Bluetooth cuts out at three meters. It's a bit like a car that stalls while backing out of the driveway. It shouldn't happen, but the cause is usually surprisingly mundane.
Why does the connection cut out?
In theory, Bluetooth reaches tens of meters. In practice, three things eat into the range:
- The multipoint connection is acting up. VMK25 can connect to two devices simultaneously. If the headphones are trying to maintain a connection to an old device (say, a laptop in another room), it can interfere with the device you're actually listening to. This is the most common reason.
- The pairing is corrupted. Bluetooth pairing data sometimes gets scrambled—especially if you've connected the headphones to many devices. The phone and the headphones no longer quite understand each other.
- The source device is finicky. Not all TVs and budget laptops are Bluetooth prodigies. In particular, certain TCL TVs are known for having a—let's put it this way—cost-cutting Bluetooth implementation.
How to fix it
Try these in order:
- Reset the headphones' Bluetooth circuit. Plug a 3.5mm AUX cable into the headphones and unplug it. This resets the Bluetooth circuit. Simple but effective.
- Remove old pairings. Go to your phone's or TV's Bluetooth settings and remove VMK25 entirely. Don't just disconnect—delete the pairing altogether.
- Turn off other Bluetooth devices. If the headphones are connected to both a phone and a TV, try disconnecting one device completely. This lets you see whether the dropouts are caused by a multipoint conflict.
- Reconnect. Put the headphones into pairing mode (hold the MFB button until you hear the pairing tone) and connect from the source device.
- Check the source device. If you're using a TV, try the same headphones with a phone. If the phone works flawlessly, the problem is most likely in the TV's Bluetooth chip rather than the headphones.
TVs and Bluetooth – an eternal love drama
TVs are unpredictable when it comes to Bluetooth. Many cheaper models use the SBC codec, and their Bluetooth implementation causes latency and dropouts that the headphones cannot influence. If the TV is the root of the problem, consider a separate Bluetooth transmitter that connects to the TV's optical or 3.5mm output. It bypasses the TV's own Bluetooth chip entirely, and the difference is like night and day.
If that doesn't help
If resets and re-pairing don't fix the situation and the issue also repeats with a phone at short range, there may be a faulty Bluetooth antenna or circuit. Send us a message at info@valco.fi – include your order number and briefly describe the problem. We repair the devices in Kajaani; we don't throw them away.
Bluetooth, as an invention, is named after a Viking king, and sometimes it behaves like one—unpredictably and headstrong. But this will get sorted.
