How to fix your Nintendo Switch if Bluetooth stopped sleeping

Did the updated Nintendo Switch Bluetooth audio surprise yesterday worsen your hand instead of improving it? Here’s what happened to me: Instead of inviting me into the magical world of wireless audio, it repeatedly failed to detect my headphones and connect to them reliably.

Even worse, it suddenly took over 30 seconds to wake up my Switch. This is a huge pain in the ass, considering that one of the most important strengths of the switch is how you can instantly get back into a game.

But after a whole lot of testing, I think I know what’s going on, and if you see the same thing, a complete switch off of the switch seems to offer a partial solution.

It is not quite so simple though, so keep reading for more information.

The Nintendo Switch Bluetooth Pairing Problem

To pair a Bluetooth headset, you should go there System settings, scroll down to Bluetooth audio, set the Bluetooth device to sync mode, tap Pair the device on your Switch, then select your device when it appears on the Switch screen.

If combined, that’s it. If it fails because the device was not ready to sync, you I could still be fine. Simply put it back in sync mode and tap the button Search again of the switch button.

Problem no. 1. But if not combined correctly – if your Switch he thinks combines, if the headset flashes as if in sync, but does not route audio and does not appear on the Switch screen as paired headphones; you may have pain. The switch process does no it fails gracefully, and then you may find all sorts of error messages.

After that, my Switch will sometimes not even bother to keep looking for Bluetooth devices. The message “Bluetooth audio devices cannot be found” will appear the moment you press the scan button.

Problem no. 2. And if you’ve encountered a ghost pairing issue, you may also have issues with the switch waking up from sleep, because it looks like the switch is trying to turn on Bluetooth audio before wakes up the screen and drivers.

This is what the Nintendo Switch looks like without paired or remembered Bluetooth audio devices. He wakes up pretty fast, right?

But once I pair the headphones with the switch, it’s no longer instantaneous: the screen takes a little longer to light up and doesn’t immediately recognize my buttons that allow me to unlock the system.

Now, this is how it is when the switch cannot be paired properly with a standby headset:

(Why yes, my eyes do It sounds scary when they’re out of trouble, thanks for noticing.)

How the Nintendo Switch Bluetooth can be partially fixed

You have to turn off the switch completely and I mean turn it off completely. I restarted it a lot of times and it didn’t seem to help.

• Touch the power button and wait for the screen to take to activate
• Uncheck and forget any Bluetooth devices
• Press and hold the power button for four seconds until you see Power options
• Faucet Power options then hits Close
• Wait once and turn the switch back on

Sometimes simply turning off the switch was enough to fix the ghost pairing problem (where I saw a 10-30 second delay in waking up the system) and let me pair Bluetooth headsets again. I managed to get my Wyze Buds Pro paired from the first attempt, headphones that last night couldn’t connect repeatedly.

But other times, I still wouldn’t make an initial pair, and as soon as I saw the message “Bluetooth audio devices can’t be found,” my Switch would take a long time to wake up from sleep. Your mileage may vary – just in case, I’m using the v2 of the original switch, which added more battery life.

And if you’re trying to reset the full alarm speed for which the switch is normally known, you’ll also need to separate and forget about any Bluetooth devices before you do the complete closure. When I simply unpaired some Bluetooth headphones but left them on the Bluetooth menu, I still saw the small delay. The same if I first turned off and unpaired and forgot the headphones second.

I assume the switch leaves the Bluetooth audio feature turned on whenever it thinks it will use it, but you can force it by removing these devices and starting a complete shutdown.

We asked Nintendo if these are known issues and if we can expect solutions in a future firmware update. We will let you know what we hear.