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.
This seems to be interference from other Bluetooth devices connected to the PC. If I connect both my Bluetooth mouse and Phonak hearing aids to the PC at the same time, the sound transmitted from the PC to the Phonak hearing aids will be intermittent.
I too have the issue of multiple pairing with my Infinio Spheres and also with my Lumities. Both are connected or paired with my Amazon device in my bedroom. When I go to the living room and attempt to stream music, the bedroom connection sometimes budds in, and I can no longer stream Unless I go to the process of completely, turning the hearing aids off and then back on again and repairing with my iPhone.
As an Apple device user (iPhone, Watch, iPad, HomePod, TV, HomeKit, etc.) who has worn ReSound ’s for more than a decade, this sounds to me like your present hearing aids are simply NOT compliant. Perhaps their manufacturer doesn’t truly understand, willingly violates Apple’s MFi licensing terms, or worse simply doesn’t care?
Just my $0.02, FWIW. Good luck, and thanks for your professionalism in pursuing this issue!
Best, Bob.
I’ve worn Phonak M90 single Right hearing aid for 4 years and have experienced issues like those reported here. Both on my Android, Apple, PC, and TV Connector. I then have since upgraded to Left and Right Infinio Sphere I90 hearing aids. And experience the same BT issues and maybe even a bit more since the Spheres can connect to upto 8 devices and two simultaneously.
But I recently had hardware issues with my Spheres (microphone died. See alternate thread on same), so they are currently off for repair. Meanwhile, I am back to using my single M90 Right aid. But instead of removing/forgetting my Sphere aids from the phone and the Phonak app… I instead only discovered and added the M90 as a new BT device on all the places I want to hear audio from (iphone, TV streamer, and ipad). To my surprise I am having absolutely no BT streaming cutouts. None. Well actually I did when I went out for a walk today and listed to Apple Music. But I realized my phone was in my Left pant pocket and the M90 was in my Right ear, so moving to my Right pant pocket solved that. Rest of the walk was fine with no BT audio cutouts.
So I am beginning to think the source of the audio cutouts is with the Phonak App itself. No proof. But that’s just my experience in current situation having to go back to my old aid. I will get my Spheres back next week. After that I will see about experimenting pairing the I90s both with and without the App.
I was at Connect Hearing (owned by Phonak) and when the topic came to Bluetooth, the Audiologist indicated that she also heard about more people having issues with Infinio.
I can confirm - I mostly get short synchronization issues between both aids. The that does Bluetooth streaming is fine, the other one stops streaming for a few seconds and switches to Automatic mode. A few seconds later it resumes streaming and everything is back to normal.
I have the i90 set, and I only connect to my S25 Ultra Android phone. I talk on the phone all day, and on nearly every call, I get dropouts. My audiologist spoke with Phonak about it, and she said they were aware of the issue, but that it did not affect all i90s. They are sending me a new pair to try, although I’m not optimistic. I have a friend who has an older model Phonak, and he is on the phone all day with no issues. Another friend on the phone all day with his Oticons and no issues. If these don’t fix it, I’m going to try a different model/brand, as it is annoying and intolerable for me.
I hadn’t given much thought to bluetooth problems since I got the Sphere’s but this forum brought it to my attention. I’ve been blaming the problems on Google’s updates each month on my Pixel 8 phone. I used to get it dropping the stream when walking each morning but that seemed to quit after the August phone update. However, I’ve had it drop recently while talking on the phone, having to finish the conversations using the phone speaker (less than ideal for us.) If it’s the Sphere, I hope a quick update provides a fix. If it’s Google, I hope the Sept update fixes the problem.
Thought I would share an interesting update that happened this morning…
I started the work week this morning with a bunch of MS-Teams conference calls on my work laptop (Dell). After turning on Bluetooth, my laptop immediately connected to my Sphere’s and when I entered the Teams call, sound/microphone connected to the session with no issues. After a few minutes, the Sphere’s disconnected. I then turned Bluetooth off/on and the Sphere’s reconnected to the laptop again and the audio resumed. A minute later…the Sphere’s disconnected again and I had to recycle Bluetooth on the laptop again to reconnect. The cycle kept repeating.
I then decided to turn off the Bluetooth on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and the problem completely went away. Halfway through my meeting, I turned the Bluetooth on my iPhone back on again, and the Sphere’s immediately disconnected from my laptop. Obviously the issue was with the iPhone grabbing the connection.
I then rebooted the iPhone and the problem completely went away and everything is stable again.
Point I wanted to make is that the issue in this case wasn’t with the Sphere’s. My iPhone was doing something weird and grabbing the Sphere’s away from the other device (Dell laptop). Rebooting the iPhone made the issue go away.
However I wouldn’t necessarily let the Spheres off the hook.
We don’t know what the iPhone was doing before you rebooted it. Maybe it was trying to maintain a secondary background connection, which should be fine, and the Spheres acted up. Maybe, after the reboot it stopped doing that and all was well.
In this scenario, the Spheres would still be at fault.
I was on a transatlantic flight last weekend and the airplane had a fairly new entertainment system which allowed people to directly connect their headphones via Bluetooth. Cool. So there are hundreds of people crammed together in a metal box (reflections!) and tons of them use Bluetooth. Talk about a tough environment!
My Spheres disconnect twice, and every few minutes, audio would cut out for a very short time, maybe less than half a second.
My wife, sitting next to me, used Anker headphones and had none of these issues.
Yes, I do think the Spheres have a Bluetooth reliability and resiliency issue.
I’ve noticed a drop in my aids quite often. I have Phonak Sphere and when I mentioned this to my audiologist, she said that it was most likely my brain getting tired. I’m not sure about this as I know that Bluetooth connectivity isn’t always reliable. Any thoughts
Update on My Conversation with Sonova Leadership – Sphere Infinio Reliability
I spoke directly with Sonova’s VP of Reliability and Senior Director of Investor Relations about the persistent Bluetooth failures many of us have experienced with the Sphere Infinio platform. We discussed dropped connections, link disruptions, and overall instability—issues that continue to surface across forums and user threads.
Sonova confirmed they’ve reviewed digital logs from my returned Sphere Infinio hearing aids, showing repeated attempts to initiate Bluetooth handshakes without successful connections. They believe the ERA chip’s extended range may be exposing the device to more ambient signals, contributing to instability. They also confirmed that my replacement devices came from separate batches, effectively ruling out a localized manufacturing defect.
Interestingly, Sonova stated they do not see a statistically significant increase in Bluetooth-related complaints with Sphere Infinio compared to previous platforms like Marvel, Paradise, or Lumity. I challenged this, pointing to consistent patterns in user experience across devices and platforms—including Android. I submitted that common Bluetooth complaints from less experienced users—those unfamiliar with pairing, multi-device connectivity, and streaming—may contribute ‘background noise’ in Sonova’s post-market surveillance activities that obscures systemic Bluetooth issues reported by more technically experienced users.
A firmware update is expected this fall to improve Bluetooth robustness and address broader performance issues and general improvements, though timing is still to be determined. Unfortunately, Sonova/Phonak does not make detailed technical release notes available to patients. Clinical care teams receive only high-level release summaries.
Additionally, the binaural chime—previously triggered by brief sub-second link dropouts—has been disabled by default in firmware builds since spring. Sonova acknowledged this was a Product Management requirements gap and the chime should never had been triggered for such momentary binaural link disconnects. While unrelated to Bluetooth Classic or LE connectivity, this change may help reduce the overall impression of instability. Sonova also acknowledged the need to better equip frontline Phonak support teams with targeted workarounds for edge cases.
The conversation was candid, respectful, and emotionally grounded. I emphasized that my escalation to Sonova leadership was a last resort—driven by months of unresolved reliability issues and the absence of meaningful response through clinical and customer support channels. (Phonak US Customer Support, in particular, has been consistently unresponsive and ineffective.) My advocacy reflects not only personal frustration, but a broader call for transparency, accountability, and dignity in how medical-grade devices are supported.
I’ve submitted a formal follow-up letter with a number of systemic questions covering complaint handling, CAPA thresholds, integration testing, and regulatory alignment. I’ll continue to advocate for transparency and reliability—not just for myself, but for every user who’s been told to “wait for the next update.”
Interestingly, Sonova stated they do not see a statistically significant increase in Bluetooth-related complaints with Sphere Infinio compared to previous platforms like Marvel, Paradise, or Lumity.
Thanks for posting this update. I can validate Sonova’s comments above. I went from Lumity to Sphere and honestly, Sphere is far more stable.
They believe the ERA chip’s extended range may be exposing the device to more ambient signals, contributing to instability.
This is a very interesting comment and validates my theory that the drop offs are caused by interference in the environment from other Bluetooth and Wifi devices. I know this is the case because other Bluetooth and Wifi devices in my home suffer from drop offs too. It’s not just the Sphere’s.
@matthears, thanks from me as well! Good to hear that another firmware update is coming. Any word about being part of it?
Everything else I would take with a grain of salt. Especially their internal statistics regarding Bluetooth performance comparisons with earlier products. They can claim whatever they want, nobody can hold them accountable.
And to be clear, I’m not singling out Phonak. All this is standard corporate behaviour.
There is even an acronym for this: MVP - Minimum Viable Product.
That’s the point when a company will release a product into the market, even though they known that it still has bugs. They plan on fixing those later, and determine that booking revenue from earlier sales outweighs any reputational damage from dissatisfied customers.
And in Phonak’s case I would say they were correct. The Bluetooth issues are annoying, but the benefits of the spheric mode clearly outweigh them.
@wtolkien we didn’t specifically discuss . while i love the concept, Apple & iOS don’t yet support Auracast, so my use case is limited at present. hoping for a pleasant surprise with iOS 26 and Auracast support but haven’t seen anything definitive yet. only that there were some accessibility enhancements coming: IOS 26 at WWDC25: Apple misses the mark when it comes to Auracast4
Technical Deep Dive: Follow-Up Questions on Bluetooth Handshake Behavior
During our recent conversation, Sonova’s VP of Reliability shared that digital logs from my returned Sphere Infinio hearing aids showed repeated attempts to initiate Bluetooth handshakes without successful connections:
“We saw a lot of handshake attempts in your logs—not connections. That’s likely due to the ERA chip’s increased range, exposing the device to more nearby signals.”
This observation raises several questions about how the Sphere Infinio platform handles handshake traffic in high-signal environments.
Key Questions
Could repeated Bluetooth handshake attempts—particularly in high-signal environments—interfere with or destabilize an existing active connection on the Sphere Infinio platform?
Specifically, does the ERA chip’s extended power (and thus range) expose the device to more ambient handshake signals, and if the firmware isn’t prioritizing or isolating these properly, could that lead to the types of Bluetooth disruptions users are reporting?
Working Theories
In principle, a Bluetooth handshake attempt should not disrupt an existing active connection. The protocol is designed to support multiple roles and concurrent device interactions, especially in Bluetooth 5.x environments. However, in practice—particularly in complex systems like hearing aids—there are several plausible mechanisms by which handshake attempts could interfere with ongoing connections.
Given the ERA chip’s extended range and sensitivity, it’s reasonable to hypothesize that Sphere Infinio may be exposed to a higher volume of ambient handshake signals than previous platforms. If the firmware does not adequately prioritize or isolate these handshake attempts, the result could be dropped connections, streaming interruptions, or erratic link behavior.
Potential Contributing Factors:
Signal Saturation or Collision
High volumes of handshake attempts may overwhelm the device’s ability to manage simultaneous signals, leading to dropped connections.
Firmware or Stack Limitations
If the Bluetooth stack lacks robust concurrency handling, handshake attempts may override or destabilize active sessions.
Power Management Conflicts
Misinterpreted handshake attempts could trigger bandwidth reallocation or power-saving behaviors that interrupt streaming.
Error Recovery Behavior
Failed handshakes may initiate resets or reinitializations that inadvertently drop active connections.
Proprietary Link Interference
Timing conflicts between the proprietary link and Bluetooth reconnection logic could contribute to instability.
I recognize that I am not an RF engineer or Bluetooth stack developer, and I welcome any expert input from those in experienced in this field can provide regarding these working theories.
Obviously, without knowing how Phonak’s firmware prioritizes handshake traffic—and whether mitigation strategies exist for high-signal environments—we likely won’t be able to specifically clarify the root cause of these disruptions…but curious what the technical experts here have to say
Should we/ accept MVP for medical devices? It’s bad enough to promise will be enabled but worse to ship without sufficient testing of enabled features such as Bluetooth.
How will the consumer know issues with the ERA chip are resolved versus hidden better?
Does this mean Virto with the ERA chip will also have this issue?
@user490 Great questions—these cut to the heart of what reliability and transparency should mean in regulated medical technology.
Here’s my $0.02… (but please take it for what it is—I’m not a Sonova/Phonak employee, just a user and advocate trying to hear better and not fight the technology that’s supposed to help )
Should Accept MVP for Medical Devices?
In the consumer tech world, “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) often means launching with core functionality and iterating later. But in medical devices—especially those that affect communication, safety, and dignity—this approach is far riskier.
Having worked across multiple roles in the medical device industry—engineering, clinical research, product and portfolio leadership, marketing, lifecycle management, and executive leadership—I can say that MVP is not uncommon. While there are certainly instances where products are released without proper Verification & Validation, or where new technologies haven’t been fully vetted in real-world environments, I tend to believe (perhaps because I’m wired to lead in a patient-centric way) that most manufacturers aim to release quality products.
That said, product launches always involve scope limits, with planned improvements and corrections in subsequent releases. But releasing an MVP does not let a medical device manufacturer off the hook. In the U.S., they are subject to required post-market surveillance activities mandated by the FDA under 21 CFR Part 820. If these surveillance activities fail to meet regulatory expectations—or if complaint trending and tracking do not lead to appropriate Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA)—then the manufacturer is in violation of its regulated obligations.
The FDA does not formally endorse MVP-style releases. Devices must meet substantial equivalence under the 510(k) pathway or undergo Premarket Approval (PMA) for higher-risk classes. However, manufacturers can submit devices with modular or upgradable features (like readiness), as long as they clearly define what is enabled at launch and what is deferred. The FDA’s Voluntary Improvement Program encourages continuous quality improvement, but it does not lower the bar for initial safety or performance validation.
So while MVP-like strategies may sneak in under the radar—especially for Class II devices (like hearing aids)—the burden remains on manufacturers to ensure that enabled features are fully validated and that deferred features are transparently communicated.
How Will Consumers Know ERA Chip Issues Are Resolved vs. Hidden?
For me, that’s the crux of the trust gap. Without detailed firmware release notes or public-facing performance data, consumers are left guessing whether issues have been fixed or simply masked.
Sonova has stated that the ERA chip offers extended range and faster processing, but users like myself have experienced Bluetooth instability—possibly (not yet confirmed) due to handshake saturation in high-signal environments. If firmware updates suppress symptoms without addressing root causes, the perception of stability may improve—but the underlying issue may persist.
In my view, what consumers need includes:
Transparent release notes with technical detail
Clear documentation of known issues and resolved bugs
Diagnostic tools or logs accessible to audiologists
Public-facing performance benchmarks across platforms
Without these, it’s difficult to distinguish between genuine resolution and clever concealment.
But in the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter—if a user’s real-world experience is such that issues (even masked or concealed) don’t impact the value they derive from the product.
Does This Mean Virto with ERA Chip Will Also Have This Issue?
Possibly—but not necessarily. I’ll have to defer to Phonak on this one (though understandably, I remain skeptical of their marketing claims…).
The Virto R Infinio also uses the ERA chip and boasts improved Bluetooth performance, including doubled streaming distance and simplified pairing. However, custom in-the-ear devices like Virto have different antenna configurations, shell constraints, and power profiles compared to models like Audéo Sphere Infinio.
Sonova claims that Virto R Infinio maintains full Bluetooth functionality despite its smaller size, thanks to innovations like RightFit shell modeling and updated firmware. That said, if the root issue lies in how the ERA chip handles handshake traffic or prioritizes connections, then any device using ERA could be affected—unless firmware optimizations are tailored per model.
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