bluetooth battery levels show only sometimes

I use a wireless keyboard and mouse, and I have had this very annoying problem for a long time, but it got worse after upgrading to MacOS Sonoma: (1) click on the bluetooth icon in the menu bar, battery levels are almost never shown (sometimes one is, one isn't). Then (2) option-click on the bluetooth icon, battery levels sometimes are shown (and still sometimes one is, one isn't). Then (3) click on System Settings, click on Bluetooth, and maybe you have a 50% chance of seeing at least one battery level. Do something else for 10 minutes, then repeat (3) and voila, battery levels are there. Now if you just click on the menu-bar icon, the battery levels are there. What is so annoying about this is that these specific actions have unpredictable responses, and that complaints about it have been in the forum going back at least 4 years and Apple has never addressed it