iPhone 12 Pro Max iPhone 12 Pro Max won't connect to Bluetooth speakers

[ideal.dreams]

Upgraded to the 12 Pro Max from my 11 Pro Max on launch day and I've noticed that I can't connect to either one of the two Bluetooth speakers I have in my house that I used to be able to connect to just fine before from my 11 Pro Max.

The speakers are in two of our bathrooms and are integrated into the ceiling fan. It's a speaker, fan, and light all-in-one combo. The speaker shows up as ready to pair on my phone but when I tap it, it hangs for about 15 seconds and then comes back with pairing unsuccessful.

My wife is the new owner of my 11 Pro Max and after factory resetting and restoring to her backup, the speaker still connects to the 11 Pro Max with no issue. I have an iPad Pro and to help narrow things down, I tried pairing it to one of the speakers and it too connected with no issues. I've never connected the iPad to either speaker before, so I know it's not something to do with having previously connected the 11 Pro Max.

I've tried restarting my phone, toggling Bluetooth, changing my phone's name in General > About, and I'm out of options at this point. My 12 Pro Max is on 14.2.1 while the 11 Pro Max and iPad are on 14.2.

I called Apple today and they walked me through the things I already tried before telling me to call the manufacturer of the speaker (which I will do when their offices open tomorrow morning) but wanted to see if anyone else is having difficulty connecting to a Bluetooth speaker in the meantime to see if there are any troubleshooting options I may have missed.

Based on the troubleshooting I have done so far, it seems like it's a software issue with 14.2.1, or a hardware issue with the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Though I would like to note I only recently updated my 12 Pro Max to 14.2.1 from 14.2 and it wasn't pairing on 14.2 either.

 

[obsidianspider]

I'm curious to hear what you find out. I registered on the forum just now because I seem to be having the same issue, also with new Apple hardware. I just upgraded from an old iPad Air 2 to the new iPad Air 4th Generation and am seeing similar behavior with one of my Bluetooth speakers. I can pair the new iPad Air to a different Bluetooth speaker as well as Bluetooth headphones with no issues.

Just to confirm there is nothing wrong with the speaker I was able to pair it to my iMac, to a Windows 10 PC, an Unbuntu PC, my iPhone 11, and even after a factory reset, my old iPad Air 2.

Both the iPad Air 2 as well as the new iPad Air 4th Generation are running iPad OS 14.2.

It's frustrating because I can pair the speaker in question to any of my other devices, and I can pair other Bluetooth devices to the new iPad Air without issue. I am really stuck as to if this particular speaker is just not compatible with the new iPad hardware, but that just seems unlikely to me.

I tried the various troubleshooting tips listed on Google such as resetting network settings, toggling Bluetooth off and on, etc. and this is the only device giving me trouble. I'd rather not wipe the whole iPad and restore from a backup, but some are suggesting that may be a fix. I'd just hate to go through all that trouble and then it still not work.

 

[obsidianspider]

As I'm running out of Bluetooth devices to test, just for the heck of it, I paired my circa 2007 Garmin nuvi GPS to my new iPad Air 4th Generation with no issues, so whatever is going on with the particular speaker that doesn't want to pair seems to be a compatibility issue with that specific device. I wish the iPad generated some kind of log when the "Pairing Unsuccessful" message was generated so I could see *why* it's not successful.

 

[Jordan921]

I have 2 wireless speakers and my 12PM has connected to them flawlessly.

 

[obsidianspider]

Just to take this as far as I realistically could, I made a full backup of my iPad to my iMac, then I did a restore on the iPad to wipe all settings. Then, without restoring data I went through setting up the new iPad, and even then, it still won't pair to the problematic speaker. All other devices seem fine, so I'm going to unfortunately have to chalk this up to this particular device having an issue with iPadOS 14.2.

@OP, what did you find out after talking with your speaker manufacturer?