AirPods any way to avoid automatic device switching?

By Nikola Jovic, 21 November, 2021

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hi all,
so I have a small problem when using my AirPods (second gen) with my Mac.
I was able to solve this previously, but after a mac OS reinstall either I forgot how to now or it's a new bug since upgrading to Mac OS Monterey. Well, not exactly a bug, but at least unwanted behaviour for me.
When listening to something on my Mac, and I wake up my IPhone, as soon as Voiceover announces the time AirPods immediately switch to IPhone. What makes this even more annoying is that once I am done with my IPhone, AirPods don't simply go back to Mac, but rather I completely lose all audio on my Mac until I take my AirPods out of my ears, at which point the audio comes back but I have to reconnect my AirPods again.

If possible, I would like it so AirPods never switch to IPhone automatically unless I choose to connect them. To be exact, I don't exactly mind if they switch to my IPhone if I choose to press the side button to wake up the device, but the problem is that they switch to it even if I am just listening to something on my Mac and a notification arrives causing VoiceOver to announce the time and thus switch AirPods to my IPhone.

Thanks.

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Comments

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

I just had this issue. I was on the phone, I put on my airpods, it picked up my mac and I could not switch back as voiceover didn't want to. I mean I heard the sounds of the music still coming from my phone and I wanted to switch to my airpods on the phone but could not.

By nohansa nuh on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

hy, you can turn off automatic connect this iphone in bluetooth setting under your airpods setting.
on the mac go to bluetooth preferences go to airpods setting there.

By Nikola Jovic on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

Thanks for the pointer, that's exactly what I was looking for.
Turns out that while I had AirPods configured to connect to my Mac only when they were already previously connected, the setting on my IPhone was set to automatic hence why it was picking them up every time. I missed such a setting on iOS and now that I changed it on there as well everything works like before.

By Mark Carter on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

This is a regression in the latest version of macOS. It is super annoying and extremely disruptive for screen reader users. I reported this bug to Apple originally in early September and so far they have not fixed it.
I encourage you to email the Apple Accessibility team so that this bug will be prioritized.
There are a few possible crappy workarounds.
If you are using your AirPods with your Mac and you want to prevent them from connecting to an iOS device such as an iPhone go to iOS settings then Bluetooth settings while the AirPods are connected to the iPhone. use the voice over router action menu to select more information on the connected AirPods and then from the settings choose to connect manually or only connect if previously connected to this device. This will prevent the AirPods from reconnecting to your iPhone without you doing that manually. However if what you are looking to do is the other way around meaning to ensure that the AirPods will connect to the iPhone but not to the Mac there isn’t really a very good solution right now.
If you go in to Bluetooth settings on the Mac then click settings on the connected AirPods there is a setting there to control whether the airport should automatically connect to the Mac but the setting is grayed out for some reason and Apple will not let you configure it.
I received the following email from Apple with a possible workaround . This workaround works until I restart my Mac and then I need to do it again.
Here is the information from Apple:
Thank you for your feedback. Our teams are working on fixing the issue you reported.
As a temporary workaround, please run the below command from the terminal to turn on Bluetooth.

sudo killall -9 BlueTool bluetoothd

Thank you!

Feedback ID FB9589707, Unwanted AirPod auto connect to my Mac and no way to switch to manual

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

Yep I've been having this issue since yesterday. I'll probably just not use my airpods on my air then.

By Nikola Jovic on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 02:23

Hi,
yeah I'll have to Email Apple accessibility.
Even though the iOS option worked for a bit yesterday, now it's again broken and it's doing the same thing. I configured them to connect to an iOS device only when last connected, but regardless of that setting, they still switch to my IPhone as soon as I press the side button regardless of what my Mac is doing.