Now that I’ve had a cathartic moan, I’ve had a mooch around on the forum, and have solved a problem: the incomplete radio connection between the buds and the phone. It turns out that the buds require location services to be enabled. I usually turn this off for privacy reasons, so it’s rather annoying it’s required for the product to be fully operational. Moreover, the app should be giving me guidance as to the problem, rather than leaving me floundering.
Notwithstanding, I will strike the related issues from my original post.