An annoying bug if you use Pixel Buds with multiple devices
The Google Pixel Buds A-Series are some of the best cheap wireless earbuds on the market. While the headphones don’t offer as many features as their Pro sibling, their significantly lower price makes up for it. To provide the best possible user experience, Google occasionally rolls out new firmware updates for the headphones to fix persistent bugs. The company is currently rolling out one of these minor updates (v3.519.0) for the Pixel Buds A series, which presumably fixes some underlying bugs. But the firmware appears to have broken the headphones’ ability to pair with multiple devices.
Unlike the Pixel Buds Pro, the A-Series Buds do not support multipoint connectivity. This means that at any time, the headphones can only connect to one device. However, they can still be paired with two devices. For example, you can pair the Pixel Buds A-Series with an Android smartphone and an iPad. Although the headphones do not connect to both devices simultaneously, you can disconnect them from the phone and then connect them to the tablet.
Based on Reddit reports from Pixel Buds A-Series users, firmware v3.519.0 appears to have broken this feature. Now the headphones only connect to the last paired device used. So if you disconnect the headphones from your Android phone and then try to connect them to your iPad, they won’t. You will need to re-pair the Pixel Buds to the iPad. And then if you go back to your phone, the headphones won’t connect unless they’re paired again. Worse still, users are reporting that they pressed the button on the charging case for 20 seconds to put the Pixel Buds into pairing mode before they were detected by a previously paired device.
Factory resetting the earphones does not help, the problem persists even after that. It’s unclear if this is an accidental bug or an intentional tweak by Google. Either way, the change makes switching between devices with the Pixel Buds A-Series a frustrating experience.
If your Pixel Buds A-Series are being used with multiple devices, consider waiting for the firmware update to install until Google fixes this issue.