I started using my work Windows machine for “work” stuff this week, moving on from Mac. I have a now discontinued pair of PowerBeats (bought two of them in fact, before they got discontinued, as I like them) and that’s what I typically use for conference calls. Connecting them to Windows was easy – just long press the power button to put it in pairing mode, then connect to it from Windows.
Yesterday, by mistake I connected it back to my Mac, and ever since whenever I turn these on they don’t auto connect to Windows. The Mac always grabs the connection. This is irritating and I couldn’t figure out why.
Through trial and error I figured that the trick is to remove the device from Windows, then pair it again. It looks like when you pair it the first time with a non-Mac device the earphones consider that non-Mac device as primary/ auto-connect, while if you connect it to a Mac again it always prefers the Mac over whatever non-Mac device it was last connected to.
Bit of a pain in the ass. I should probably remove these from my Mac so I don’t reconnect to it by mistake again. Anyways, thought I should put this little nugget of information out in the Interwebs in case it helps someone else.
Also, maybe it’s coz I am on a work machine, I can’t remove Bluetooth devices in Windows from the Bluetooth menu. I have to go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers and remove it from there (and give my admin creds too when removing).