Sony LinkBuds S

With the Sony LinkBuds S, you are able to listen to music and other types of audio through wireless ear buds.

If these ear phones do not seem to be working as advertised, then you can check out this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech to see how you can potentially fix your problem.

1. First off, make sure that you don’t get your LinkBuds S too wet. Liquid could cause sound distorting as well as other issues for these ear buds. Not to mention that the charging case does not offer any water protection at all.

Therefore, we recommend that you make sure that your ear buds are completely dry before trying to use them.

To find out more information about how you can properly dry, as well as prevent the LinkBuds S from getting wet, you can take a look at this post.

2. You should also make sure that the internal batteries of your ear buds are charged. These ear phones can take up to 2 hours to be fully charged.

You can take a look at this guide if you are having problems trying to recharge the LinkBuds S.

3. Before you can connect the wireless ear phones to another device, you need to go through the Bluetooth pairing process.

While the LinkBuds S uses Bluetooth 5.2, it should also support the older versions of the connection. Furthermore, these ear buds will work with the A2DP, AVRCP, HFP and HSP profiles.

4. If you are able to pair and connect your ear phones properly but are experiencing issues when it comes to audio quality, then you can check out this article.

If the audio keeps skipping and/or dropping out, then we recommend taking a look at this guide to see how you can get rid of these issues.

5. A common way to fix most of the LinkBuds S problems is by doing the following:

• Remove the ear buds from your ears if you haven’t done so already.
• Next, you need to place the ear buds into the designated areas from within the charging case. Make sure that the contact points are aligned correctly.
• Afterwards, close the top of the case.
• Open the lid of charging case and then take out the ear buds.

By doing these actions, you will be able to refresh the Bluetooth connection of your ear buds.

6. Other common fixes are resetting and factory resetting the Sony LinkBuds S.

With a factory reset, for example, you will be removing any of the customized settings that may have been causing issues with the ear phones not working properly.

Keep in mind that, by restoring the LinkBuds S to its factory default setting, the original pairing information won’t work. To connect to the same device again, you need to delete or forget the previous pairing data and then pair the ear buds again.

You can follow the steps from this tutorial to see how you are able to reset and factory reset these ear phones.

7. If you still can’t get your LinkBuds S to work properly, then you should consider contacting Sony in order to get more help.

The Sony LinkBuds S can be used for calls on your smartphone. You can also use these ear buds for video calls.

If you have having issues with low volume or muted audio during calls, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.

1. To start off, make sure that both the ear phones and the connected device are both turned on and connected to each other.

If you have problems turning on the LinkBuds S, you can check out this guide. For Bluetooth connection issues, you can check out this post.

2. You can also try restarting your phone or other calling device to see if doing so will fix your call audio problems.

3. If you can hear the other person but the volume is too low, then you can try using the volume buttons to make it louder.

4. If you are using an app, then you can try to increase the volume level if you are able to do so from within the application.

5. Make sure that you are wearing the ear buds correctly as you should put them as deep in your ear canals as possible without feeling uncomfortable. Otherwise, the sound output may be partially blocked off.

6. You can also try changing the ear bud tips to make sure that you can get clearer sound output during calls. Keep in mind that the sizes of the left and right ear bud tips to not have to be the same as they only need to feel comfortable in your ear canals.

7. If you are using a video calling app, then you can try searching the settings menu in the application for an option to change speaker and/or microphone setting to Headset (LinkBuds S Hands-Free).

8. Taking off the ear phones, placing them back into charging case and then closing the charging case lid may help fix the call audio problems.

Once you do all of the above, you can take the ear phones back out again and then reconnect it to the other device. Afterwards, you can try testing the call audio volume.

9. Resetting the Sony LinkBuds S may clear up any bugs that may have been causing the call audio to be low or completely muted.

If a regular reset does not seem to be working, then you can try a factory reset. By doing so, the ear phones will be returned to their original factory default settings.

You can check out this tutorial to learn about how you can reset/factory reset these ear buds.

When using your Sony LinkBuds S, the audio may skip or completely dropout. If you are encountering these problems, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.

1. The sound skipping may be related to a weak Bluetooth signal.

The first step you can try is to make sure you aren’t cover the ear buds with any stickers or clothing as you may end up blocking the Bluetooth antennas.

2 Furthermore, you can try moving the connected device closer to your ear phones as you may be able to get a stronger and more stable wireless connection.

3. Avoid any objects that are in between the ear phones and the connected devices. These may include walls, metals as well as your own body.

4. If you are in an area with a lot of wireless devices, then it may be causing the Bluetooth connection to weaken, which will lead to audio skips and dropouts.

5. You can also try to change the sound quality mode.

In order to do so, make sure you download and install the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app. Afterwards, open the application and then connection your LinkBuds S. Finally, make sure that the sound quality mode is set to Priority on Stable Connection.

6. While you are using the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app, you should also make sure that you disable the Service Link feature as it could be the reason why you are experiencing audio dropouts.

7. If you have multiple apps open on your phone, tablet or computer, then these may be taking up a lot of hardware resources. As a result, there could have been a bottleneck that may be causing audio to not playback smoothly.

In this case, you can either closing the apps or fully restart the connected device.

8. Restarting the connected device will also help refresh its Bluetooth connection as well as close any lingering processes that may have been needlessly take up hardware resources and/or causing conflicts.

9. You can also try putting the ear buds back into the LinkBuds S charging case and closing the top lid. Afterwards, take them back out again to re-establish the Bluetooth connection to see if you are still getting any sound skipping and/or dropouts.

10. If you are using Adaptive Sound Control, then the audio may seemingly skip. According to Sony, this is perfectly normally, as the feature will temporarily pause the audio in order to adjust the noise cancellation function automatically.

If this feature bothers your listening experience, then you can disable it from the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.

11. The audio skipping could also mean that something could be wrong with the software of your ear phones.

In you believe that this is the case, then you can first try to reset the LinkBuds S. If a regular reset isn’t helpful, then you can try doing a factory reset, which will revert the ear buds back to their default factory settings.

The Sony LinkBuds S uses Bluetooth in order to connect to other devices wirelessly. If you are having problems connecting, or keeping the connection stable, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.

1. The first step you can take is to make sure that you have the Bluetooth connection enabled for the device you are trying to connect with your LinkBuds S.

2. If the Bluetooth connection was turned on for the other device, then you can try restarting the other device.

A reset will help refresh the Bluetooth connection in addition to closing any apps and clearing processes that may have been causing conflicts.

3. There is a possibility that the ear phones may have been connected to a different device. For the uninformed, the Sony LinkBuds S will connect to the last Bluetooth device it was previously connected to.

If it is connected to a different device, then you need to disable the Bluetooth connection from the different device in order to connect the ear buds to a new device.

4. You should also try moving the LinkBuds S, as the device that you are trying to connect the ear phones to, closer together in order to get a stronger wireless connection.

5. When repositioning, avoid any physical objects, such as walls and metals, that may block the direct line of sight in between the ear phones and the other device.

6. Bluetooth and other wireless devices may also cause interference. Therefore, you may want to turn off the other wireless devices or move to a different room.

7. If the device you are trying to connect your Sony LinkBuds S has been put in to sleep mode or rest mode, then its Bluetooth connection may be turned off.

In this case, you can simply wake the device in order to re-connect your ear buds.

8. Check to see if your ear phones are actually turned on.

If you have having problems trying to power on the LinkBuds S, then we recommend that you take a look at this post.

9. Before you can connect your ear buds, you first need to pair it with the device.

If you can’t seem to get the pairing process working correctly, then you can check out this troubleshooting article.

10. You can also try putting the ear phones back into the charging case. Make sure that the are properly inserted into their designated positions. Afterwards, close the lid of the case.

You can then open the lid of the charging case and take out the ear phones to see if you can re-establish the Bluetooth connection.

11. Resetting or factory resetting the Sony LinkBuds S may also help fix the Bluetooth issues. For the latter option, you will be restoring your ear buds to the factory default settings.

To learn more about how you can reset and factory reset this product, you can check out this link.

If you still can’t get a stable Bluetooth connection after trying all of the aforementioned potential solutions, then you can try contacting Sony to get additional support.

Before being able to connect the Sony LinkBuds S to another device, you first need to pair the two together. If you are having problems with the pairing process, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting article at Seeking Tech.

1. To start off, make sure you have the Bluetooth connection turned on for the other device.

For the uninformed, the wireless ear phones of the LinkBuds S use Bluetooth version 5.2. It also supports the following Bluetooth profiles:

• A2DP
• AVRCP
• HFP
• HSP

2. You should also make sure that the ear phones and the other devices aren’t too far away from each other. According to Sony, the distance should be no more than 3 feet (or 1 meter).

3. Make sure that there aren’t any other wireless devices nearby as these may interfere with the pairing process.

If there are, then you can try either turning off the other devices or moving to another area.

4. You should also make sure that there aren’t any physical objects that are in between the direct line of sight of the ear phones and the device you are trying to pair them to.

5. Keep in mind that the ear phones will automatically be put in to pairing mode when you take them out of the charging case for the first time or after you factory reset them.

In you want to send the ear buds into pairing mode for a subsequent device, then you need to put them back into their designated positions in the charging case. Afterwards, you need to press and hold the pairing button on the case for at least 5 seconds to go into pairing mode.

6. If you still can’t pair the Sony LinkBuds S, then you can try to make sure that the ear buds are properly fitted in to their positions in the charging case.

7. If you try to pair the ear phones to the same device as before, then it may not work.

In this case, you need to delete or forget the original pairing information before starting the new pairing process.

8. You can also try restarting the other device as doing so will refresh its Bluetooth connection as well as potentially clear up any apps or processes that may have been conflicting with the pairing procedure.

9. Furthermore, you can try plugging the charging case into a power source to make sure that your ear phones have enough battery life to go through with being paired to a device.

10. Resetting the ear buds may also help fix your problems.

If a normal reset does not seem to be working, then you may also consider doing a factory reset, which will restore the ear phones to its original factory default settings.

You can take a look at this previous article to see how you can reset and factory reset your LinkBuds S.

If none of the aforementioned steps help with fixing the pairing errors, then we suggest contacting Sony to get additional help.

When using your Sony LinkBuds S to listen to audio, you may experience distorted sound output. The audio quality may also be lower than what you expected.

To see how you can fix these sound output issues, you can take a look at this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.

1. The first step we recommend taking is to make sure that the ear tips and ear buds are clean.

If these parts appear to be dirty, then we recommend that you check out this tutorial to see how you can properly clean the LinkBuds S.

2. While the ear phones are protected against light water splashes, more significant exposures to liquid may end up distorting the sound output. So, if the device gets wet, we recommend that you avoid using it until it is completely dry again.

To find out more about how you can deal with liquid damage for the Sony LinkBuds S, you can check out this guide.

3. Next, you need to make sure that you are wearing the ear phones properly. You need to put the ear bud tips as deep as possible into your ear canal without feeling any discomfort.

4. You can also try changing the ear bud tips to see if you can get rid of the distortion and/or getting better sound output quality.

Keep in mind that the left or right ear bud tips do not need to be the same size. You just have to make sure they are as comfortable as possible to wear on your left and right ears.

5. If you only get poor sound quality right after you connect your ear phones to a computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet or another device, then it may due to the connected device prioritizing a stable connection instead of sound output quality.

In this case, you can simply wait for a few seconds to see if the audio quality improves on its own.

6. If the sound output is still not optimal, then you can try switching the Bluetooth connection to A2DP on the device that is connected to your LinkBuds S.

In order to do so, you need to look at the usual manual of the connected device.

7. The media you are playing may exhibit distorting and/or bad sound output if the volume gets too loud. Therefore, you can try turning down the volume to see if doing so will fix your issue.

8. The media you are playing could also have distorted and/or low-quality audio. In this case, you can try playing a different type of media to see if you can get better sound output.

9. If you are near a device that is emitting ultrasonic sound waves, then it may cause sound distortion on your LinkBuds S.

In this case, you can either move away from the ultrasonic device or disable the Noise Cancellation/ Ambient Sound Mode feature by using the official “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.

If none of the aforementioned steps help with fixing the sound output of your ear phones, then we recommend contacting Sony for additional help.

If you don’t hear any sound coming out of one, or both, ear phones of the Sony LinkBuds S, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech to see what steps you can take to fix this issue.

1. To start off, make sure that the ear phones are actually powered on.

If you have having issues trying to turn on the LinkBuds S, then you can take a look at this guide.

2. You can also try disconnecting and then reconnecting the Bluetooth connection.

3. Furthermore, you can try forgetting the Bluetooth pairing and then pair the ear phones back to the same device again.

4. On the other device, make sure that you didn’t accidentally stop, pause or mute the audio or video.

5. If you are using an audio or video playing app, then you can try restarting it.

6. You can also try restarting the other device.

7. If you are using a laptop or desktop computer with multiple audio output options, then make sure that you set the sound output to the LinkBuds S.

8. Keep in mind that the audio will be paused when you set the ear phones to Speak-to-Chat mode. This mode can accidentally be turned on.

In order to disable Speak-to-Chat, you need to do so by using the official “Sony | Headphones Connect” mobile application.

9. If you are using the Service Link feature, then only the right ear bud of the LinkBuds S will be working.

You can use the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app to disable Service Link.

10. If you are using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, then only the right ear bud can be used by default.

You can change this setting in the Playback Control section in the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.

11. If you are using HFP (Hands-Free Profile) or HSP (Headset Profile) when connecting to the other device, then only one of the ear phones may end up outputting sound.

In this case, try to look in the settings of the smartphone app or computer program you are using to see if you can make both ear phones output sound.

12. There is a possibility that the ear buds are clogged up.

To see how you can safely clean the Sony LinkBuds S, you can check out this guide.

13. Resetting the ear phones may be able to get them to output sound again.

If a standard reset does not work, then you can try restoring the factory default settings.

For every full charge, the ear phones of the Sony LinkBuds S have a battery life up to 9 hours. If the charge is draining a lot faster than what you are expecting, then you can check out this troubleshooting guide at Seeking Tech.

1. The LDAC codec uses a lot more battery charge when compared to the AAC and SBC codecs.

If you are using LDAC, the maximum battery life is expected to be only 4.5 hours. With AAC and SBC, you can get up to 9 hours before needing to recharge the ear buds.

In order to switch the codec being used by your Sony LinkBuds S, you can do so by using the “Sony | Headphones Connect” mobile application.

2. Using the noise cancellation feature will also reduce the battery life of these wireless ear buds.

If you are using noise cancellation with LDAC, then the maximum battery life drops to just 3.5 hours.

For the AAC and SBC codecs, the maximum battery life drops all the way down to 6 hours.

3. Ambient Sound Mode will also cause the battery to drain significantly.

For LDAC, the maximum battery life will only be 3.5 hours when using this mode.

For AAC and SBC, the length of usage tops out at 6 hours.

4. Using the ear phones for calls will also significantly drain the batteries of the Sony LinkBuds S.

If you are only using the ear buds for calls, then you will only get a maximum of 3.5 hours per full charge.

5. The following features, when enabled, will also take a good chunk of batter charge for the Sony LinkBuds S:

• DSEE Extreme
• Equalizer
• Service Link
• Speak-to-Chat
• Voice Assistant (including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant)

Thankfully, you can disable these features from the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.

6. If you aren’t using the LinkBuds S, then make sure you turn it off immediately.

To find out how you can properly turn off these ear phones, you can take a look at this tutorial.

7. When you aren’t using the ear buds, then you should also put it back in the charging case so that both will be recharged by the next time you need to use them.

You should also make sure that you keep the top of the charging case closed so that you don’t waste any battery life.

The Sony LinkBuds S comes with a charging case that will recharge the internal batteries of the two ear phones.

If the ear buds are recharging slowly, or not at all, then you can check out this troubleshooting guide at Seeking Tech to see how you can potentially resolve your problem.

1. Before we begin, it is important to note that the ear buds will take up to 2 hours to fully charged. When it comes to the charging case, it can take up to 3 hours to recharge its battery.

2. To start off, make sure you are recharging the ear buds within a range of 59 °F to 95 °F (or 15 °C to 35 °C). Outside of this temperature range, the charging could slow down or even stop entirely.

3. Do not try to charge the ear buds or the charging case of the LinkBuds S if any of these parts are wet. Instead, you need to make sure that they are completely dry first.

4. Make sure that the charging ports of the ear phones and case aren’t dirty. If they are, then you can check out this guide to see how you can properly clean these ports.

5. You should also make sure that the ear phones are properly placed into their designated positions inside of the charging case.

The ear bud tips could end up preventing the charging ports from connecting to each other. In this case, you can try repositioning the tips are removing them from the ear buds.

6. When recharging the ear phones, make sure that you keep the top of the charging case closed in order to prevent wasted battery energy.

7. If you are recharging the Sony LinkBuds S case, then make sure you use the USB Type-C cable that came included in the box as another cable may not be compatible.

8. Furthermore, you should also make sure that the cable is firmly connected to the USB port of the charging case as well as its power source.

9. If you are connecting the other end of the USB Type-C cable to an USB AC adaptor, then then adaptor must have an output current of at least 0.5 A (or 500 mA).

10. If you are connecting the other end of the USB Type-C cable to a desktop computer, laptop, game console or any other device, then make sure that the power source is turned on.

Otherwise, a device in rest mode, sleep mode, hibernation mode or similarly named low-power state mode may not be able to supply power to the charging case.

11. You should also avoid connecting the other end of the USB Type-C cable to an USB hub or USB pass-through device. Instead, the cable should be directly connected to one of the USB ports on the power source.

12. If the power source has multiple USB ports, then you can try using a different one.

13. Moreover, you may want to consider resetting or factory resetting the Sony LinkBuds S as either of these actions may help the ear phones recharge normally again.

To see how you can do both, we recommend that you follow the steps laid out in this tutorial.

If you have a hard time trying to power on the Sony LinkBuds S, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting guide to see how you can get the ear phones to turn on.

1. If your ear buds feel wet when touched, then we recommend that you let then completely air dry first before you do anything else.

To find about more information about how you can properly dry the LinkBuds S when it gets wet, you can take a look at this post.

2. The next step you can take is to try to recharge the wireless ear phones by placing them into their designated positions in the charging case.

If the indicator on the case isn’t showing any lights, then make sure you plug the case into a power source.

We recommend waiting for a minimum of 2 hours for the ear buds to be fully charged.

3. You should also make sure that the wireless ear phones are properly paired and connected to the other device.

4. Moreover, you can also try reconnecting the LinkBuds S to the other device via Bluetooth.

5. If reconnecting the Bluetooth communication does not turn the ear phones on, then you can try forgetting the connection on the Bluetooth menu of the other device.

Afterwards, pair the LinkBuds S again to the same device to see if you are able to get the ear phones to power on.

6. It is important to note that only the right ear bud will work when the Service Link feature is enabled in the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.

In this case, you can try disabling this function from the mobile application.

7. If you are using the LinkBuds S with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, then the left ear bud will not work by default. Instead, you need to use the right ear bud when utilizing either of these two features.

If you would rather use the left ear bud instead for Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, then you need to configure the Playback Control settings in the “Sony | Headphones Connect” mobile app.

Keep in mind that, even if you set Playback Control to both ear buds, only the right ear bud will offer the complete set of functions.

8. A reset may help fix to power issues with your ear phones. If a regular reset does not work, then you can try doing a factory reset.

You can check out this article to see how you can do both of these actions with this device.

9. If the LinkBuds S still does not turn on properly, then we recommend that you contact Sony for additional support.