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Problems with aggressive Bluetooth devices

Richard10250

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Sep 18, 2021
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Greetings -

I hope that some smart folks here can educate me on the topic of what I call "aggressive Bluetooth."

I have an iFi Zen Blue v2 that I use to add Bluetooth capability to my stereo system. The Zen Blue works great except for one frustrating issue. The Zen Blue is aggressive about grabbing the audio output from the Apple Ipad Pro that is paired to the Zen Blue. Let me describe what I consider to be aggressive Bluetooth.

Consider a situation where I walk into range of the Zen Blue while listening to audio from my Ipad via my Apple wireless earphones. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I lose audio in my earphones. When I check the cause I discover the Zen Blue has redirected the Ipad audio to itself. The only solution to regain the audio output is to go into Ipad Bluetooth settings and disconnect the Zen Blue. I find this annoying. I have even had the Zen Blue grab the audio while I was listening to the Ipad via wired headphones.

The behavior I desire is for the Zen Blue to only connect to my Ipad when I go into the Ipad settings and select the device. I have a cheap Bluetooth enabled speaker amp from Fosi Audio that behaves exactly as I would prefer.

I guess the issue could be the Ipad's behavior, but I don’t think that is the case as it behaves as I prefer with other devices.

It is my guess that the aggressive Bluetooth is a feature of the multipoint Bluetooth feature on the Zen Blue. I have written iFi support, but no answer to date and I am not hopeful.

Can anyone here shed light on this topic?

Thanks for reading this rather long post.
 

Joe Smith

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Yeah, I have this issue too. My wife's car (a Honda Fit) will "grab" my signal if she pulls into the driveway. My original BT receiver, one of those little black box Logitechs, is the same way, it will over-ride other connections, so I leave it unplugged when I am not using it. Some of the devices seem to be more aggressive than others, for sure.
 

Chrispy

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I've always thought the newest device in range gets the advantage but don't use BT all that much to really recognize a pattern....
 

TunaBug

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I haven't played with it much, but newer iOS will let you select a device type for some (all?) Bluetooth devices. They try to Do The Right Thing based on the type of device. For example, I think they assume that headsets should automagically connect, whereas speakers might not. In Settings, Bluetooth, find the device, tap the circled "i", then go into Device Type.
 
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