iPhone 12 Pro AirPods and FindMy

[James Godfrey]

Hi all

My partner and I are having an issue with our AirPods and Find My, it’s been ongoing now since iOS15 so I am thinking it’s a bug but seeing if anyone else has had the issue and if they managed to fix it.

Basically, I have the AirPods Pro and Max, my partner has the AirPods Pro we also have our own Apple ID’s and use family sharing.

Every now and again completely randomly, my AirPods will appear in his device list in find my and other times his AirPods will appear in my device list (this is with both the Max and Pro’s) but at the same time each other’s AirPods will appear in the Bluetooth device list in settings of the other persons iPhone, meaning my AirPods will start connecting to his phone and his to mine etc…

This is a very strange issue as AirPods should be linked to specific Apple ID’s and shouldn’t ever be able to do this.

I have tried factory resetting the AirPods and setting them back up and have also reset network settings etc in the process also, but then a few days later the same situation will happen completely randomly.

None of our AirPods have the same name which could potentially confuse Apple’s servers, they are named as:

AirPods Pro
AirPods Pro S
AirPods Max

Everything is on the latest firmware version too, any suggestions? Or has anyone else had this same issue?

The only thing that works is going on the device forgetting the other persons AirPods in Bluetooth settings and removing the AirPods from the device list in find my, they will then work fine again for a few days but will then go back to switching to the other persons device list.

I do have a call set up with Apple’s senior support team later to hopefully sort the issue out.

 

[Ruggy]

When you pair them to a device they assume they are linked to the person that owns the device and if you are seeing this it means the airpods -whichever sort they are- are paired to 2 people's devices.
At least, that's the way they work in our household. We've seen this so often on holidays,sitting next to each other on a train or aircraft.

If you have them paired to 2 people's devices then they will appear on whoever's is in range or has the strongest signal so if you lend them, you have to ask the person to unpair them afterwards to stop this happening.

And the same goes for find my. I gave mine to my daughter and as soon as I unpaired them and she paired them they popped up in her find my. You don't have to register them to an Apple ID that's all it is

I don't think there's anything you can do about it and I think it's just the way it works so if it's a pain just make sure they aren't paired to both devices at the same time and I know from experience that will be the end of it because
we now have 8 pairs of Airpods of different flavours in the family and it's only if we've shared them we ever see this.

 

[HalfFullmoon]

I had a similar incident happen recently:

Invasion of privacy

Had an interesting and concerning thing happen an hour ago. An individual rang our doorbell asking if we had an AirPod Pro Max. Why yes, but how did he know? Apparently, he lost one of his AirPods at a daycare and the ‘find my’ location showed it as being in the vicinity of our house...

forums.macrumors.com

I think this is caused by 'Find My Network'. Apple needs to fix this nonsense.

 

[James Godfrey]

When you pair them to a device they assume they are linked to the person that owns the device and if you are seeing this it means the airpods -whichever sort they are- are paired to 2 people's devices.
At least, that's the way they work in our household. We've seen this so often on holidays,sitting next to each other on a train or aircraft.

If you have them paired to 2 people's devices then they will appear on whoever's is in range or has the strongest signal so if you lend them, you have to ask the person to unpair them afterwards to stop this happening.

And the same goes for find my. I gave mine to my daughter and as soon as I unpaired them and she paired them they popped up in her find my. You don't have to register them to an Apple ID that's all it is

I don't think there's anything you can do about it and I think it's just the way it works so if it's a pain just make sure they aren't paired to both devices at the same time and I know from experience that will be the end of it because
we now have 8 pairs of Airpods of different flavours in the family and it's only if we've shared them we ever see this.

Hi

Thanks for your detailed reply however, it seems to be pairing to my partners devices on its own.

I have never paired his AirPods with my devices and he has never paired his with mine either.

They just seem to add themselves to his device list and Bluetooth devices with no action taken on our part, it’s the same vice versa too.

If I would have paired mine to his or his to mine I would understand why it’s doing it, however this has never been done whatsoever.

 

[James Godfrey]

I had a similar incident happen recently:

Invasion of privacy

Had an interesting and concerning thing happen an hour ago. An individual rang our doorbell asking if we had an AirPod Pro Max. Why yes, but how did he know? Apparently, he lost one of his AirPods at a daycare and the ‘find my’ location showed it as being in the vicinity of our house...

forums.macrumors.com

I think this is caused by 'Find My Network'. Apple needs to fix this nonsense.

Yeah I think there are a lot of bugs within find my which need ironing out.

For me luckily it’s just within my family sharing group… but it’s as if Find My are recognising my partners AirPods thinking they are mine and adding them to my list of devices within Find My but then at the same time automatically adding them to my Bluetooth device list in Settings > Bluetooth.

I have never paired my AirPods with his devices and he has never paired his AirPods with mine, so I can’t understand why this would happen unless it’s caused by a bug within Find My, or a hardware issue with our 3 sets of AirPods (extremely unlikely).

 

[BugeyeSTI]

That's a odd bug but surely annoying. I just got a pair of APP's for Christmas to replace my Gen1's. I gave my Gen1's to a family member and paired them with their device then spent almost 2 weeks in the same house over the holidays using them right next to her while she used my old pods and this never happened once. Sounds like you've tried all the obvious fixes so not sure what your next step is.. I removed the old pods from my find my, forgot the device from my Bluetooth and reset them before giving them to her..

 

[James Godfrey]

That's a odd bug but surely annoying. I just got a pair of APP's for Christmas to replace my Gen1's. I gave my Gen1's to a family member and paired them with their device then spent almost 2 weeks in the same house over the holidays using them right next to her while she used my old pods and this never happened once. Sounds like you've tried all the obvious fixes so not sure what your next step is.. I removed the old pods from my find my, forgot the device from my Bluetooth and reset them before giving them to her..

Yeah I have done exactly that when I reset them, I have contacted Apple support they have passed it on to their technical department and are getting back to me next week… does that family member have family sharing set up with you at all???

 

[HalfFullmoon]

That's a odd bug but surely annoying. I just got a pair of APP's for Christmas to replace my Gen1's. I gave my Gen1's to a family member and paired them with their device then spent almost 2 weeks in the same house over the holidays using them right next to her while she used my old pods and this never happened once. Sounds like you've tried all the obvious fixes so not sure what your next step is.. I removed the old pods from my find my, forgot the device from my Bluetooth and reset them before giving them to her..

It probably has to be the same model.

 

[HalfFullmoon]

Yeah I think there are a lot of bugs within find my which need ironing out.

For me luckily it’s just within my family sharing group… but it’s as if Find My are recognising my partners AirPods thinking they are mine and adding them to my list of devices within Find My but then at the same time automatically adding them to my Bluetooth device list in Settings > Bluetooth.

I have never paired my AirPods with his devices and he has never paired his AirPods with mine, so I can’t understand why this would happen unless it’s caused by a bug within Find My, or a hardware issue with our 3 sets of AirPods (extremely unlikely).

I don't think Apple has a way of differentiating airpods, at least, not from a 'Find My' app perspective.

 

[James Godfrey]

I don't think Apple has a way of differentiating airpods, at least, not from a 'Find My' app perspective.

But it wouldn’t explain how the AirPods are appearing in my list of Bluetooth devices, because if it were true anyones airpods could instantly appear in your devices within find my and subsequently connect to your phone also…

 

[James Godfrey]

I don't think Apple has a way of differentiating airpods, at least, not from a 'Find My' app perspective.

Further to that it wouldn’t explain why in find my > devices > it has a list of my devices at the top then it has (my partners name) devices then lists his devices below that… so find my can definitely differentiate who’s devices are who’s within find my… image below is direct from apples website, his AirPods would show in his list of devices and mine in mine, but for some reason and completely randomly his AirPods appear in my list or mine in his and this subsequently adds them to his or my list of Bluetooth devices in settings and automatically start connecting to the other parties devices

 

[James Godfrey]

It probably has to be the same model.

It is also happening with my AirPods Max which my partner doesn’t have

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Yeah I have done exactly that when I reset them, I have contacted Apple support they have passed it on to their technical department and are getting back to me next week… does that family member have family sharing set up with you at all???

No family sharing...

 

[BugeyeSTI]

It probably has to be the same model.

I didn't test but I don't think that's how it works. I'm thinking family sharing has something to do with why the OP is having issues. Besides the OP says it happens with his AP Max's as well as the APP's

 

[James Godfrey]

No family sharing...

Can I ask if you have a Mac which has multiple family accounts on at all… as I can only put this issue down to things which I am sharing with my partner, which I expect is to do with the family sharing feature, however, it could also possibly be the fact both myself and my partner have an account on our iMac, and we leave both logged in all the time, so potentially when I use my AirPods the iMac is linking the AirPods to both of us… I have told Apple the above also to help with their investigation into the causes of the problem

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Can I ask if you have a Mac which has multiple family accounts on at all… as I can only put this issue down to things which I am sharing with my partner, which I expect is to do with the family sharing feature, however, it could also possibly be the fact both myself and my partner have an account on our iMac, and we leave both logged in all the time, so potentially when I use my AirPods the iMac is linking the AirPods to both of us… I have told Apple the above also to help with their investigation into the causes of the problem

I share no accounts on my Mac or any other Apple device. I would definitely zero in on family sharing or multiple family accounts..

 

[James Godfrey]

I share no accounts on my Mac or any other Apple device. I would definitely zero in on family sharing or multiple family accounts..

I have realised that neither me or my partner have ever connected our AirPods to the iMac (only ever to our iPhones and iPads), so what I have done is logged into my account on the iMac and connected my APP and Max separately to the iMac, then logged into his account and connected his APP to the iMac too, I then reconnected them back to our iPhones afterwards, I am hoping this may help the iMac recognise who’s AirPods are who’s, just to try and see if it’s possible that the iMac isn’t allocating the AirPods to each other’s Apple ID’s somehow.

The main problem with this issue is that you can’t just force it to happen as it happens so randomly, however if the AirPods do it again, I think it’s safe to say that it has something to do with Family Sharing/Find My and not the iMac.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

I have realised that neither me or my partner have ever connected our AirPods to the iMac (only ever to our iPhones and iPads), so what I have done is logged into my account on the iMac and connected my APP and Max separately to the iMac, then logged into his account and connected his APP to the iMac too, I then reconnected them back to our iPhones afterwards, I am hoping this may help the iMac recognise who’s AirPods are who’s, just to try and see if it’s possible that the iMac isn’t allocating the AirPods to each other’s Apple ID’s somehow.

The main problem with this issue is that you can’t just force it to happen as it happens so randomly, however if the AirPods do it again, I think it’s safe to say that it has something to do with Family Sharing/Find My and not the iMac.

That's very possible considering the numerous odd bugs that affect some users but don't affect others. I hope you can find a solution because I can only imagine how irritating it is to deal with..

 

[James Godfrey]

That's very possible considering the numerous odd bugs that affect some users but don't affect others. I hope you can find a solution because I can only imagine how irritating it is to deal with..

Yeah I am hoping to get it sorted, it’s one of those time will tell situations.

I will update here if and when I hear from Apple, as it could be a known issue, if anything to help others who might run into this issue in the future