The 5 Biggest Problems Users Face with Bluetooth on Windows 11

It’s almost comical how Windows struggles with Bluetooth, even decades after its initial implementation on PCs. There are frequent disconnections, an unreliable status display, and sometimes the Bluetooth icon completely disappears from your computer, preventing you from turning it on in the first place. Even if everything seems to be working fine, a Windows 11 update can completely screw up Bluetooth, rendering you powerless until Microsoft provides a fix.

Sometimes upgrading your PC’s Bluetooth can help resolve these issues. Other devices, like the latest Googlebook (formerly Chromebook) models, are already built with Bluetooth 6.0, which includes precision tracking similar to Apple’s Find My.

Unfortunately, most of these problems have more to do with the Windows software that powers your PC than with Bluetooth as a technology, so no upgrade is likely to provide a solution if Microsoft continues to struggle. However, all is not lost; Microsoft promises to fix some aspects of Bluetooth in the near future, and some of them are already being tested by insiders. While we wait for that final fix to arrive, here are some ways to alleviate common issues users are experiencing with Bluetooth on Windows.

It’s annoying when you can’t enable a feature, but even more so when a working feature suddenly stops working in the middle of something. Disconnecting a Bluetooth controller during a competitive FPS can cost you the match, and randomly disconnecting your headphones can disrupt your flow state. A device can go offline for several reasons, but in Windows 11 this is often due to a power saving feature. This can certainly be useful for laptops that need to save battery, but it provides no real benefit on a desktop and is often a hindrance on laptops as well.

To turn off Bluetooth power saving, use the search bar on your taskbar to search and open Device Manager > Click the drop-down arrow next to Bluetooth > Locate your Bluetooth adapter. The name differs depending on your device, but look for terms like “adapter” or a brand name, such as Intel or Realtek. Ignore all devices with Enumerator in the name, as it is part of the system that finds new devices.

Once you have found your Bluetooth adapter, right-click it and choose Properties > Go to the Power Management tab at the top of the window > Deselect “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”.

This type of problem mainly occurs because some manufacturers add power-saving features to their devices. If you leave them idle for too long, they will automatically disconnect and turn off. There’s often no way to change this, but if you want to make sure your Bluetooth headphones or speakers stay connected even when not in use, you can play low ambient noise when the device is idle.

Bluetooth can be annoying, but you can get some benefits from it as long as you can turn it on, which isn’t always a given. For many, the Bluetooth icon may disappear from the Quick Settings panel next to Wi-Fi in the lower right corner of your screen. Best case scenario is that you accidentally deleted it from the quick panel, in which case you will still be able to enable Bluetooth from Settings. You can add it again by clicking the up arrow in the lower right corner of the screen, then dragging the Bluetooth icon back or clicking the pencil icon to edit the list.

The problem becomes more complicated if the icon is not displayed in the up arrow area, as this probably means that your Bluetooth adapter is not working properly. To see if this is the case, find and open Device Manager in Windows. If you see Bluetooth, tap the arrow next to it to open a drop-down list that should show several devices, including your Bluetooth adapter and some devices with Enumerator in the name. If you don’t see the adapter, right-click any option in the Bluetooth drop-down list and select Uninstall Device. With that done, click Action on the top menu and select Scan for hardware changes, which will hopefully get your Bluetooth working.

If that doesn’t work, you can download the manufacturer-specific drivers directly from the brand’s website. Simply search for the adapter manufacturer followed by the Bluetooth driver on a browser, then follow the on-screen instructions. If none of these steps work, your Bluetooth adapter may be damaged and you will need to replace it.

Today’s Bluetooth technology has improved to the point where, for most people, wireless audio is just as good as wired output. However, if you notice that your headphones sound less than optimal while you’re gaming or on a call, there is a specific setting that could be affecting your experience.

The main feature responsible for bad sound on Bluetooth headphones is called hands-free calling, which manages audio input and output profiles for headphones or earbuds equipped with mics. This improves the quality of your mic, but it does so by dividing the available network bandwidth between the mic and the incoming audio when you speak, resulting in poorer audio quality. As such, you can disable hands-free calling in Windows 11 to improve the audio quality of your wireless devices.

To do this, find and open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Devices > More devices and printer settings. Here, right-click your audio device, select Properties, then navigate to the Services tab at the top of the window. Wait for the available options to load, then deselect Hands-free calling.

Note that this resets every time you start your computer. Windows does not natively allow users to disable the feature permanently, but you can disable the driver associated with hands-free calling from your device. Do this by going to the same place More devices and printer settings page > Material > Look for an entry that includes “Hands-free”. With the correct device selected, click Properties > Change Settings > Drivers > Disable Device. Be careful, however, as tampering with device drivers can have side effects, including computer crashes. If you’re having issues, you can probably resolve them by updating the drivers from Device Manager.

Viewing accurate information about your Bluetooth device’s connections shouldn’t be a daunting task, but it is for those using Windows 11. For example, if you manually disconnect a device, Windows may still show it as connected. While this isn’t usually a problem, it may prevent you from reconnecting it later. It’s also frustrating if this happens randomly, where you suddenly stop hearing sound after disconnecting, but your laptop or desktop still shows the Bluetooth device as connected.

This problem is beyond your control and has existed for a long time. Fortunately, Microsoft is finally working to improve Bluetooth status accuracy with updates 26100.9539 and 26200.9539. The company specifies: “This update improves the accuracy of the connection status displayed by Windows for accessories disconnected from the PC.” Microsoft has already offered this update to testers, and if it works as expected, users might also get it in the near future.

There are some reasons to use Windows PCs instead of Apple’s macOS or other operating systems, but reliability isn’t one of them. Windows 11 has had its share of problematic updates. The majority of them don’t fix existing problems, but there are also some that actively ruin things that seem to work just fine, including Bluetooth.

Many Windows 11 updates have ruined Bluetooth this year. In January, users started complaining about not being able to see the Bluetooth button following a software update from the company. Later, users who installed an update in April reported constant disconnections and outages when using Bluetooth devices. Sometimes they also received a “Device does not have Bluetooth” error with the adapter disappearing from the devices. Most recently, the August update caused several Bluetooth-related issues: repeated disconnections and crashes, Bluetooth disappearing from Quick Settings, and the Bluetooth adapter no longer appearing in Device Manager.

As each update is different, the solution also differs for them. The most common culprit is a driver conflict, which can be exacerbated by Windows features that automatically download and update drivers. In such a case, uninstalling existing drivers and downloading new ones from the manufacturer’s website can fix your Bluetooth. In other cases, you will have to wait for Microsoft to fix the problem via another software update.