Has Phonak abandoned Auracast?

As a counter point: I love that my phone can be an Auracast transmitter to my hearing aids and my wife’s Pixel Buds, and we can also use traditional BT when we want. Best of both worlds.

Phonak may do what Demant did recently: Introduce a new line of hearing aids with Auracast, then quietly add Auracast to the previous ‘ready for’ generation. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

This is a hobby horse of mine, so I’ll try to rein myself in, but… if Phonak (the biggest of them all) and every other hearing aid manufacturer had enabled Auracast three or four years ago AND promoted it in a positive and co-ordinated way, we’d have a whole lot more enabled venues than we do now. Really, none of the influencers or assisted-listening advocates have held them to account.

@wtolkien said:

If Phonak adds Auracast it would be an additional feature - which they promised. You can still use classic Bluetooth.

I don’t know about this (I’m not saying you are wrong). The Signia IX has BT LE Audio but their IX BCT does not (Same applies to the Rexton Reach vs Reach Plus). I don’t know why Signia did the BCTs that way - I wonder if there is a technical limitation that prevents both to exist at the same time.

The Sony linkbuds S have both but, if you enable LE Audio on the Sonys , the buds have to be re-paired and they can no longer communicate with BT classic devices (unless you revert the whole process ).

Again , I don’t know but I’m going to research this. If I find something relevant and useful, I’ll share.

Hmm, I could have sworn that ‘Auracast ready’ capabilities were prominently advertised when Infinio was released.

However, now I can only find one mention of it in this article:

Medwatch: Infinio is Auracast Ready11

So maybe that’s an error and Phonak never promised Auracast for Infinio?

This Australian marketing says the ERA chip is Auracast ready: https://phonakmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/PH_Brochure_Infinio_210x297_EN-AU_028-2689-48_LR.pdf20

If the right type of complaints (hard to say what would be most effective) and maybe legal pressure started, ready would turn into enabled pretty quickly. Users are letting Phonak continue down this road for too long as early buyers may move on to another aid and never get what they paid for from this generation. EU complaints may have the most bite due to the focus on penalties based upon worldwide income.

Great article, thanks for writing this! Very true!

“Auracast broadcasting standards for assistive listening (IEC 60118-17) will not be finalized until at least 2027.” If this is beyond Phonaks control then I can see why their is a delay. I’m confused how others have gone forward with Auracast if this is a real issue though. In the end part of the appeal of upgrading to my Spheres was the “promise” of Auracast. If Phonak fails to deliver I suspect this will be my (and many others) last pair of Phonaks. My suggestion is get it enabled NOW and if the software needs to be updated in the future, do an update.

@cvkemp said:

Aids with auracast is useless to me.

That’s fine, to each his own! You don’t have to use it.

Sometimes there seems to be a misconception that Auracast is just for public spaces. That’s not true. One of the big advantages is that the Auracast standard mandates an Auracast manager: a way to select which Auracast stream to use.

I have an Auracast dongle connected to my laptop. With the ReSound app it’s very convenient to select if I want audio from my laptop or from my phone.

With Phonak I can connect directly to the laptop, no need for a dongle. But there is no way to select which Bluetooth connection should be active. I have to rely on Phonak’s internal algorithm to select either laptop or phone. And if the Phonak HAs select the wrong audio source, then I have to turn Bluetooth off on the other device. When this happens, the Phonak HAs often get confused and I have to restart them altogether.

With Auracast, there are no such issues.

Also, Phonak advertised the Infinio line as ‘Auracast Ready’, which clearly implies that this feature would be made available eventually…

@ButchNH said:

“Auracast broadcasting standards for assistive listening (IEC 60118-17) will not be finalized until at least 2027.” If this is beyond Phonaks control then I can see why their is a delay.

That’s just an excuse. As you correctly pointed out, this hasn’t stopped the other manufacturers form implementing Auracast.

The Auracast standard already fully defined. Phonak is throwing a smoke grenade by referencing an upcoming IEC standard that will define which parts of Auracast hearing aids need to implement, and what the overall user experience should look like.

That is my understanding, which is fine as long as that doesn’t mean that Bluetooth Classic is taken away. I use the Bluetooth Classic of my aids all time. All of my devices are available to my aids by way of Bluetooth Classic. Most of my devices don’t have the capability to recognize any thing but the charger connected to the USB port. And honestly I don’t care to use an extra device plugged into my usb port as it leads to damaged USB connectivity. I no longer have a use for a computer or laptop. After retiring as an IT professional, MCSE Master level. I was burned out. I gave away everything Microsoft. I use only an old Android tablet and my Samsung S25FE phone other than my Kindle ebook readers.

In Phonak’s defense (and BTW, I’m avoiding Phonak in looking for a new hearing aid, primarily because they do not yet support Auracast): they have a bit more challenge than other manufacturers in implementing Auracast because they have to work out how to still keep supporting classic bluetooth in parallel. Their support of classic bluetooth has been a big selling point for them and, I’m sure, they don’t want to give that up.