WH-1000Xm6 - take off to pause working in reverse

[TailUK]

So I have a weird issue with my XM6 headphones, I have had them for a couple of weeks now, but have recently moved mobile. 

On my Pixel 8 mobile when I lifted the left side or took them off it paused the music, which was amazing and loved the feature. 

I recently moved to a Samsung S25 Ultra and even with the same settings, and same headset it seems to work in reverse....

In that I mean: I lift the left side off my head - the music carries on, but when I put it back on my head, it pauses 

If I take the whole headset off my head, the music carries on, and when I put it back on my head, it pauses 

It's really annoying. 

When I moved phones I did use the smart switch, so thought maybe something has gone wrong, so I have reset the headset, deleted all Bluetooth connections to the phone and then reconnected it, but am I am using the song backup feature to restore my settings (which incidentally does not backup you EQ settings... Which is a bit of a pain--please fix Sony).

Has anyone else faced this or have any suggestions?

One thing I will note. 

On the Samsung the Bluetooth options don't have "head tracking" which I know on the pixel they did, not sure why that is or how to enable it (i.e. it's enabled in the Sony app but when I go to Bluetooth it is just not listed) 

[TailUK]

So I believe this to be a software fault on the Samsung, not a headset fault.

I have managed to do some testing, following a software wipe + factory reset of the device (just incase).

When i lift the left ear off the Ambient sound control changes to Off - which is what i would expect - why have ANC when your not wearing them... this got me wondering - since the app was noticing that what does the play / pause at the bottom of the screen show (the current playing).

What I see is (in order)

Activity of headset	Play / Pause button
Headset on & music playing (normal)	Pause
Lift head off head	Play - but music does not stop
Put headset back on	Pause, followed quickly by Play.

So it is this software bug of telling the device to pause that is stoping things. 

And then when it starts going again the pause must "trigger" something in the samsung OS to then suddenly work properly. 

It poor as it MUST be a samsung issue, as the same software & headset was on my pixel 8 not a week ago and working perfectly (android 16).. but now its nerfed on a different phone. 

One thing I will say - the button play / pause - when manually pushed does work, but it is very, like pause takes a 1/2 second. when compared to the native play / pause which is instant. 

How do I get this to Sony to look at? as it feels like a config issue with the samsung OS.

[JamesBlond]

Classic response, whenever a 3rd party is mentioned all the blame goes there. A product has to be tested with at least major brands to be able to go out to the market. 

[TailUK]

Sorry I am confused by the response.. as Both the start & the reply was my own - sharing some extra information.

I don't believe I have put blame anywhere, but if I have, then sorry about that, it was more me trying to share the facts.

I 100% agree that sony will have tested against the major brands.

FYI - and to expand, as Sony has reached out on email, If I have two things connected to the device (at once), it works perfectly on both devices.. go back to just my S25U and then it stops work again.

So to me this is clearly a bug on the software, as for it to work sometimes and not others (depending on the situation and connections). I would be interested to hear if someone else with a Samsung S25 Ultra is having the same issue or not.

[TailUK · Accepted solution]

For anyone stumbling onto this having a similar issue, I have found a solution:

Either: fully disable (or never enable) Google assistant on the headset (select skip / later when prompted, or go into bluetooth settings and remove the Google assistant)

Or: enable Low latency mode. 

I picked the first one, as hardly talking to Google when on my phone with headset on, and also the audio sounds better with ldac enabled Vs low energy Bluetooth mode (you can't have ldac on low latency LE MODE)

Hope this helps someone else

[Zanykey]

TLDR I found this out after doing a lot of testing on my own as well. Can't see why they should be mutually exclusive.

I had just got a pair of Sony wh-1000XM6, I had trouble with the auto pause, after trying all matter of things I finally gave up on them. Sony wanted me to send the brand-new headphones for repair, which I thought was unreasonable.

Now I have a second pair and the problem is exactly the same, they do nothing when taking them off and instead pauses when putting them back on. This time I tried them with an older tablet as well as with the PC, and there the function works as it should.

Sony insists, even on this second pair, I should send them in for repair...

As a side note. After waiting for the second pair of headphones I bought, I noticed the Google Assistant stopped working on my old XM3. Same there, all kind of resets, and it even says in the Google settings they are connected. But I just get the message "the Google Assistant is not connected" when trying to use it with the headphone button.

The Google Assistant works on the new XM6.

Anyway, after trying a few more times with the 2nd pair of XM6 I found that the function to auto pause works as it should, if I don't activate the Google Assistant function. I see no reason why that need or should be the case, why choose one or the other.

I bet Sony will just keep saying I should send them for repair, but it seems this really shouldn't be a hardware issue on two different pairs, from two different stores.

Still debating if I should keep them or not.