Hands free won't connect, then won't disconnect

[SigSoldat]

I have a Motorola SonicRider hands free for my car. I turned it on and it connected the first try. Worked great. I got out of the car and went into my work (about 50 feet from car). An hour later, my phone was still connected to the SonicRider and I had missed multiple calls. I turned off BT and then turned it back on and everything worked again.

An hour later I went out to my car and the BT didn't connect. I turned BT off then back on, still nothing. I had to turn the SonicRider off, then back on, to force it to connect. I again left the car for about 30 minutes, walked back out to the car, and the BT would not pair with the SonicRider. I had to turn it off and back on again to force a connection.

My first two Droid phones were both Moto. I've always used the Moto Roadster handsfree in my car. It always "woke up" when I got into the car and paired automatically. After leaving the car the handsfree would go into sleep mode after about 15 minutes. So I have a new Moto phone and a new Moto handsfree and it's not working!

If anyone can tell me what I'm missing, I would sure appreciate it.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I'm not familiar with that hands free device. You leave it on all the time? How does it get power?

The one I use plugs in to the cigarette lighter, so I'm just trying to get an idea of the difference in how the devices work.

Sent from my Note 4 via Tapatalk

 

[sst45jeff]

Sometimes my Parrot hands free kit would do that with my Moto Bionic. Not hook up and the screen on the Bluetooth would be blank. Usually I had to wait until it shut off to re connect.
Have you rebooted your phone. Seems that fixes a lot of these weird glitches. Something gets messed up in the phone os and a reboot resets it.

As far as it not disconnecting, you may have just been to close still. Range is about 33' but could go further in best case scenario.

 

[FoxKat]

I have two different earlier Motorola hands free units for earlier cars (my 2010 F-150 has My Ford Touch with Sync so Bluetooth is built in). Both worked this way. If Bluetooth was on in the phone and not already connected to another Bluetooth device such as my headset, and if the hands free device was powered down and connected to the accessory port that comes on with the ignition, I would put the key in and turn, the hands free device would wake up and connect automatically.

If I then later shut the car off and left, if I didn't power down the hands free device manually or disconnect in settings it would power down on its own and disconnect after a period of time, or I would get out of range and it would disconnect. Since the expected range is 33 feed but that's taking into account environmental interferences it is possible to remain connected intermittently at 50 feet, just enough to prevent the phone from letting go completely and preventing the hands free device from powering down normally.

As for why it didn't connect automatically, when you turned BT off, you broke the connection to the BT device so when you got back in range (I'm assuming here that the BT device was left powered on), your phone wasn't looking for your by device and so didn't connect automatically. You said it wouldn't "pair" but I believe you meant wouldn't "connect" since pairing is the steps taken to make both devices aware of each other and authorize all future connections.

I'm going to bet it's that you were still somewhat in range and so the BT device never did get to disconnect and "sleep".

Sent from my Droid Turbo on Tapatalk.

 

[SigSoldat]

There are quite a few hands-free devices that operate on rechargeable batteries so you can clip them to the sun visor without having a cable hanging down. In fact, I thought this design was far more common than devices that require constant vehicle power.

By design, it is supposed to enter "sleep" mode to preserve battery when I'm not in the car. It wakes up when it hears me enter the vehicle and then connects to my phone. This used to work great with my last two Droid phones, both made by Motorola. Now it won't disconnect when I leave the car unless I manually toggle bluetooth off on the phone and then turn it back on later. Problem is, I either forget to turn it off or I forget to turn it back on. I could also turn the hands-free device off until I'm ready to use it, but I always forget until I'm already receiving a call or text.I get in/out of the car up to a dozen times in one day for work and remembering to switch things on/off all the time is not a realistic option.

Nothing has changed regarding where I park at home or work. All devices are made by Motorola. However, I tried this with an iPhone 6 and it seemed to have the same behavior.

 

[FoxKat]

OK, and mine are both rechargeable battery devices as well, but neither one would "sleep" and then "wake up" when I get in unless connected to the car's accessory jack. I would have to manually power them up if left to the battery only.

Still. The fact that the older phones worked that way and the newer ones don't (incl. The iPhone) points to a possible change in how newer versions of BT in the phone work that may be incompatible with the older versions and whatever technique they used to get them to sleep and wake as you described.

Sent from my Droid Turbo on Tapatalk.

 

[SigSoldat]

Update: I get into the car and turn on my Sonic Rider. It connects to my phone within 5 seconds and operates perfectly. I leave the car. An hour later I get a phone call and it still connects to my Sonic Rider. I looked at my phone and it says it is in driving mode. I select "I am not driving" and then turn the phone off. I call my cell and it STILL hooks up to the bluetooth.

The MOTO assist would get into driving mode when I got into the car and then it never turns off. I even went through the menu and turned off all the MOTO assist options so that it shouldn't even enter driving mode, but it still does it. That's probably what's causing the issue because my phone seems to enter driving mode and never leave it.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

An hour later, were you still in/near the car? It should disconnect, but if you're within range and the device is still on and bluetooth is still on, it's going to auto-connect to it, but it shouldn't be sending calls to the Sonic Rider if you're not connected to it.