It’s been my fault, of course.
I kept misreading this (although Bob actually spelled it out pretty clearly … 
), just keeping thinking of and allowing location permissions while never thinking of the actual Location button in the quick settings. Once I – finally – activated the latter, it was a matter of seconds … 
Just mentioning: Location Services need to be kept on to see charge level and firmware status in the app and to allow the Equalizer to work.
Curious: If BLE requires location services to be turned on, does this mean that my listening with my “old” TWS earbuds (with location services off) drew more energy than necessary? 
Or would the extra energy for location outweigh this?