How to Continue Listening to Audio After Boox Palma Goes to Sleep
My Boox Palma is one of the most compelling pieces of technology I’ve ever used —an e-ink reader in a phone form factor that isn’t tied to the ecosystem of one specific retailer. It’s helped me read more and spend less time on social media, but as much as I appreciate it, it can also be weird and finicky. For example, why is it so difficult to use it to listen to audiobooks? Like most people, before I got the Palma, my phone was my main driver for audiobooks, music and podcasts – it was always with me, and the apps made it very convenient. But I found myself pausing my book every time a notification sounded in my headphones, so I decided to move that “content” to my e-reader as well. Then I ran into a problem: every time I closed the protective cover that came with the device, it went into sleep mode – turning off the screen and front light, turning off the Bluetooth headphones, and pausing audio.
Although the Palma looks like a phone and runs Android, it doesn’t always act like a phone. And while my iPhone has never given me any problems playing audio with the screen off, doing the same on the Palma (or any other Boox device ) requires some effort.
Three settings to change
While it would be nice if the Palma could play audio with the screen off right out of the box—as has been the case with every phone I’ve used since I got my first smartphone in 2010—you’ll have to tweak a few settings to make that happen.
Keep your audio apps active in the background
The first thing you need to do is adjust your settings so that apps that play audio continue to run in the background. To save battery, Palma OS disables this setting for every app you download from the Google Play Store, but you can fix this in one of two ways.
First, you can long press any app icon on your home screen. A menu will open with several different options. Click Optimize . From the next pop-up menu, select the Other tab, then make sure the slider next to Stay active in the background is set to On.
Unfreeze your audio applications
Next, you need to prevent Palma OS from freezing audio-playing applications running in the background. You can make this change globally or per application. Freezing apps will extend battery life, so keep that in mind when making your decision. To unfreeze one app, open Settings and scroll down to Apps & notifications . Click Freeze Settings , find audio apps in the list of installed programs, and move the slider to the Off position.
To unfreeze all your apps, in the same menu, set the “Don’t freeze apps running in the background (such as audio/input method)” slider to On .
You can also prevent Palma from automatically freezing newly downloaded apps by turning the slider next to “Automatically enable freezing after app installation” to the Off position.
Keep your headphones connected
The last thing you need to do is prevent Palma from turning off Bluetooth and unplugging the headphones after the device goes to sleep. To do this, open Settings and select Power . On the next screen, tap Bluetooth Status after Sleep and select Stay Connected from the pop-up menu.
(I’d also suggest turning on “Always turn on Bluetooth when device starts from this menu” so you don’t have to manually turn on Bluetooth every time you want to connect your headphones – although, again, this will affect overall battery life.
Now that that’s taken care of, here are the other settings you should change on any Boox device .