Starkey Surflink Mobile?

I just noticed this live course for the Surflink Mobile on June 5. I will be at work, so I will have to miss it

I visited my professional yesterday. Surflink Mobile has been released, but it cannot be ordered because there is no stock. He was not sure of the price, either. He thinks the price will between the Remote ane Media device. My professional will be in training on Surflink Mobile next week.

There is a brochure here1.

I noticed an FCC filing here that probably relates to this. They are requesting a change in the licensing for the remote to allow it ti work at a longer distance.

I notice here that they just passed the Bluetooth testing on April 30. If changes were needed, that would affect availablilty while they rework the units already produced.

It appears the Surflink mobile has a touch screen for the remote. There may be hardware buttons on one side for volume control. Some pictures show the buttons and some do not.

We were told there is no tradein plan for those of us with Surflink Remote and Surflink Media. The new Surflink Mobile appears to have most of the features of the older products. Some people would prefer the remote with hardware buttons, though.

I emailed a guy from discounthearingaidsofamerica.com. He quoted me a price of $499 for Surflink Media and $549 for Surflink Mobile.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t your Surflink Media still be beneficial, even with the Surflink Mobile? For instance, with your TV connected to Media, it will still be activated and deactivated just by walking in and out of the room.

@Big_Al said:

I emailed a guy from discounthearingaidsofamerica.com. He quoted me a price of $499 for Surflink Media and $549 for Surflink Mobile.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t your Surflink Media still be beneficial, even with the Surflink Mobile? For instance, with your TV connected to Media, it will still be activated and deactivated just by walking in and out of the room.

That’s true. We could not get a definitive answer whether the remote on the Surflink Mobile would work with the Surflink Media. My professional was guessing $250 - $300 for the Surflink Mobile.

I know that Starkey does not permit their authorized distributors to sell over the Internet. In fact, Starkey lists discounthearingaidsofamerica.com here as an unauthorized Internet retailer.

@dmr said:

My wife received her SurfLink Mobile yesterday. The little instruction booklet (which is titled “Operations Manual”) appears to be the one at on the starkeypro site in the public/pdfs directory named “SurfLink_Mobile_Manual.pdf”. (That rather awkward construction is because this forum won’t allow me to post the URL in one piece.)
The back of the instruction booklet says “3/12” and “Rev A”. It was accompanied by a card titled “Operations Manual Update 5/1/2012.”

Hey, dmr, glad to hear your wife finally received hers. Please post her impressions. I have one on order. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever. I paid $475 for the privilege of waiting. I can’t wait to get it though, so I can get rid of this bluetooth device on my ear.

I don’t have a price because she bought a pair of Wi-90 hearing aids and the SurfLink Mobile for a bundled price - we didn’t get to see a separate price for the SurfLink Mobile.

She had been given a SurfLink Remote to use until the SurfLink Mobile was ready. She likes the volume control on the SurfLink Mobile better than the SurfLink Remote.

The description of using a bluetooth cellphone with the SurfLink Mobile looks great. But cell phone reception is poor where we live, so she mostly uses a cordless phone on a landline. Some manufacturers of cordless phones support bluetooth in the base station - which would limit her to 30 feet from the base station. She wants to use the cordless phone when she is out in the yard and is 100 - 200 feet from the house. We don’t know of any way to use the SurfLink Mobile communicating with the cordless phone handset (not base station) to take advantage of the several hundred feet range of the cordless phone. I’m trying to come up with a way of addressing that issue.

The “Operations Manual Update 5/1/2012” adds information about handling a second (Call Waiting) call while there is a phone call in progress, about switching between two phone calls, and about streaming call ringing when no phone call is in progress. It also states that English is the only (currently) supported language. The Language Selection menu still exists, but it can’t be opened. I don’t know whether they plan to make the Language Selection menu operational in a future update.

I’ve learned a lot more about Bluetooth than I ever expected to. There are a whole bunch of Bluetooth “Profiles” intended for different type of functions. Bluetooth-enabled devices can only interoperate if they support the same Profile. The SurfLink Mobile (currently) supports the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) for streaming audio from entertainment devices and the Hands-Free Profile (HFP) for use like a telephone headset. It does not (currently) support the Headset Profile (HSP) which is used by some mobile phones.

So one requirement for having the SurfLink Mobile work with your phone is that your phone has to support the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (HFP). I believe that the Hands-Free Profile is more modern and more capable than the Headset Profile, so I suspect that recently purchased cell phones are likely to support it.

Thanks for the update. It sounds like a powerful device, but I am very curious to hear about the actual audio quality when using bluetooth. Several of these newer bluetooth-connected streamers have suffered from poor audio quality, either to the user or the person on the other end of a call.

@dmr said:

Ski-Slope, I’m curious about why you decided to go with the Wi-series rather than the 3-Series and about why you decided to go with the i110 rather than the i90. In each of those cases, how much was the decision based on your own research versus the audiologist’s (or Starkey’s) advice.

My audiologist picked them out for me. I thought I was going to try a pair of Widex RIC-style aids, but when I showed up last week she had a pair of Starkey Wi i110’s for me. I forgot her rationale for the switch. Of course when I went to the Starkey website and discovered that the 3-series was more advanced (after she had told me these are top-of-the-line), I was confused. I can’t say that I know the difference between the i110 and the i90. Care to share any input?

I still haven’t gotten my wife to write her own replies.

After we paired the SurfLink Mobile with a MacBook Air laptop, we saw two entries for the SurfLink Mobile in the list of the MacBook’s audio output devices. One was listed as “Headset” and the other was listed as “Headset (Stereo)”. My guess is that the “Headset” entry was using the bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (HFP) and the “Headset (Stereo)” entry was using the bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). When playing a movie and directing the audio output to the “Headset” entry, my wife didn’t hear any sound through the hearing aids. When we directed the the audio output to the “Headset (Stereo)” it did play through the hearing aids. I still don’t know whether the “Headset” entry could be used for a Skype conversation.

When listening to music on the car radio, without any bluetooth involved (i.e. radio loudspeakers to the hearing aids), my wife felt that the music sounded “tinny”. Similarly when playing a movie on the laptop with a bluetooth connection through the “Headset (Stereo)” entry, she felt the sound was “tinny”.

We visited the HIS today and he created another hearing aid program that he recommended using for bluetooth (regardless of the content) and for music (regardless of the connection). My understanding is that this program reduced the amplification of high frequencies and increased the amplification of low frequencies. My wife found this improved both the sound of the car radio and the bluetooth transmission of the movie - somewhat. She has to try using it for a while. When she reports back to the HIS, he might make further adjustments.

I had previously expressed interest in the 3-Series and was told “the Wi-Series is best for you”. Since I read on the starkeypro.com site that the 3-Series has more advanced technology and improved algorithms, I pushed for an opportunity to do our own comparison. We are now supposed to get a pair of 3-Series hearing aids that my wife can try for a while to see if she thinks they are any better.

With respect to the difference between the 110, 90, and 70, here is what Starkey says:

110: Designed for vibrant lifestyles, includes 16 channels and 16 bands for optimal high-resolution sound imaging, providing optimum flexibility and performance in a broad range of demanding listening environments that include high levels of background noise.

90: Designed for active lifestyles, includes 12 channels and 12 bands for high-resolution sound imaging, providing excellent performance in a broad range of demanding listening environments that include moderate levels of background noise.

70: Designed for social lifestyles, includes 8 channels and 8 bands for precise sound imaging, providing good performance in environments with minimal to moderate levels of background noise.

My understanding (and I hope someone will correct me if I am mistaken) is that the number of channels/bands is the number of different slices of the audio frequency spectrum which they can handle separately (i.e. for which they can have separate settings for how sounds of those frequencies are processed).

I am very disappointed in Starkey. I have my new aids (3 Series), but the Surflink Mobile is on backorder. My audiologist says we may not have it until early fall. While I am very happy with the aids so far, I can’t believe that they couldn’t do a better rollout on the Surflink Mobile than they have done. They really should be ashamed of themselves on this one.

I must be one of the lucky ones with the Surflink Mobile. I had mine for a week then the receiver in one side died and the other went weak. Went back to the VA hosp in Atlanta where I got them and had the contacts cleaned and all settings checked. I get really good sound reproduction without the tinny effect some folk are reporting. Haven’t used them much with my mp3 player, I should give that a try. But the bluetooth telephone connection is spot on. I’m very happy with these compared to the chunky monkey’s I had. At first when I was told I was getting a over the ear aid, I was disappointed at having seen some of them, the older models of Belltone etc, looked like red flags with “HEARING PROBLEM” printed on them. But these couldn’t be better. Most people I have told about them swear that they can’t see them. So yeah I’m a satisfied customer.

You’re definitely a lucky one in that you even HAVE the Surflink Mobile, although my understanding is that the VA is getting priority shipments. I’ve been waiting two months, and it may be two months more. I am glad to hear it is working so well for you. The longer I wait for the device, the higher my expectations are going to be. I’d love to read more details about your experiences.

You’re definitely one of the lucky one’s, a friend of mine has been waiting since last October to get his Surflink Mobile and has been told by his audi it might not be in until December. He feels like he was sold a bill of goods on his Starkey HA’s and the Mobile and if he could return them and go with something else he would.

@Big_Al said:

You’re definitely a lucky one in that you even HAVE the Surflink Mobile, although my understanding is that the VA is getting priority shipments. I’ve been waiting two months, and it may be two months more. I am glad to hear it is working so well for you. The longer I wait for the device, the higher my expectations are going to be. I’d love to read more details about your experiences.

that would be news to me… I suppose Starkey might want to keep their biggest customer’s happy first and since Atlanta is huge they might be getting a few. But, if they are going to supply the VA first then you are really going to have a long wait.