The Beats Studio Buds are an extremely popular pair of true wireless noise-canceling earphones.
The Beats brand has already been popular with a younger audience and its popularity skyrocketed when the brand was taken over by the controversial Apple. Currently, Apple sells the Beats Studio Buds in conjunction with their own popular line of wireless earphones, the AirPods, marketing it as more of a lifestyle or fashion product.
With that said, if you own a pair of Beats Studio Buds, there might be times when the earbuds refuse to connect to your streaming device of choice. While this problem has been around for a while, some users have reported that it was further exacerbated after a software update that was pushed earlier this year. If this has happened to you, this guide will be of benefit.
Instead of immediately contacting support or thinking straight away of replacing your earbuds, there are a few things you can do on your own to diagnose and fix the issue. It’s likely that these steps would be enough to solve the problem and you would not have to employ any drastic measures.
Read on to find out, step by step, what to do if your Beats Studio Buds won’t connect to your device of choice.
Step 1 – Charge the Earbuds
Often, if your Beats Studio Buds will not turn on and connect, the reason is simple – the battery does not have enough charge. Usually, putting the earbuds back into the charging case will help charge them but the battery inside the charging case also depletes over time and might reach a low stage where the earbuds cannot get enough power to start.
The solution is to charge your earbuds, preferably to their full state of charge. To do this, you can put the earbuds inside the case and close the lid. Then, you need to connect the case to a power source using the included USB Type-C cable. The power source can be a phone charger, power bank, or USB port on your computer. Check the light on the device to see if it is charging.
Ideally, you should leave your device on the charger until it charges up completely and then try again to turn it on and connect to your device of choice. If it was a power issue or a matter of errors in battery calibration, a full charge should do the trick and solve the problem.
Step 2 – Restart the Device
If your earbuds are fully charged but still not connecting, the problem might actually be with the device you are trying to connect them with. This might be an iPhone, an Android phone, or a computer. At this point, it’s an astute idea to restart that device and see if the Bluetooth connection is automatically reestablished.
On most phones, you can press and hold down the power button and choose the “restart” or “reboot” options in the menu that comes up. Otherwise, you can also perform a hard restart by pressing down the power button until the device powers down and the screen goes blank. Then, you can wait for a few seconds and use the power button to turn the device on again as usual.
If the device is a computer, you can use the menus to navigate to the restart option.
Once the device has restarted, wait for the Bluetooth connection to complete. If it does not complete on its own, you can go into the Bluetooth settings and force the connection and see if the earbuds connect.
Step 3 – Forget and Re-pair the Bluetooth Connection
One common reason why your Beats Studio Buds are not connecting can be an issue with the Bluetooth connection.
Bluetooth connections can sometimes suffer from issues with incorrect settings, interference, or software bugs in the operating system of your source device. In cases that fall under this column, it’s a prudent idea to remove the Bluetooth pairing and establish a fresh pairing. This might solve the problem and allow your earbuds to connect properly again.
First, you need to forget the existing Bluetooth connection. While the process to do this might be slightly different on different devices, the basic idea is the same.
You need to go into your Bluetooth settings and focus on the area that shows the list of already paired devices. From there, select the entry for your Beats Studio Buds and you should see an option to unpair or forget the connection. Choose this option and your connection details will be removed from the device.
Then, you need to establish a fresh pairing. This is easy to do with both Apple and Android devices as the earbuds support fast pairing.
For Apple devices, you just need to open the lid of your earbuds case with the buds inside and hold them close to your device — whether it is a phone, tablet, or a Mac computer. You should see a pairing notification on your device and you can proceed from there.
On Android as well, fast pairing should work if you have Bluetooth and location access turned on. Alternatively, you can also use the Beats app to pair the earbuds. This way you get detailed pairing instructions.
In case you are trying to pair the earbuds with some other kind of device, you will need to put it in pairing mode first. Consult your Beats Studio Buds manual for instructions on how to do this and follow the standard pairing process. It’s likely that your connection issue will be resolved after this.
Step 4 – Reset the Earbuds and Try Again
It might well be a firmware glitch on your Beats Studio Buds that is preventing a connection. These can happen over time or as a result of a faulty software update.
In cases of this kind, you should factory reset your earbuds and try again. This restores your earbuds to their factory conditions and erases any connection details or other settings stored on the device. A clean slate might be all you need to get your earbuds connected and working again.
The process of resetting your earbuds is very simple. First, you need to put the individual buds back into the case. Do not close the lid of the case.
Look at the section in the middle of the case to locate the system button. To reset your earbuds, press and hold this button down for at least 15 seconds. At this point, you will see the main LED indicator of the case flashing in a red and white pattern. Once this happens, you can release the button.
Once you release the button, you will see the LED flashing in white color. This means that your earbuds are now reset and have been put into pairing mode. Follow the standard pairing procedure and establish a connection to your device of choice and see if this solves the connection problems.
Step 5 – Check Your Bluetooth Settings
Often, it’s the Bluetooth settings of your device that can cause your Beats Studio Buds to stop connecting. Incorrect settings can often lead to connection problems, especially when you are reestablishing a connection after a period of no use.
For mobile devices, you need to check if Bluetooth discovery is turned on. You should be able to find this setting easily in the advanced settings section of your Bluetooth menu. Make sure this is always turned on.
Taking this into account, on Android phones, it might be necessary to have location permissions enabled in addition to Bluetooth. You can also take advantage of the Beats app to troubleshoot Bluetooth connection issues if you have it installed on your phone.
On Windows computers, especially laptops, there is a setting that allows the operating system to turn off or power down the Bluetooth antenna to save power, and this might be causing your connection issues. You need to disable this setting.
To do this, go into your device manager and find your Bluetooth adapter in the listed hardware. Then, go into the settings menu for the adapter and under the advanced tab, you will find a check box to enable turning off the device to save power.
Uncheck this box, apply the changes and restart your computer. Check to see if the issue is sorted out. You can look for similar settings on your Mac computer and disable them. (No, you cannot disable high food prices, we would have done that a year ago if we could.)
Final Thoughts
So, that is an exhaustive list of things you can try to get things back in order if your Beats Studio Buds earbuds stop connecting.
If you try all of these steps and the problem still persists, it’s likely to be a major issue that you cannot solve at home. In a case of this type, you can contact support and send in your device for repair or replacement.
Based on this, the steps outlined in this guide should be enough to take care of the issue in most cases. Even if you have to contact support, you will be able to assure the support technician that you have already tried all the recommended troubleshooting steps and speed up the process of reaching a resolution.
