Bluetooth streaming is a top priority - what do I buy?

Thanks for the suggestion. It’s always good to know of options.

Everything I have is computer based. I haven’t had a TV in over 20 years. Anything I might want to stream is from some kind of computer based feed. I’m in the process of figuring out what it takes to have a Bluetooth LE capability on some of my machines all under Linux (Ubuntu).

Auracast sounds like it will have a large impact once the transmitting units become more common in airports, etc.

I have Oticon More’s (ASHA only), and I can stream audio from my phone for much of the day and still have 30%-40% battery left when I go to bed.

I think LE Audio is the future myself, so I would personally choose a HA that supported that if possible. I believe BlueZ has LE Audio support, although I don’t know if it has the Hearing Aid Profile support yet.

BlueZ/Pipewire also recently implemented ASHA support, however there are still teething issues there, and bluetooth controller support is… variable.

If you want to adventurous, there is my previously mentioned Pico-ASHA project, which turns a RPi Pico W micro controller board into a USB sound card that can send audio to ASHA hearing aids. Still very much beta quality though.

Yeah, take a look at Avantree3 products. They make a number of different Auracast and Bluetooth transmitters for different purposes, you might see something that fits well with your needs. They’ve also done some of the work in determining which brands and models of HA’s are Auracast compataible. See here.

When I got my new hearing aids (Resound Vivia) getting some that were Auracast capable was more or less by chance, but now, after using them for a while, if I were to buy a new set of HA’s tomorrow, I would definitely insist on Auracast capability. In my opinion, the quality and connectivity of Auracast is so much better than standard Bluetooth that I wouldn’t want to do without it. I’ve been streaming Auracast audio now for hours and hours and haven’t experienced a single drop, yet. Really a big change compared to standard Bluetooth.

It appears that Auracast is built upon Bluetooth LE. Auracast functions as a more sophisticated repeater, probably with more power output than the Bluetooth source it gets its input from and that might be why it’s more stable. With a strong signal coming into the HAs they may not need as much power to do their magic to provide sound to your ears and thereby save battery energy; just a speculation.

As a lifelong geek, I want it all because I suffer from FOMO when it come to tech.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.
Winston Churchill

I don’t think Aurocast will be of any benefit to me unless it can be proven that it can extend HA battery life AND I need that extension to solve an as yet speculative issue of running out of juice for streaming to the Internet. Time will tell.

Not having any experience with hearing aids I subscribe to the buy once cry once philosophy. My lifelong FOMO addiction also forces me into spending on features I might need in the future without any actual evidence of need.

I’m too old to change my ways now.

I got forced to change my ways when I retired. I am fortunate that the Veterans Administration provides my hearing aids.

Right now I’m at a bit of a disadvantage since I have no experience in the HA realm. I can guess at what’s important but I don’t know what’s important.

The dozens of videos I’ve seen in the last few days have given me a fair bit of education. This forum has also added to my knowledge base. It was Monday of this week that I got serious about my hearing deficit and decided to purchase something so I won’t have to keep saying “what” to my wife and she won’t have to keep repeating herself.

I’ve asked her repeatedly to listen to some stream of words using my headphones to see if she could detect what was being said since I couldn’t. She never had a problem and even after she told me what was said I still couldn’t honestly say I finally got it. It’s time.

I’ll discover what’s important after I gain ears on experience and Auracast might make more sense then.

Using some Linux commands, I did figure out my personal computer’s hardware was LE capable and the LE drivers will come online automagically once the hardware detects an LE device.

My wife and I retired to the island in name only. Up until Covid, she ran a bakery, several food establishments and I became a proficient MIG & TIG welder/metal fabricator out of necessity to build whatever she wanted.

Covid forced her to retire when all the tourists disappeared. I’m still in the software game. I’m going to die writing code.

I was aware of BLE and LE Audio but never encountered it; never had a client that asked about it. Now I’m going to need it myself.

Right, you don’t know what you don’t know.

My first set of HA were OTC around $700 US. They actually worked pretty well and taught me a lot about what I didn’t know.

In your situation, geographically, I would give some serious thought to Jabra1. Their top of line select 700’s can be had for less than your round trip air fair to Miami. Their website offers some preliminary suitability testing and then on-going support after purchase.

Just something to think about.

Merry Christmas

@RoatanBill is concerned about battery life. Manufacturers are really vague on battery life because a big unknown drain on the battery would be playing sounds into your ears very loudly. If your hearing loss is severe, then the hearing aid will have to put out lots of acoustic power, and that will drain the battery faster than the same situation for someone with more moderate hearing loss. Similarly, if you are playing music loudly with the aid, that will also drain the battery more than normal listening level. Just for a general sense, 10dB of difference in sound level represents 10X higher power going into the hearing aid’s speaker. As I look at the hearing profiles of various members, I see variation much more than 20dB (100X power) from one user to another.

I’ll leave it to someone with more medical expertise to comment on whether your hearing loss is moderate or severe, but it doesn’t look terrible to me.

Likewise, you have to judge whether your zoom meetings are raucous shouting matches or introverted engineers mumbling.