QCUE Pairing Issues Resolved?

That was... harrowing.

tl;dr: If QCUE isn't willing to pair via Bluetooth, even after factory resetting, then the only way out is to drain the batteries of the two earbuds completely, shove them one by one into the case to check for connectivity, before trying to pair again through the ``normal process'' of holding the back button with the case open till the blue-light blinks.

Context: I bought me some Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (QCUE) a few months back on a whim to replace the now-broken third pair of the Bose QuietComfort 20 noise cancelling in-ear headphones (QC20). The key difference was that the new QCUE were wireless, as compared to the QC20.

The reason why I said ``on a whim'' was because I already lug around a QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones II (QC35II) to replace the QC20, which is wireless and does its job well. Except for the fact that in SIN city, the high humidity and high temperature meant that wearing these over-the-ears headphones for long periods of time was... uncomfortable at best. I still use these for all the various teleconferencing meetings due to the excellent sound isolation (we used to call 'em ``Skyping'' back in the day), but very rarely use them for casual music listening on the go.

And thus, the QCUE is a thing now.

I recently switched phones to the Xiaomi 14 from my Xiaomi 12. Had I a choice, I wouldn't even bother, but since the replacement of the non-working screen of my Xiaomi 12 back in late 2024-06 (was it only less than 3 months ago?!), I knew that the days of my Xiaomi 12 was numbered. Thanks to the myriad of 2FA and other ``app-fication'', the stupid ``smartphone'' has become a piece of critical equipment. As for my Xiaomi 12, the rear-backing was starting to show signs of the glue [from the repair] failing, and I did not want to repeat the same scramble for a fix, this time from potentially greater failure.

And so I went to get that replacement.

``MT, you're long-winded--get to the point!''

I'm getting there. I migrated the information and apps from Xiaomi 12 to Xiaomi 14 (bye bye Geocache Calculator and Barcode Scanner, no thanks to Android 14 and beyond auto-blocking apps targeting old-enough versions of Android).

And then I tried to reconnect my QCUE. Which was what prompted the first statement.

I tried everything---clearing all the Bluetooth lists, resetting the QCUE, resetting the phone's network connections, factory resetting the QCUE, re-do all the steps a few more times.

It didn't work.

That is, until I saw this innocuous comment:

I got the same issue and got to fix it by draining the whole battery of the earbuds, waiting about half an hour more and then charging them again

---Tyras25

Well, that's the one thing I hadn't tried, and so I left out my QCUE for a day and change. It took much longer due to not having any existing connection to tap into to drain the power faster.

And when I finally found that both earbuds are completely drained of power (can tell because the welcome ``vrroomsh'' sound was missing when the earbud was applied to the ear), I pencilled the three contact points per earbud, and put each earbud one at a time into the case, to ensure that it was in good contact before putting in the next.

Then I applied the pairing process with my Xiaomi 14.

Whaddaya know. The pairing was successful!

I did the same for Eileen-III, same.

Now, I still need to verify that the QCUE can actually receive the sound signals, but I cannot do that just yet due to the earbuds being completely drained of power.

But having the pairing working is already a great win.

As a side note, there was also an unknown BT 600 device ID that was emitted by my QCUE---I wonder if this is significant in any way about why the pairing was jank.

And apart from the nugget that saved me, here's the rest of the thread which has other useful information. For how long Reddit will be around for such things to be in existence, is something that only time will tell.

Till the next update.