All too familiar situation: you're sitting on the bus, listening to your favorite song, and right at the best part the sound cuts out. Or better yet — you're in a Teams meeting and your boss hears every other word. No worries, this is usually easy to fix.
Why does the connection cut out?
Bluetooth is radio technology, and radio signals by nature are like a moody teenage girl. Most often the reason is one of these:
- Your phone's Bluetooth memory is messed up. Devices cache pairing data, and sometimes that data gets stale or becomes corrupted. This is the most common reason.
- Too many Bluetooth devices around. In an office where everyone has their own headphones, watch, and phone, the 2.4 GHz band gets congested like Kehä I at four o'clock on a Friday.
- Multipoint connection causes confusion. VMK20 supports two devices simultaneously. Handy, but sometimes the headphones try to jump between devices like a dog that sees two squirrels at the same time.
- The headphones' firmware is stuck. Electronics are electronics. Sometimes the circuit gets tied in knots.
How to fix it
Try these in order. Usually the first or second step is enough.
- Reset the headphones. Plug a 3.5mm AUX cable into the headphones and unplug it. This disconnects the Bluetooth circuit and forces it to start fresh. Simple but effective.
- Remove the pairing and set it up again. Go to your phone's Bluetooth settings, find VMK20 and choose 'Forget device' (or similar). Turn the headphones off, turn them back on, and pair from scratch. This fixes the majority of issues.
- Check the Multipoint situation. If you have two devices connected — say a work computer and your own phone — try disconnecting one. If the stuttering stops, you've found the culprit. Multipoint generally works well, but some devices' Bluetooth implementations go together like licorice and orange juice.
- Restart Bluetooth on your phone. Not just the headphones, the phone too. Turn Bluetooth off, wait ten seconds, turn it back on. Sounds silly, but it works surprisingly often.
- Update your phone. An outdated operating system can cause Bluetooth issues. Especially on Android phones, Bluetooth stack updates come with OS updates.
- Test with a different device. If the cutouts continue on every device, the problem is more likely in the headphones. If only on one device, the fault is in that device.
If that doesn't help
If you went through all the steps and nothing worked, there may be a physical fault in the Bluetooth module or antenna. It happens — electronics are mortal too.
Send us an email at info@valco.fi. Include your order number and a short description of what you've already tried. Our repair team in Kajaani knows how to solder these back into shape. VMK20 is made to be repaired, not thrown away.
And hey — if the headphones have served faithfully for years and have already been serviced once, that says more about the device's quality than any marketing text. They do need maintenance from time to time, just like a car or a relationship.
