alright, what's the trick to getting these things to auto-switch correctly?

if i'm using them to watch a video on the computer or listen to something on my phone on spotify, the second i take them off they disconnect from whichever i was doing and almost never get back to the right thing when i put them back on. with my airpods pro 2, if i take them out to talk to someone and put them back in, they almost immediately just start playing again...but with the max, i have literally almost never been able to get them to auto-play when putting back on. not only that, but they don't even reconnect automatically...so when i hit play on spotify or youtube, it starts playing thru the phone speakers or the macbook speakers rather than the headphones. it doesn't reconnect until i go into settings on the macbook and manually do it...and on the phone i can't figure out how to ever get it to connect.

perfect example: right now, i tested this just now by...

* connecting them to my macbook and opening a youtube video. works fine.

* then i pick up my phone, and start playing a song on spotify...works fine. auto switches to the phone, music comes thru the headphones, and i get a notification on the mac that they moved to iphone...great.

* then i take them off my head for a second...spotify pauses. great

* put them back on...and now i'm stuck in limbo somewhere.

they're not connected to EITHER mac or phone at this point. if i hit play on spotify, it plays thru the phone speakers. if i hit play on youtube, it plays thru the macbook speakers. the headphones are sitting on my head doing absolutely nothing. and here's another fun tidbit...if i reconnect to the macbook manually, they start working for audio again...but none of the controls work. the crown does nothing (doesn't work for either volume nor play/pause), and the NC button does nothing either. BUT i can hear the video sound thru the headphones at least...although i'm not even sure that's a plus since i can't do any of the other cool stuff that is supposed to work.

also, switching to the phone now no longer works at this point. i hit play on spotify, and instead of switching like it did earlier it just plays thru the phone speaker. the settings in the iphone say the max are connected, but i can't do anything with them. if i hit the NC button in the settings, it says "put airpods on your head to use noise cancellation." but...they are on my head.

i know i've gotta be doing something wrong, i just can't for the life of me figure out what it is. if this is the experience, i'm probably just going to return them...so i'd love to be able to figure this out ASAP and make a decision.