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What to do if the WH-1000XM5 is not working

If you are having problems trying to get your Sony WH-1000XM5 to work properly, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting guide at Seeking Tech.

1. The first step we recommend taking is to make sure that your headset isn’t wet. This is because the WH-1000XM5 is not water resistant at all.

If the headset is wet, then we recommend that you turn it off, disconnect any cables and then let it dry out before trying to use it again.

To find out more about how you can prevent liquid damage to your WH-1000XM5, we recommend that you check out this guide.

2. You should also make sure that you aren’t using the WH-1000XM5 outside of the recommended temperature range of 0 °C to 40 °C (or 32 °F to 104 °F). In extremely cold or hot temperatures, the wireless headphones could malfunction.

3. If your headset appears to be dry and you are operating it in the recommended temperature range, then the next step you can take is to recharge it.

Keep in mind that the charging process can take up to 3.5 hours if the battery charge in completely empty.

To see how you can take advantage of quick charging with the WH-1000XM5, you can take a look at this guide. If your headset isn’t charging at all, then you can check out this troubleshooting article.

4. If the Sony WH-1000XM5 can turn on just fine, then you should check whether or not it has properly paired to the device you can trying to connect to.

To resolve pairing issues with this product, you can read through this post.

5. You should also make sure that you are getting a good Bluetooth connection.

To troubleshooting Bluetooth issues, we recommend that you take a look at this guide.

6. Depending on the Bluetooth profile you are using, some of the advertised functions may not work. So, if possible, you can try changing the profile on the connected device.

For the uninformed, the Sony WH-1000XM5 supports the following:

  • A2DP
  • AVRCP
  • HFP
  • HSP

7. If you are connecting your WH-1000XM5 via a headphone cable, then a few features may not work. Other functions, such as Noise Cancellation and Ambient Sound Mode, requires the headset to be turned on.

To find more information on how to use WH-1000XM5 as a wired headset, you can check out this article.

8. If possible, you can try updating the WH-1000XM5 firmware to see if doing so will help fix whatever issue you are having.

9. You can also try updating the firmware for the connected device.

10. Restarting the connected device may help as well.

11. You may also want to reset or factory reset the headset. By doing a factory reset, you will restore the headphone settings to the original default factory parameters.

To see how you can do both of these actions with the WH-1000XM5, you can take a look at this tutorial.

12. Instead of the headset, your issues may be related to the connected device instead.

If you believe that this is the case, then you can try connecting WH-1000XM5 to a different device to see if you can get the headphones to work correctly.

13. If your headset is still not working after you try all of the aforementioned steps, then we recommend that you contact Sony for additional support.