How to Keep Listening to Audio After Your Boox Palma Goes to Sleep

My Boox Palma is one of the most easily lovable pieces of tech I've ever used—an e-ink reader with a phone-like form factor that isn't locked down to one specific retailer's ecosystem. It has helped me read more and waste time on social media less, but as much as I appreciate it, it can also be weird and finicky. For example, why is it so tricky 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 super convenient. But I'd find myself pausing my book every time a notification pinged in my headphones, so I decided to shift that "content" over to my e-reader as well. Then I hit a snag: Every time I closed the protective cover that came with the device, it would go to sleep—shutting off the screen and the front light, disconnecting my Bluetooth headphones, and pausing the audio.

While the Palma looks like a phone and runs on Android, it doesn't always act like a phone. And while my iPhone never gave me any problems playing audio with the screen off, doing the same on the Palma (or any other Boox device) requires some tinkering.

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 for every phone I've used since I got my first smartphone in 2010—you'll need to change a few settings to make it happen.

Keep your audio apps active in the background

Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham

The first thing you'll need to do is adjust your settings to allow apps that play audio to continue running in the background. In the interest of preserving battery life, the Palma OS turns this setting off for every app you download from the Google Play store, but you can fix that in one of two ways.

First, you can long press the icon of any app on the home screen. This will bring up a menu with a few different options. Tap Optimize. From the next pop-up menu, select the Others tab, then make sure the slider next to Stay active in the background is turned to On.

"Unfreeze" your audio apps

Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham

Next, you'll need to stop the Palma's OS from "freezing" audio-playing apps running in the background. You can make this change globally, or on a per-app basis. Freezing apps improves battery life, so keep that in mind as you make your decision.

To unfreeze a single app, open Settings and scroll down to Apps and Notifications. Tap Freeze Settings, find your audio-playing apps in the list of installed programs, and turn the slider to Off.

To unfreeze all your apps, from this same menu, turn the Do not freeze apps running in the background (such as audio/input method) slider to On.

You can also stop the Palma from automatically freezing newly downloaded apps by turning the slider next to Automatically enable freezing after installing an app to Off.

Keep your headphones connected

Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham

The last thing you'll need to do is keep the Palma from turning off Bluetooth and disconnecting your headphones after the device goes to sleep. To do that, open Settings and scroll to 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 Bluetooth on when the device starts up from this menu, so you won't have to manually turn Bluetooth on every time you want to connect your headphones—though, again, that will affect your overall battery life.

Now that that's taken care of, here are other settings you should consider changing on any Boox device.

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