The Sony WH-1000XM5 should be able to detect whether or not you are currently wearing the wireless headphones. If you are having issues trying to get this feature to work, you can check out this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.
What are the benefits of using Sony WH-1000XM5 wear detection?
One of the benefits of the wear detection feature for the Sony WH-1000XM5 is that it will save on battery life. If you stop wearing the headset, then it will automatically shut down after 15 minutes if you kept the power off option to the default setting.
Another benefit is that wear detection will automatically pause the audio playback when you stop wearing the headphones. This is helpful if you managed to accidentally dislodged the WH-1000XM5 from your head.
During calls, wear detection can also switch the audio output from the headphones to the speaker on your smartphone.
How to fix wear detection issues with the WH-1000XM5
If wear detection doesn’t seem to be working, then you can try doing the following:
1. The wear detection may get accidentally activated in the following scenarios:
- Wearing the headphones on your neck in a way that your chin gets near the ear cups.
- Putting your hand in the left ear cup where the proximity sensor is located.
- Putting the headphones inside a bag or hanging it on a bag. For storage, we recommend putting the headset inside the WH-1000XM5 case when not in use.
2. If you cover your ears before wearing the headphones, then wear detection may not work as intended.
In this case, you need to make sure that only your ears are inside the ear cups.
3. Wear detection will not work if you connect the headphones to another device by using the headphone cable.
If you want to use this feature, then you will need to use a Bluetooth connection instead.
4. The connected device, or the app running on the connected device, may also not support the play/pause feature of wear detection.
5. If the audio playback keeps going even after you remove the headphones, then you can try to make sure that you have the “Pauses when headphones are taken off” feature enabled.
In order to check, you need to take the following steps:
- Open the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.
- Connect your WH-1000XM5 to the application.
- On the dashboard, make sure that “Pauses when headphones are taken off” is turned on.
5. If the audio isn’t switching over to your phone’s speaker when you have call, then you need to make sure that you have the “Automatic Power Off” feature enabled.
To do so, you need to do the following:
- Launch the “Sony | Headphones Connect” application on your smartphone.
- Connect your WH-1000XM5 to the app.
- From the dashboard, make sure that “Automatic Power Off” has been activated.