Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Phonak Sphere Infinio Bluetooth Connectivity Failures – Who Else Is Affected?

169 replies9.5k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic
Reply
Edited

I’m posting to raise awareness and gather voices around a serious issue with the Phonak Audéo Sphere Infinio hearing aids: persistent Bluetooth instability affecting both streaming (Bluetooth Classic), connectivity with MyPhonak app (Bluetooth LE), and (although not Bluetooth) inter-aid link. Dropouts, random disconnects, and unreliable performance continue across iOS 17.x and 18.x—even after firmware updates, replacements, and exhaustive troubleshooting.

This isn’t just a personal frustration—it’s a systemic flaw. As a medical device engineer and longtime Phonak user, I’ve taken the following steps:

  • Filed a formal MedWatch report documenting the failures and their impact on patient safety
  • Sent two detailed letters to Sonova’s Board of Directors and Phonak’s executive leadership, citing technical evidence, communal user experience, and expectations for accountability
  • Collaborated with Cleveland Clinic Audiology to document the issue from clinical care perspectives

Phonak has suggested multiple troubleshooting steps—re-pairing devices, disabling app features, switching Bluetooth bandwidth modes. I’ve followed every recommendation, yet none have resolved the issue. These steps were never required with previous models like Marvel or Lumity, which performed reliably on the same devices and OS versions. The Sphere Infinio’s instability feels like a regression in both functionality and regulatory compliance.

If you’re experiencing similar issues, please share your story. I’m compiling community feedback to strengthen the case for transparency and resolution. Our collective voice matters.

Let’s hold the standard high—for dignity, reliability, and the trust we place in our hearing care.

62 people in this conversation81 min readJump to latest

I think I have had the Sphere’s the longest on this forum and I have put them through some heavy duty torture testing over the last year to properly understand how they work. Here is my 2 cents of their Bluetooth capabilities:

  • Bluetooth Classic on the Sphere’s is rock solid and far more reliable than any other hearing aid I have tested from Phonak or GN Resound.
  • Couple of things you have to bear in mind to give you flawless performance.
  • First: The Sphere’s allow you to pair up to 8 Bluetooth devices at once BUT you can only have two of these devices active at any given time. What this means is that you must turn off the Bluetooth on devices when they are not in use. I keep my Sphere’s connected to my iPhone at all times so that only gives me one other connection. If you leave other devices on inside your house, these devices will often grab the connection and when you go to use another Bluetooth device, it won’t connect and you will think you are having Bluetooth issues. This is NOT the case. The Sphere’s are just connected to another device in your house and there are no active connections available. Best Practice: Turn off Bluetooth on your iPad, laptop, TV and other devices when not in use and you will not have connection issues.
  • Second…the Sphere’s DO NOT remain connected (via the LE connection) to the myPhonak app on your iPhone unless you turn on that setting in the myPhonak app. I don’t keep this feature turned on because it burns more battery life on the Sphere’s and I want to save that battery life for for hearing aid use. When you boot up the myPhonak app, there is a hidden feature that immediationy connects you to the app: After booting the myPhonak app, immediately click on the “Devices” tab at the bottom of the screen. Once the battery percentages appear, you are now connected. Clicking on the “Devices” tab immediately forces the myPhonak app to connect to the hearing aids. This is sorta an undocumented feature.
  • Third: I have noticed the occasional Bluetooth drop off from time to time. IMHO, this is caused by radio interference in your surrounding area. Most people (and their next door neighbours) have a ton of wifi and Bluetooth devices in their homes and businesses and I’m convinced that this causes enough interference that it sometime causes connection issues. I don’t just see this with my Sphere’s. I also find that sometimes my security cameras and other iOT devices in my home drop off from time to time. This isn’t a Phonak issue. This is a Bluetooth and wifi issue.

Hope this is helpful.

Jordan

I have the non-Sphere Infinio and my experience is the same as @JordanK . Phonak , IMO, has the most solid/stable connection of any hearing aid I’ve tried and the issues I’ve had (minor) are the typical BT device issues I’ve had with other bt devices (headphones, keyboard, etc).

Edited

In reply to @JordanK

Thanks, Jordan! Appreciate you taking the time to comment.

  • Bluetooth Classic: Indeed, the opposite of my experience unfortunately. My Sphere’s are ONLY paired & connected to ONE device—my phone. And this is far from rock solid. Unlike both the Marvel and Lumity aids I owned previously, which where rock solid for Classic on the same phone and iOS.

  • Bluetooth LE: Again never an issue with the Lumity or Marvels, even with the “Stay Connected” option in the Phonak app. Sphere’s are a mess with LE as well. And while not BT, the proprietary link drops connection between aids regularly (with subsequent chime).

  • Interference: I’ve noticed this too in my home office environment, where there a lot more Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz interference. I haven’t formally tested this, but observationally, the Sphere’s seem to experience more issues with BT Classic connectivity in this environment than outside this environment. But again, the Marvels and Lumity operated flawlessly in the same environment.

All in, the Sphere’s are the problem, not the connected devices or environment.

@matthears said:

All in, the Sphere’s are the problem, not the connected devices or environment.

The Sphere’s are not the problem. Your Sphere’s may be the problem. You may need to go back to your audiologist and have them checked and/or replaced. It could be there is something wrong with your hearing aids or with your iPhone. I have had zero issues with my Sphere’s connected to my iPhone 16 Pro Max and I am a very fussy hearing aid user. My previous hearing aids were Phonak Lumity and the Bluetooth on the Sphere’s is noticeably better from a range and signal integrity perspective.

Not sure writing to the board or filing complaint paperwork is going to solve the issue but please keep us posted.

Jordan

I just got Spheres yesterday and I already experienced similar issues as @matthears . I have them paired with my iPhone and with my laptop.

Today, on an hour-long teams call on my laptop, communication between the dropped at least 4 times. At that time, Bluetooth was completely turned off on my iPhone.

The laptop talks to my right HA. Not sure what mechanism Phonak uses to transmit audio from right to left, but whe left HA was repeatedly switching out of streaming mode for 2-3 seconds and then back to streaming.

I’ve now reprogrammed the HAs so that the left HA handles Bluetooth to the laptop (or phone). But yes, so far I’m not impressed.

Also, while I was setting up the laptop connection, I switched the audio profile between ‘headphone’ (speaker and microphone) and ‘headset’ (speaker only) a few times. That caused the right HA (the one with the Bluetooth connection) to reboot! Clearly a bug.

Just now I experienced another reboot - this time both HAs and not necessarily related to Bluetooth.

In reply to @JordanK

@JordanK Spheres are in fact the problem. I have already replaced them once under warranty. Issue persists across devices. Audiologist is one of the top in the country at Cleveland Clinic and we have tried together every “recommended” setting change from Phonak. None of these setting changes were required with Lumity or Marvel on the same phone/OS. While I am a medical device engineer with 25+ years in the industry, I am also a 5+ year Phonak user who streams calls 8+ hours a day in my professional work. And since I also happen to be a Sonova AG shareholder, I will use that leverage to drive Phonak to respond an unaddressed problem that is in fact reported and widespread across many users. I am happy that you have not had the same experience with your Spheres, as it has been painful! Keep doing what you’re doing and I pray they stay stable for you!

In reply to @wtolkien

@wtolkien, i don’t pair directly with my PC/laptop, so I can’t directly speak to whether the issues occurs there or whether yours are the same. However, multiple uers across platforms have confirmed they’ve experienced these issues both Bluetooth Classic and LE issues across both Android and iOS.

Regarding your last comment about experiencing a reboot, do you happen to know if the one of the disconnected from the other, triggering a chime? Or did one/both of the HAs actually fully reboot? I have experience both issues as well, so I am trying to better understand, as the former is likely related to Bluetooth LE connection between aids.

I hope it gets better for you!

To clarify, Phonak uses Bluetooth LE for communication between the and the iPhone- or Android app. There are two connections, one to each HA. These connections are only used by the app!

For everything else (streaming and phone calls) they use Bluetooth classic.

The classic connection only goes to one of the HAs. From there, Phonak has their own proprietary way to send the audio data the other HA. Almost certainly that’s NOT Bluetooth, because that’s ill-suited to go through your head :slight_smile:

When I experienced a reboot, the sound went out on the HA, and a few seconds later I hear the startup chime and sound comes back. That a typical symptom of a software bug leading to an internal watchdog reset.

@wtolkien thank you for the additional color. clear on the Bluetooth Classic and LE. interesting you also experienced a random reboot with startup chime. i thought i had that happen once, but was half asleep, so just chalked it up to a inter-aid disconnect and chime. will pay attention should it occur again during more wakeful hours :slight_smile:

I’ve read about Infinio Sphere issues across several platforms.

I’ve worn Marvel 70s, then Lumity 90s and now Infinio 90-Sphere. I’ve always used Samsung Galaxy android phones. I never had BT issue with either the Marvels or Lumitys. In fact I am using the same Samsung phone when I wore Lumitys as I am now with Infinio 90-Sphere. What’s changed? Obviously the hearing aids and My Phonak app.

The issues I’ve had have been minor but annoying:

At random, and never in the same location, I get the “disconnect” jingle followed by “reconnect” jingle.

I stream music for at least two hours daily at the gym and experience “interruptions” of the music; mostly Spotify. I don’t know if that is due to a BT issue or Spotify.

My Lumitys used to sync to the My Phonak app every time I removed them from the charger. The Infinios rarely do, so I have to wait for them to connect before I want to apply any changes.

The issues have occurred a couple times a day, sometimes not at all. There is no consistency.

Like the Infinio, the Lumity supported 8 BT connections, but only two at any given time. Again, I didn’t experience the BT interruptions with Lumity that I have with Infinio.

My hearing aids are set to “always connected” to the app. I have the push buttons on the defeated, as they get “pressed” every time I wear a hat which is annoying.

I’m going to put $5 on ‘deviations from the implementation of the Bluetooth standard’ either caused or needed by the differing chipsets used with iOS and other devices.

The only real way to test if this is a legitmate issue is to pair each set to a the same bluetooth device.

Honestly folks…I’m 95% convinced that the Bluetooth issues have nothing to do with the Sphere’s. I believe that the issue is with radio interference from too many Bluetooth and Wifi devices in your surrounding area. I think what we are seeing is radio signal collisions, etc. It doesn’t take much to cause issues. As the original poster said, the Sphere’s are using Bluetooth Classic to stream and Bluetooth LE to connect to the myPhonak app on your phone. They are also using Phonak’s signal protocol to communicate between each other and to connect to other Phonak devices like the TV Connector or Roger devices. That’s three different radio signals going on at the same time and interference on any one of the three bands can mess up the connection.

My home has a mesh Wifi router which is connected to at least 30 devices on a given day. Combine this with a similar number of devices at my neighbour’s houses and the various frequency bands are jammed. I work from home and I’m typically using my Sphere’s for MS-Teams meetings (on my Windows 11 laptop) about 3-4 hours a day. I also stream phone calls and videos on my iPhone 16 Pro Max for a few hours a day. I do experience the occasional drop off but it generally reconnects after 15-20 seconds and this happens maybe once or twice a day.

The other thing I have noticed is that my other Bluetooth and Wifi devices in my home suffer from similar issues. My Reolink and Google security cameras drop off the network at the same frequency as my Sphere’s are dropping the signal. Further evidence that it’s caused by interference.

Happy to be proven wrong but this is my personal theory.

Jordan

@JordanK thanks! thoughts on why this would occur on the Spheres and not the Lumity and Marvels with the same device/OS and in the same RF environment? only difference i am aware of this that Spheres use 5.3 and Lumity/Marvel use BT 4.2 implementation.

Edited

In reply to @matthears

I am sorry in advance for an old IT admin joke: “It works for me.” Yeah, it’s pretty solid when I went for a walk with the dog and was within a 30-meter radius and one thick load-bearing wall of my parents’ house.

Nevertheless, aside from jokes and my experience yours is quite annoying and serious.

Have you tried of removing all Bluetooth connections from the phone, deinstallation of myPhonak app (which you have done before) BUT THEN PLUS rebooting you phone and (IIRC, 15-20 sec of long pressing the bottom button and putting in the charger)?

After that installing the MyPhonak, pairing, etc.

Keep us updated about your efforts with Phonak! Fingers crossed!

@matthears, which firmware version do you have in your Spheres? Mine is 1.0.13.0 and Target software indicated it as the newest.

Phonak makes a big deal about their new ERA chip in the Infinio line. A big part of the sales pitch are its improved wireless abilities, including - which they have yet to deliver.

A new chip with new features means having to modify the firmware, which very easily could translate into new bugs. Hopefully they will fix them over time with firmware updates.

In reply to @matthears

@matthears said:

@JordanK thanks! thoughts on why this would occur on the Spheres and not the Lumity and Marvels with the same device/OS and in the same RF environment? only difference i am aware of this that Spheres use BT 5.3 and Lumity/Marvel use BT 4.2 implementation.

We live in a very complicated world and we tend to look for complicated answers to complex issues. This is my very simple personal theory…

The number of Bluetooth and Wifi devices in our surroundings is increasing exponentially. In the past, I basically had a few computers and phones connected to my home network. Now I have 30+ iOT devices in my home and some have Bluetooth. Same goes for your neighbour’s homes and in the workplace where even the soap and paper towel dispensers in the washrooms are connected.

Short answer is…there are way more wireless devices around you than there were when you bought your Marvels and/or your Lumity hearing aids. In other words, the wireless interference is growing exponentially over time. Simple as that.

That being said, when I went from Lumity to Sphere my Bluetooth issues actually decreased.

Just my own personal theory…

Jordan

So here’s my bluetooth issues . I have had the infinio Spheres for about 10 weeks.

Streaming from PC. Sound dropping out and back in again, almost like stuttering. Occurring for varying passages of time interspersed with working fine. Annoying enough to stop me using it and go to the laptop speaker.

Never happened on my P90s.

On my android phone (Samsung Galaxy). Intermittently not being connected. Possibly related to going out of range and coming back in. Possibly related to phone connecting to car. Again I never had the problem with my P90s. And the environment in terms of other devices and interference hasn’t changed.

I have just upgraded my phone so i will see if it continues.

But i believe there is a bluetooth issue with Infinio in some situations and it is less stable than Phonak’s previous models.

And FWIW with my hearing loss and open domes I don’t get the benefit I hoped for from spheric mode, BUT I do hear better generally and find them an improvement on the P90s so I have kept them beyond the trial period (the promotional pricing helped :grinning: with the decision)

Related discussions