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Hands-free calling on Costco hearing aids

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Edited

I’m coming up on 3 years with my KS10s (my first-ever ) and I’m generally happy with them. Not so much with the seemingly tinkly-fizzy-snap-crackle-pop character of how everything sounds, but generally I hear what I need to hear.

In my short time with HAs I’ve come to realize that my KS10s (Phonak Audeo clone) are unusual in that they work fine with a phone, without drama or gadgets. I find it rather stone-age that some HA users still have to use accessory mics to make a simple hands-free call. Just seems unreasonably archaic.

As for Bluetooth streaming, I generally use two devices, my laptop and my phone, with no connectivity issues at all. (Well, the rare occasion where my laptop fails to connect when I come back to it. Really rare.)

In short, I’m blissfully unaffected by frustrations that many here face, and I’d like to keep it that way. KS10s (and Phonak) are no longer available at Costco, only the Philips 9050, Jabra Pro 20 and Rexton Reach.

The Rexton doesn’t even claim hands-free capability. Philips and Jabra are both vague about hands-free. Both offer accessory mics to enable it, but I’d REALLY rather not go there. Both have / capability. I just had to get a new phone and did a deep dive to figure out which ones had that capability since it seems to be important going forward. (Why are these crucial details so stupefyingly hard to unearth?) I got a Pixel 8, discounted, possibly the last new phone to have LEA and Auracast at a somewhat sane price.

So my question is, can anyone confirm that either or both the Philips 9050 and Jabra Pro 20 work frustration free for hands-free phone and streaming use, without any gadgets needed? Seems a simple question, but not one I’ve been able to find a clear answer to with hours of digging.

29 people in this conversation20 min readJump to latest

The Philips 9050’s work great hands-free with an iPhone. The voices are clear and I do not sound like I’m calling from within a barrel according to the people I talk to.

Good info (and encouraging), but one of the complications I’ve encountered is that iPhone and Android are two different worlds. I’m on the Android side.

Edited

Well the Jabra Enhance Pro 30 should be coming out soon. It’s already available in Canada. It comes with an assistant in the their app. You need an assistant to connect to an Auracast broadcast.

No assistant in the apps for the Rexton or Philips yet. Google hasn’t included an assistant in their operating system yet. Don’t know when that may happen.

You will need to purchase something like the FlooGoo USB dongle to mate your laptop to your hearing aids.
Bluetooth dongle with Auracast support - FlooGoo FMA120 - #80 by Ranson

Take advantage of Costco’s return policy and just try one or two of their hearing aids to see if they meet your requirements.

In reply to @ctromley

What android do you have? I have the Oticon INTENT1 aids and Samsung s23 phone and have full hands free. The INTENT aids and the Phillips 9050 are on basically the same platform. It all depends on the version of android 14, 15, 16. And if the phone company bothers to have the needed hardware. The newer Samsungs have le audio as does the Google pixels. Not sure about any others.

Hands free with Android is a possibility. I don’t think you’ll get streaming from your laptop. I’d stick with your KS10s. There’s hope that a new Sennheiser (Sonova–makes Phonak) aid will be available soon and that should stream like your KS10s.

If ctromley buys and uses the FlooGoo USB dongle, ctomley can connect to a Windows PC using the Jabra, Philips, or Rexton hearing aids currently sold at Costco.

Edited

In reply to @MDB

If ctromley buys and uses the FlooGoo dongle, ctromley can connect to a Window PC using and in the case of the Jabra hearing aid, is also available using the assistant built into the Jabra app.

Ctromely stated that a Pixel 8 was bought. So LE Audio is available for hands free calls using either the Jabra, Philips or Rexton hearing aids currently sold at Costco.

So all ctromely needs to do is try one or two hearing aids listed above to see if they meet sound requirement. Note, that hearing aids may set differently on ones ears. So trying the hearing aid on ones own ears is a good way to test.

I traded my K9s for the 9050, with Samsung A53, no hands free but I’m hoping android 15 might help. If still under warranty send your 10s in for service as soon as you get aids to try. I was impressed by the improvement in my 9s. Hearing on phone works just by holding to my ear (I turned off Bluetooth). I’m surprised that I do like the rechargeables.

Edited
@ctromley said:

. KS10s (and Phonak) are no longer available at Costco,

Sonova aids are available at some Costco stores, and soon maybe to be available at more. They are marketed at Costco under the Sennheiser brand. The Sennheiser Sonite R is the current model and appears to similar to the KS10 and the Phonak Lumity 90.

Thanks for the responses. To answer questions (in no particular order), I have a Google Pixel 8 Android phone, unlocked (not tied to any provider). It arrived with Android14 and automatically updated to 15. I don’t think an OS update gets you much, the LEA is a hardware feature. Though I have also read that is a separate feature that some brands might enable at a later date.

Good to know that the Oticon INTENT 1 works, meaning the Philips should too. As for streaming to a laptop, I’d be surprised if it didn’t work - a BIG selling point of Bluetooth is that it’s always backward compatible. So if it didn’t work on a non LE laptop that would be an embarrassing faceplant for the manufacturer that messed it up. My laptop is a Widows, but why should that matter? Bluetooth is Bluetooth. But reality is what it is, so if laptop streaming requires a dongle, so be it. At least a solution exists.

(Hmmm. I just saw the Bluetooth presentation elsewhere on this site that explains LEA, and they mention the codec is standardized, but manufacturers can add layers to it. One would hope they simply add, and not break compatibility that’s already there…)

Didn’t know about Sennheiser (Sonova/Phonak). I’ll ask next time I’m there. More options is rarely a bad thing.

Thanks again, all.

Edited

All current Costco hearing aids offer hands-free calling with the Pixel 8.

It’s not standard Bluetooth, so that’s why it just can’t connect to any computer.

The Philips work hands free with the Pixel 8 but on some rare occasions they don’t. The other party tells me my voice is garbled and I need to switch to speaker.

In reply to @ctromley

@ctromley said:

As for streaming to a laptop, I’d be surprised if it didn’t work - a BIG selling point of Bluetooth is that it’s always backward compatible.

It will not stream to most laptops because is not just BT.
LEA isn’t available for most wondoze machines, and only a few select high end Intel processors support it at this time.
You will get hands-free with the Pixel. and any of the mentioned Costco aids, but you will need the dongle for your laptop.
FWIW, not a bad deal for $50.

In reply to @ctromley

@ctromley said:

As for streaming to a laptop, I’d be surprised if it didn’t work - a BIG selling point of Bluetooth is that it’s always backward compatible.

Most non-Sonova that have mfi and no “bt classic” capabilities. So these new HAs have mfi (& for android) and then on top. But no “ordinary” Bluetooth. Hope this helps you see why there are issues. Even when things “meet” standards there can be issues with implantations that are still incompatible with each other more or less. Glitches happen and it can be hard to point out faults definitively. But these HAs and their families of HAs going back generations have never had the ability to natively connect to a laptop or other Bluetooth source.

WH

Sennheiser Sonite is made by Phonak to sell at Costco (Costco Hearing Aids in 2025 - Models, Features, Prices, and Reviews17) - $1,500 - $1,700 per pair (at select locations only)
*
The Sennheiser hearing aids are likely the clone of Phonak Lumity or maybe Infinio. KS 10 easily think, the Phonak Paradise, So it is truly hands free. Most other brands require you to use the microphone on your cell phone. Is that what you mean by using another device?

You may have to search to find a CostCo which is selling these hearing aids.

All the hearing aids sold at Costco can now do hands free calling. You just need a newer phone that has capability for the Jabra, Philips and Rexton aids.

The Sennheiser hearing aids are old technology. So they don’t have capability.

Currently only the Jabra hearing aids have the necessary assistant in their app, to make Auracast available to the user.

Edited

So, a couple of things here.

Hands-free phone use is not mentioned in all the write-ups on the Costco site. You’d think that would be a pretty important thing to mention. (Rexton mentions nothing, Jabra mentions nothing, but I’ve seen vague references elsewhere that Jabra has it, Philips proclaims “hands-free” and others have confirmed.) Also, when I say “hands-free calls” I don’t mean ‘as long as you use an accessory mic clipped to your shirt.’ I mean accept the call, hear and be heard with no issues, with perfectly normal clarity in both directions, and end the call - without any accessories, phone never having left my pocket, every time. I’ve also read that Jabra and Philips supposedly do that mostly, but can be annoyingly inconsistent.

My KS-10s are not perfect by any means, but I must say the hands-free calling has been pretty bullet-proof. As it should be.

My laptop (running Windows 11) has had no issue connecting to my HAs, beyond rarely not reconnecting after having left the computer for hours and returning. Always been a fairly painless reconnect. It’s a mid- to high-end laptop that was ordered with some custom options, but nothing special about Bluetooth. And nothing mentioned about or MFI (don’t know what MFI is).

My understanding is that Bluetooth’s position is that any new level of is always backward compatible with previous versions. If it’s not, that means the individual manufacturer broke it in their implementation.

and are supposedly a BIg Deal, so maybe a big difference. Do we know that it’s still compatible with all previous BT versions?

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