1 wireless earbud not working: Bluetooth earbuds only work on 1 side
One of your earbuds isn't working. You can often get it working again. How? We'll walk you through it.
Quick fixes:
- 1. Turn on the earbud
- Turn on the earbud: press and hold the earbud that isn't playing sound.
- 2. Charge the charging case and earbuds
- The earbud's battery is empty: charge the charging case with the earbuds inside.
- 3. Reconnect
- Put the earbuds in the charging case, close and reopen the lid, then connect.
- 4. Do a factory reset
- None of that worked? Try a reset.
1. Turn on the earbud manually
Both earbuds are in your ears, but only 1 side plays sound. Try turning on the silent earbud. To do this, press and hold its button or touch control. The earbud will turn on, and you'll usually hear sound through it again.
Didn't work? It's always down to 1 of these causes:
- The earbud's battery is empty: charge it
- The earbuds haven't paired properly: reconnect them*
*Reconnecting is also the solution if the earbud turns on but doesn't play sound, while the other earbud does.
How do you get the earbud to connect again?
If one earbud won't connect but the other does, follow these steps:
- Turn off Bluetooth on your phone and remove the earbuds from its saved devices, preferably along with all other Bluetooth connections*.
- Put both earbuds back in the charging case and charge the charging case.
- Close the charging case lid so they disconnect from your phone.
- Open the lid so they enter pairing mode again.
- Turn on Bluetooth on your phone and connect.
- The earbuds will now connect.
*We suggest removing all saved Bluetooth devices because we often see previous connections interfere with the current one. Once you remove those devices, the earbuds often start working again.
2. Charge the charging case and earbuds
Connect the charging case to a charger with the earbuds inside, especially if only 1 earbud works. Make sure you use the included cable. Try different chargers too. If 1 charger, such as a fast charger, doesn't work, try another.
Charge the charging case with the earbuds inside for about 20 minutes. That should be more than enough to test whether an empty earbud battery was the problem.
3. Reconnect
Try connecting again to check whether both wireless earbuds now work instead of just 1. Follow these steps to reconnect:
- Keep the earbuds in the charging case with the lid closed.
- Turn off Bluetooth on your laptop, tablet and any other phones previously connected to the earbuds or headphones. This stops them from connecting to another device when you don't want them to.
- Open the charging case, take out the earbuds and connect them to your phone or preferred device.
Did that work? Great!
4. Reset
Still no luck after trying all of that? Time for the last resort: restore your earbuds or headphones to their factory settings.
A reset removes all the connections saved on your earbuds, including any Bluetooth connections that might be causing a conflict.
Here's the problem: after you've connected your earbuds to several devices, the left earbud might still think it was last connected to device A, such as your laptop. The right earbud might think it should connect to your phone instead. That's when these problems happen. Your only option then is to reset your earbuds. It almost always works.
