Swapping roles between untethered wirelessly connected devices

A wireless ear bud configured to operate in a first role in which the wireless ear bud can receive data directly from a source device, the wireless ear bud comprising:

• a communication interface;
• a processor, and
• a memory storing instructions to configure the wireless ear bud to:
• determine that the source device does not provide an error message in response to an errant connection request;
• send, to the source device, a request to connect to the source device;
• determine whether a response to the request has been received;
• determine that the wireless ear bud is not connected to a second wireless ear bud configured to operate in a second role;
• and
• perform, after a predetermined timeout and when a response to the request has not been received, an uncoordinated role swap to re-configure the wireless ear bud to operate in the second role.

A wireless ear bud configured to operate in a second role in which the wireless ear bud can receive data indirectly from a source device via another wireless ear bud configured to operate in a first role, the wireless ear bud comprising:

• a communication interface;
• a processor;
• and
• a memory storing instructions that configure the wireless ear bud to:
• determine that the source device does not provide an error message in response to an errant connection request;
• attempt to connect to the another wireless ear bud configured to operate in the first role up to a predetermined number of retries;
• and
• perform, after the predetermined number of retries without successful connection to the another wireless ear bud configured to operate in the first role, an uncoordinated role swap to reconfigure the wireless ear bud to operate in the first role.