, Notifications, Announce Notifications. This is set to On.

3. Settings, Notifications, Announce Notifications., under Announce Notifications From, and then within Phone. Announce Notifications is set to On.

And it's worth noting that notifications of Text Messages works. With my AirPods in, SIRI told me a long text had came in and gave me the option of whether to have it read. I shook left and right, heard the tones, and SIRI understood not to read it.