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New iPhone 17 problems streaming with hearing aids

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Hi everyone. I have owned an iPhone 15 Pro for 2 years and recently got a new iPhone 17. I have noticed audio issues when listening to music, podcasts and books on the 17, including echoes, most of the audio going to one hearing aid, and over and spotty amplification of the music or podcasts. I never had these issues on my older iPhone 15 Pro. I tried to address these issues by updating my 17 and hearing aids. But it did not help. Question. Are there issues with these new iPhones when using hearing aids to get content via Bluetooth? Maybe it was a glitch in the phone or should I wait till the next generation of iPhones to be released next year? Thanks!

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I don’t have an iPhone but you haven’t mentioned what hearing aids you have. That can make a difference for the ones that maybe able to help you.

I had the iPhone 13 when I had the More1 aids. What I am going to say may sound strange but it has worked for me back then.

1 uninstall the app

2 forget the aids

3 restart the iPhone

4 reinstall the app

5 I believe that you can pair the aids from the app this is the best solution.

Edited

I have an iPhone 17 Pro and Resound Vivias (same as Jabra EP30). I have used iPhone and the latest Resound aids for 15 years.

I notice that now, but never before, often the streaming, which sometimes works very well, quite often has a strange out of phase effect between the two aids. If I turn off Bluetooth for a few seconds then reconnect, it sorts itself out.

I suspect this to be an Apple bug. Maybe it will be fixed in IOS 26.2. Anyway you can fix it easily for a while by toggling Bluetooth.

thank you for the update. Sounds like the issue is with IOS, not the hardware, right? It’s strange that I am not having any of these issues on my 15 Pro that’s over 2 years old. Does this problem appear in all of the new iPhones (17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and Air) or only a few? again, appreciate the update!

This is concerning for me, too, because my iPhone needs replacement sooner than later, and I’ve been eying an iPhone 17 or 17 Pro as the best one for me, but not yet as long as this remains an issue. I’m very dependent on the GN app working well. Does anyone with an iPhone 17 not have this issue?

There is another problem that I suspect is IOS 26.2 rather than iPhone 17 Pro as such. Since I installed IOS 26.2 on the day it was released, twice my iPhone 17 Pro has lost the pairing to my Resound Vivias. The situation is easily recovered and after that the Resound app only has to be shutdown and then restarted to remember that it knows my Vivias. But it’s quite annoying and doesn’t seem to have been reported widely yet. Anyone else seen this?

(I am talking about the iPhone losing the pairing and not just disconnecting from the Vivias.)

I am also encountering this issue on my iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26.2 and my Oticon Intent 2 hearing aids when streaming audio or even during phone calls there is sometimes a sense of echo and/or a sense of the sound to the R and L hearing aids being out of phase. Even when it is not doing that, it seems like the audio is slightly off center and favoring the L hearing aid. This problem started when I “upgraded” from a iPhone 16 Pro to the iPhone 17 Pro. I never had it prior to the 17 Pro.

I do not get this with streaming audio from my iPad Pro running iPadOS 26.2. The audio is in phase with no echo and is dead center.

Since this is being reported with more than one brand of hearing aids, I strongly suspect this is a bug associated with the new hardware chip Apple has put in the iPhone 17 models and the associated Bluetooth driver software. I hope they can fix this soon since it really can be annoying. Streaming previously was a huge benefit to having hearing aids.

Sorry to say, I am also experiencing intermittent echo/out of sync streaming from my brand new iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 26.3.1, to my Rexton BiCores. The connection while walking outdoors with the phone in a pants pocket also feels even more tenuous than it did on my iPhone 11. I guess there is a little solace in seeing it’s not just me!

Q: Why can’t we update Bluetooth in our mobile phones? Bluetooth is almost always the weakest link in the hearing aid system. Problems I have been experiencing with my Phonak Spheres disappeared immediately once I switched to a mobile phone with Bluetooth version 6.0. The manufacturers of mobile phones need to lift their game!

I have found that when this phenomenon occurs, most of the time the audio returns to normal if I just trigger Siri with the iPhone side button and then dismiss Siri with a second side button press. I’d say that fixes it at least 75% of the time.

So when audio is streaming from my iPhone 17 Pro to my Oticon 2’s and the audio becomes distorted as I describe in my post above I just press and hold the side button for a second. The audio will stop and the Siri animation will appear on the iPhone display. I then “click” the side button again (without continuing to hold it down) to dismiss Siri. The audio you were playing will resume and most of the time it will resume without the echo-y effect and is centered as expected. If this doesn’t work the first time I try it a second time.

I am currently using the Oticon More 1 and Intent 1, and my mobile phone is an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Up until iOS 26.3, there were no issues with Bluetooth connection with the More, but since iOS 26.4, pairing errors have been occurring consistently on the More 1.

During media playback or calls, no sound comes from either the hearing aid or the phone speaker for the first few seconds. However, after about 10 seconds, it reconnects with the hearing aid and sound comes out.

This problem persists, and even restarting the phone only allows it to function normally for a few minutes.

The error occurs again shortly afterward. The symptoms remain the same even after updating to iOS 26.5.

Among these issues, no errors occur with Intent 1.

I just updated to iOS 27 which was released today. So far in several hours of usage I have not experienced the sense of streaming audio sounding out of phase or an echo as I described in my posts above. I’m cautiously optimistic that Apple has addressed this issue. If so hooray! It was incredibly annoying!

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