We’re happy for all four people using AirPods Pro with their Pixels
The greater Android ecosystem isn’t hurting for great earbud options by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re so inclined, you can use Apple’s AirPods on Android with relatively few complications. Last month, though, it was reported that the newest AirPods Pro were having trouble with Pixel phones, exhibiting a bug that caused the earbuds to spontaneously drop their connection. At the time, there was a hacky fix that solved connection problems at the expense of some audio quality, but Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 2 firmware update seems to solve the problem properly.
The not-really-fix to the connection-killing bug was to disable Bluetooth A2DP hardware offloading in your Pixel’s developer settings, but some users reported that workaround resulted in a hit to audio quality. The actual fix as reported on Reddit — updating the AirPods Pro 2’s firmware to the latest version — doesn’t require any settings fiddling on your Pixel phone, but it does require updating the earbuds. That happens automatically, but only if the AirPods are connected to an Apple device, be it an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
If you happen to use AirPods Pro 2 with a Pixel phone, it’s probably because you also use the earbuds with one or more other Apple products already, so this problem will eventually take care of itself for you. If the AirPods Pro 2 are your only Apple gear, though, this could turn into a headache. Like in Google’s Pixel Buds, new firmware for AirPods is applied automatically with no option to manually force an update, so borrowing a friend’s device to apply this new firmware isn’t very straightforward.
We’ve got a Pixel 7 Pro and a pair of AirPods Pro 2 on older firmware, and they’re exhibiting the same disconnection bug that can be remedied with the above developer settings workaround. We’re waiting on our AirPods to update to the newest firmware to confirm the bug has been resolved, but as that happens on its own schedule, it could take a while. We’ll update this story with confirmation once we have it.
