I have an Acer Nitro V15 ANV15-51-9637 laptop and normally use three Bluetooth devices: a JBL Go 3 speaker, Rolfstone Riva earbuds, and an HP 480 Comfort Bluetooth mouse. Since I need Bluetooth enabled constantly for the mouse, I've started noticing a strange problem. Every so often, an unknown device seems to connect, and my earbuds begin jittering or repeatedly switching as though the audio is reconnecting or being redirected. The Bluetooth quick menu sometimes shows three connected devices even though only two of my own devices are powered on.
The problem becomes much worse in crowded places such as school, where the quick menu has appeared to show as many as 16 devices. My mouse has occasionally stopped responding too. Turning Bluetooth off and back on fixes the issue temporarily, but it eventually returns. The regular Bluetooth settings and Device Manager only show my three known devices, so I have no clear way to identify or remove whatever is causing this. My earbuds' pitch sometimes changes afterward, although that may just be a result of the interference. What could be causing this, and how can I stop the disruptions?
2 Answers
Windows can display nearby Bluetooth Low Energy devices that are advertising, even if they aren’t paired with or connected to your laptop. In a crowded area, those could belong to other people’s earbuds, TVs, cars, smart lights, and similar devices. Seeing them in a discovery list doesn’t mean they have access to your computer, and there’s usually nothing to remove unless they appear as paired devices.
Try temporarily disabling Wi‑Fi while testing Bluetooth, especially when playing offline audio. Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth both use the 2.4 GHz band, and crowded places can make the interference much worse. If the earbuds and mouse become stable with Wi‑Fi off, congestion or the laptop’s Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth coexistence is probably contributing to the problem. You could also try using a 5 GHz or 6 GHz Wi‑Fi network and keeping the laptop close to the Bluetooth devices.
That explains the extra devices, but is there anything I can do to reduce the audio jitter and other interference?