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Best laptop for direct connectivity to Oticon Intent 1s?

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Edited

Hi.. Hoping to get some advice….. my laptop appears to have “hinge fatigue” .. I opened it and heard a crack…. looks like hinge is coming apart….. Lenovo ideapad 5 core i7 …. laptop still works, but assume I’m living on borrowed time …. haven’t gotten any repair estimates, but thinking maybe I should take the plunge and get a new laptop that will connect with my hearing aids ….. I think Bluetooth LE audio is a must, but are there any other capabilities I need to know about? I would love to be able to get audio directly to my hearing aids while on zoom calls, while my family members would also be able to hear audio….. TIA for any advice

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Edited

Get a bluetooth adapter like the Floogoo FMA121/120. You can stream and do zoom calls (2-way communications) with the adapter + your PC. It’s cheaper than getting a new laptop.

Over time, the metal parts (screen hinges) get tight. When you open the lid, they main pull too hard on the screws holding them in place, making the surrounding plastic make cracking noises. Most older laptops start doing this after few years. I had a laptop with plastic near the hinges that broke, but the hinges themselves remained functional.

Thanks…. I have the Easy LE adapter but again, other people on my end of zoom can not hear when I use it….. hoping for something the will go direct to my hearing aids, and others on my end of zoom call can still hear without using headphones…… Thanks for the explanation of “fatigue”

Have you tried changing the mic device in the Zoom app ? Windows also has a setting where you can change the mic to be used.

I checked the specs of the Oticon LE Adapter. It confirms that it the adapter can do two-way audio. This confirm that your issue is not hardware related (see below).

I believe (I don’t have the Intents) that the function requires the Intent firmware update released this year.

I think the best is to check the mic settings in windows and your Zoom app .

Easy LE Adapter - miniRITE4

The Easy LE Adapter* helps you connect USB-C enabled Android™ phones and tablets as well as computers to your hearing aids or other wireless audio devices via the latest Bluetooth® LE Audio technology. This enables you to stream audio such as music...

If you’re looking for a new laptop, the following Apple laptops will support direct connectivity with the Oticon intent products. You need to be running at least MacOS Sonoma on them.

Macbook Air: All models featuring the M2, M3, M4, or M5 chips (introduced in 2022 and later).
MacBook Pro: All models featuring the M2, M3, or M4 chips (and their Pro/Max variants). M1 Pro/Pro Max are also supported, but not regular M1 devices.

Refurbished Apple computers are a lot cheaper than new ones.

I have a Core Ultra intel laptop for work which supports , but up until now it’s not working very well. I can connect to them and it works. But after a while, the audio gets desynced between each hearing aid.

The other issue is that reconnection doesn’t work well, for example, when I leave the laptop and go to a far distance, it disconnects as it should, but it doesn’t always reconnect automatically when I come closer.

So I use the Easy LE Adapter from Oticon, it doesn’t have any of these issues.

@Bruno_Marques said:

Apple products don’t “really” need LE Audio for hearing aids though, the Intent is MFI which means it can already do two way communications with the new mac’s

Isn’t that what I said? (Note that I said LE, not in the comment below)

@OcramSagev said:

non- Intel Macs , as @Hearing_Potential said, can do two way communications with some (not all) LE HAs.

Doesn’t sound too encouraging for “family listening” (eg other folks that do NOT use hearing aids or headphones) while I get audio streamed to my hearing aids……

Edited

Most computer audio systems allow selection of only one output “device”. There are two basic ways to share the output to multiple devices: software and hardware. For me, the hardware solution would be the first choice although it would probably cost more.

The software solution would be either free or commercial software to route the sound to two outputs: the computer speakers and bluetooth . I have no experience with such software but Google claims Steel Series Sonar and VoiceMeeter can do this. There may be free software to do this but I have no experience.

One hardware method would be to get a splitter cable for the headphone socket of your notebook. Feed the output to the two devices, which, in your case might be an Oticon TV adapter 3 and a powered speaker. You would use the Oticon Companion to select the TV adapter and also adjust the sound level of both the streamed and room signal. The family would listen to the powered speaker. I use a TV Adapter 3 connected to a Mac - it works well but does require use of the computer mic for Zoom.

In reply to @user490

I have a surface pro 11 (intel) and a surface pro 11 (snapdragon) I can get it to work with the intel chip but not with the Snapdragon chip. One other caveat is that even with the Intel chip version I must often shut down the Bluetooth on the previously connected device before connecting to the computer. (This was similar to connection issues I had with my galaxy phone (which eventually resolved itself). I have been following threads that may demonstrate this problem also exists on certain apple devices. My conclusion is that the Hearing Aid companies need more engineers embedded within the bluetooth development world that are experienced with development on ALL platforms. I simply do not trust those manufacturers and software platforms that support only one platform or type of chip. I think we are still at least a year away before ALL of the kinks are worked out.

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