Hello all,
I have been using my AirPods 4 (came free with my SIM plan) with my Xiaomi 15 for about 3 months now with no issues. I've dropped the pods a few times, but they've never shown any problems. However, earlier today I dropped the left pod, and after that, I noticed that both pods could no longer connect stably to my Xiaomi 15; they kept disconnecting and reconnecting without me doing anything. I then tried them with my Macbook Air and my iPad and there were zero issues. Additionally, I tried using my old Redmi Buds with my Xiaomi, and they worked fine as well. It seemed there was a problem with the phone-to-earbuds connection specifically, and not with either one of these things individually.
I tried all kinds of fixes, including updating my Xiaomi OS and Bluetooth driver, doing a hard reset on my AirPods, clearing my Bluetooth cache, etc. Nothing worked. The only thing I could think of was that AirPods use the AAC codec, while the Redmi Buds use SBC, so maybe switching the codec will work. I turned on developer options and changed the codec to the aptX adaptive codec, and although the AirPods still show AAC when connected, somehow this worked, and they don't disconnect anymore. My question is, why? I'm afraid this will happen again and would like to know why this solution worked so I won't accidentally change settings I shouldn't be messing with.