Did yesterday's surprise Nintendo Switch Bluetooth audio update make your handheld worse instead of better? That's what happened to me:instead of inviting me into the magical world of wireless audio, it repeatedly failed to detect my headphones and connect to them reliably.
Worse still, it suddenly took up to 30 seconds to wake my Switch from sleep! That's a huge pain in the ass, considering one of the Switch's greatest strengths is how you can instantly jump back into a game.
But after a whole bunch of testing, I think I know what's going on - and if you see the same thing, shutting down Switch completely seems to offer a partial fix.
It's not enough that simple, though, so read on for the details.
To pair a Bluetooth headset, you need to go to System Settings , scroll to Bluetooth Audio , put your Bluetooth device into pairing mode, tap Pair Device on your Switch, then select your device once it appears on the Switch screen.
If it matches, you're set! If it fails because your device was not ready to pair, you force always be well. Simply put it back into pairing mode and press the Search Again button button on your Switch.
Problem #1. But if it doesn't pair correctly – if your switch thinks it's paired, if your headset flashes like it's paired, but isn't routing audio and doesn't appear on your Switch screen as a paired headset - you might be in a world of wounds. The Switch process does not not fail gracefully, and you may encounter all sorts of error messages afterwards.
After this point, my Switch sometimes won't even bother to continue searching for Bluetooth devices. A message "Cannot find Bluetooth audio devices" will appear when I press the search button.
Problem #2. And if you are having ghost pairing problem, you may also have problem with Switch coming out of sleep mode as it looks like Switch is trying to trigger Bluetooth audio. before it wakes up the screen and the controllers.
This is what the Nintendo Switch looks like without any Bluetooth audio devices paired or remembered. It wakes up pretty quickly, right?
But once I've paired headphones to the Switch, it's not instant anymore:the screen takes a bit longer to turn on, and it doesn't immediately recognize my taps on the buttons that allow me to unlock the system.
Now here's what it is when the Switch fails to pair properly with a standby headset:
(Why yes, my eyes do look scary when they get mad, thanks for noticing.)
You need to completely turn off the Switch, and I mean turn it off completely. I restarted it several times, and that didn't seem to help.
Sometimes turning off my Switch was enough to fix my ghost pairing issue (where I saw a 10-30 second delay when waking up the system) and allow me to start over. pairing Bluetooth headsets. I was able to pair my Wyze Buds Pro on the first try, headphones that failed to connect several times last night.
But other times it still wouldn't make an initial pair - and as soon as I saw that "Unable to find Bluetooth audio devices" message, my Switch would take a while to wake up. Your mileage may vary:in case it matters, I'm using version 2 of the original Switch, the one that added more battery life.
And if you try to restore the full wake-up speed the Switch is normally known for, you'll also need to unpair and forget all Bluetooth devices. before you come to a complete stop. When I simply unpaired a Bluetooth headset but left it in the Bluetooth menu, I still saw the little delay. Same thing if I turn off first, then unpaired and then forgot the headphones.
I assume the Switch leaves its Bluetooth audio feature on whenever it thinks you're going to use it, but you can force it by deleting those devices and initiating a full shutdown.
We asked Nintendo if these are known issues and if we can expect fixes in a future firmware update. We'll let you know what we mean.
