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Is there a stereo mode for the Roger On 3 remote microphone?

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On page 38 of the user guide for my Roger On 3 mic, there is a brief reference to a stereo mode which can be implemented in table and wide pointing modes. However, there is no apparent way to enable it. My audi at sent me a digital version of the user guide for the previous RogerMic 1.1 which has detailed information for that feature. However, in the myRogerMic app which I downloaded to my iPhone, the screen which is depicted in the RogerMic 1.1 user guide does not exist; all you can do in the app for the Roger On 3 in the “Configure your device” screen within “Settings” (which is where the stereo feature is selected for the RogerMic 1.1 per its booklet) is change the device name if for some reason one wishes to do that. I called Phonak and the agent had no answer.

This is not a big deal, but since the feature is mentioned in the Roger On 3 user guide (although only in a cursory fashion, compared to the subject’s more expansive content for the RogerMic 1.1 published in its user guide), I am curious. Unfortunately, neither my audi nor the first level Phonak telephone agent had a clue. The agent escalated the question, so I am now awaiting a reply from a higher level Phonak employee.

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I have both v3 and v1 Roger on mics. I haven’t had an issue with the v3 yet, but several times the v1 has gone from stereo to mono. I experience it in media streaming far sooner than microphone mode. But it affected both situations. The response from audiology was to hard reset it and then associate the aids to the mic again. Stereo was restored. Memory says hold front and back buttons at the same time a good while and it resets. Worth a shot, no?

WH

Edited

WhiteHat, there is no back button on my Roger On 3 microphone. On the back there is just the spring clip by which to attach it to a shirt or jacket, and a round white sticker. The sticker depicts what I assume is intended as a graphic line drawing of a hearing aid, with a red arrow pointing at it; underneath in small print is the word “unlimited”. I have no idea what purpose or message is intended by this sticker. Anyway, my question is not about the device going from stereo to mono by itself, but rather how to put it into stereo in the first place, and then how to return it to mono operation. Also, I don’t use it for media streaming because I have a TV connector, and Bluetooth streams audio from my laptop. I have no need for streaming to the hearing aids from any other device. I only use the Roger On 3 as a to pick up local audio as an improvement to the pickup ability of the hearing aid microphones, with its Auto, Table, Pointing and Presenter selectable modes for omnidirectional or more narrowly focused pickup, and nothing else. Using the app, I can also change Pointing to Wide Pointing, but I find no option to enable stereo. Thank you for your reply.

Edited

Screenshot_20260526_130252_Photo EditorThe red circle is around the button. It might be dusty and hard to see. The white label saying "Unlimited” Is for the number of licenses the device has.

Edited

The mic was working properly regardless of no connection to the app. Now it’s a brick.

Thanks to wobly, I discovered the pairing button at the bottom on back. I attempted the procedure WhiteHat described; no help. I deleted and reinstalled the MyRogerMic app. Then I discovered in iPhone settings that the Roger On 3 was now not paired with my iPhone’s Bluetooth, which explains its unavailability to the MyRogerMic app that used to work in controlling the microphone’s modes from my phone (not that that’s particularly useful). First trying the pairing button without success, then messing around with various combinations of the pairing and function buttons plus the on/off switch and long button holds yielded a number of strange displays, including one with a large V and another that is exactly the same as whatever it is that’s depicted on that white sticker shown in wobly’s photo above. But the end result is that it is now non-functional and is locked on a display which shows only the battery condition and above that, the diagonal link symbol for pairing, but with a diagonal line in the opposite direction through the link symbol. Since I can’t get it out of that mode, at this point I think I just need to send it back to Phonak via the , unless someone here can make sense of this progression to uselessness. At least I still have the round Roger Select microphone to use, which never gave me any trouble.

UPDATE: The Roger On 3 came back from Phonak via the . They replaced its electronics and now it works again plus has the stereo mode as discussed in its user guide, complete with the L|R icon inside the round symbol for table mode. The MyRogerMic app also has new menu options for stereo which were unseen when it was paired with the original electronics. Apparently Phonak sent VA some units late last year that did not have the feature enabled, including the one which I was issued in January.

I had the exact same issue that you had, with a brand new Roger. Nothing about stereo in the app no matter the number of resets and re-pairs with the aids.

My audiologist is 1.5 hours away so I did some reverse engineering of the Roger Upgrader app and found it has a full list of every setting on the roger. Most pretty boring and about what you’d expect, but there was one:

name="TransmitterModeStereo" default="1"

Despite the default being 1, my Roger had it set to 0. I wrote it to 1 and stereo mode immediately appeared in app, was configurable, and actually works.

I suspect that the factory made a bad batch where the stereo flag has been set to 0. It’s unfortunate that the device reset (where you hold the front+back buttons for 10 seconds) doesn’t touch this flag at all.

Mon, thanks for sharing your knowledge and research. Finally, an explanation for what was going on. Since my various attempts, following previous suggestions here, turned it into a brick that just showed the link symbol with a diagonal line through it in the opposite direction, I was compelled to send it back. The returned unit shows they replaced the electronics and it has since been working fine, including the stereo mode. I can’t really detect the stereo operation, but I have just left that on since, why not?

In reply to @mon

Good find. Can you explain how you got the upgrader to toggle the setting? Is there some sort of editable config file?

You may want to submit a bug report to Phonak as they could resolve this with a firmware update that rewrites all units to the correct default. Do they have a bug bounty program?

There’s config schemas in a password-protected ZIP in the install. I reversed the comms protocol (which runs over HID reports), wrote a python script, and made the risky guess to run a write op on the stereo flag. It’s not particularly user-friendly and I just know if I published it someone would brick their Roger.

Since I’m brand new in the phonak ecosystem and I don’t really know sonova well, I’m wary about doing anything that would make them lock down the system more, or whether they’re the kind of company to pursue legal action against experimenters. Obviously everyone’s running Target themselves and they don’t seem to care that much, but I’ll give it some time before I push my luck.

I will mention this to my audiologist (he spent some time with a Phonak rep trying to troubleshoot) and they might be able to forward a bug report up the chain.

It’s actually where doesn’t it show stereo mode. With stereo mode enabled you get two indications - an L|R icon on the device itself, and “Stereo mode is ON” in the app.

image

Then, in the settings you can configure stereo mode. Interestingly, enabling stereo mode also makes the range extender feature visible, which wasn’t there before:

Screenshot_20260621_135438_myRogerMic

If stereo mode is not available in your current configuration, those settings are entirely missing, and all you can do is rename the device.

No range extender but you do have stereo? That’s odd.

The config schema for the On v1, On v2, and On v3 are all identical, and IIRC sonova mentioned the v1 gets all the v3 features via firmware upgrade.

Seems like the range extender is bound to having stereo enabled, then. Perhaps an implementation bug, or some technical reason we don’t know about

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