Wireless earbuds won't disconnect in the case? Here's how to disconnect them

2 min readUpdated on April 10, 2023

Wireless earbuds won't disconnect or unpair in the case

Your wireless earbuds won't disconnect when you put them in the charging case. They stay connected. We hear this complaint sometimes, and the solution is simple. Here's how to fix it.

In this article

1. Earbuds stay connected in the case
2. Earbuds suddenly connect while in the case

Bluetooth earbuds stay connected in the charging case

It's frustrating: your earbuds won't disconnect, even though you close the lid properly with the earbuds inside. They should disconnect at that point. But they don't. How do you fix it?

The answer:

Charge the charging case. Put the earbuds in the case, close the lid and charge the case with a cable. The charging case needs some battery power. This is the problem in 99% of cases. Think of it this way: the case needs to signal to the earbuds that they're in their 'home base.' Without power, it can't do that.

Occasionally, you'll need to reset the earbuds. Very rarely (about 1% of the time), something goes wrong with the connections. This prevents an earbud from disconnecting. If that happens, reset the earbuds. This restores their factory settings.

Almost all Bluetooth earbuds disconnect the same way. Put them in the charging case and close the lid. They're now disconnected.

If you want to disconnect your Bluetooth earbuds from your phone or another device without touching the earbuds, turn off Bluetooth on that device. This will disconnect the earbuds too, of course. But they'll immediately try to connect to the next available device they've connected to before that has Bluetooth turned on.

Earbuds connect to your phone unexpectedly while in the charging case

Sometimes your earbuds sit in the charging case and automatically connect after a while. Without you asking them to! That's frustrating too. You don't know what to expect from your earbuds. They could connect at any moment. In this case, make sure you charge the charging case too.

Here's what's actually happening:

The charging case still had, for example, 3% battery when you put the earbuds in.
The earbuds disconnected because they started charging.
The charging case uses its last 3% to charge your earbuds until the case reaches 0%.
The earbuds stop charging, which effectively has the same result as opening the charging case. They enter pairing mode and connect to the last connected device.

This only applies to earbuds without a Hall switch. For us, a Hall switch is an absolute must in earbuds. It prevents the earbuds from entering pairing mode in the situation above. In other words, you won't have this problem.

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