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Starkey Surflink Mobile?

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Regarding the battery thing, … and I don’t own a Surflink yet, but I was wondering if those external USB battery packs that people use on phones would work? They are basically a larger battery in a small plastic box and a USB jack/plug. You plug your phone (Suflink) in when there is no power available. So it’s a portable solution giving some USB power.

The other thing people seem to be saying is you can’t charge and stream at the same time? Is that because of how the unit is cabled? Would some kind of Y cable/adapter help here?

GB

@grantb5 said:

Regarding the battery thing, … and I don’t own a Surflink yet, but I was wondering if those external USB battery packs that people use on phones would work? They are basically a larger battery in a small plastic box and a USB jack/plug. You plug your phone (Suflink) in when there is no AC power available. So it’s a portable solution giving some USB power.

The other thing people seem to be saying is you can’t charge and stream at the same time? Is that because of how the unit is cabled? Would some kind of Y cable/adapter help here?

GB

On your first point, I am pretty sure an external battery would work, if you were willing to carry it around with you. I’m not at that point yet. I keep mine plugged in all day at my office, and only use wired streaming at home.

On your second point, I’ve been looking for a Y cable adapter to see if it will do exactly what you suggest. However, I haven’t been able to find one with a male on one end and two females on the other (one to plug the streamer cable into, and the other for the charging cable. If you know of such a cable, please post or DM.

@Big_Al said:

On your second point, I’ve been looking for a Y cable adapter to see if it will do exactly what you suggest. However, I haven’t been able to find one with a male on one end and two females on the other (one to plug the streamer cable into, and the other for the charging cable. If you know of such a cable, please post or DM.

My audi is planning on ordering my Wi i110 ’s some time in the next week so I’m a couple of weeks out with getting my hands on the hardware. I can probably make a Y cable if need be. If other people want them I could whip up a small batch.

GB

@grantb5 said:

My audi is planning on ordering my Wi i110 ITC’s some time in the next week so I’m a couple of weeks out with getting my hands on the hardware. I can probably make a Y cable if need be. If other people want them I could whip up a small batch.

GB

If you plan on doing any wired streaming (like watching TV) a Y cable would be awesome. I think bluetooth would be a good option, but neither of my TV’s are bluetooth.

In reply to @Big_Al

@Big_Al said:

Yes, that’s the Surflink Media that you have. While the Mobile streams TV as well, mine doesn’t work anywhere near as well as yours does. If I leave the room (let alone go outside), I lose my connections. In fact if I get more than 10 feet away from my device, I lose the connection. So if TV is your only concern, you’re got the right device for you.

Just an update. I was watching a DVD of new release movie and had to turn off the Bluetooth TV feed. This movie has lots of dialogue with multiple people and the conversation was changing in each respective ear as they walked back and forth across the room. So stereo part was very distracting. Before I has been watching mostly single feeds like from a sportscaster or newscaster or people stationary in position on screen. I looked at my TV and Direct TV DVR to see if I could just set sound in mono but does not appear to be a way.

In reply to @Big_Al

@Big_Al said:

If you plan on doing any wired streaming (like watching TV) a Y cable would be awesome. I think bluetooth would be a good option, but neither of my TV’s are bluetooth.

I was thinking about this a bit more and I’m guessing the reason they didn’t make it easier to use as a TV streamer (or other fixed streamer) is that then you wouldn’t buy the media streamer (as well).

Regarding bluetooth … you are better off with the 900MHz RF they are using. Bluetooth should be used as little as possible (such as cell phones). The lag in the audio is terrible. Plus then you need to go

TV -> Bluetooth box ~~~ RF ~~~ Bluetooth -> Body-worn device -> Hearing aids

The concept that Starkey and ReSound are doing (or trying to) is better in my opinion. Or at least it should be:

TV -> Proprietary box ~~~ RF ~~~ Hearing aids

In reply to @bzam

@bzam said:

Just an update. I was watching a DVD of new release movie and had to turn off the Bluetooth TV feed. This movie has lots of dialogue with multiple people and the conversation was changing in each respective ear as they walked back and forth across the room. So stereo part was very distracting. Before I has been watching mostly single feeds like from a sportscaster or newscaster or people stationary in position on screen. I looked at my TV and Direct TV DVR to see if I could just set sound in mono but does not appear to be a way.

Well there might be an external fix, or a small add-on device that could be incorporated between the TV and the streamer (or between the DVR and TV if you use the analog cables … HDMI not so much). I can have a look at that later. What some headphone amps have is a crossfeed switch. It’s like a mixer that makes the stereo less stereo, but not fully mono. It is described like this:

“The crossfeed circuit sends a delayed and filtered version of the sound to the opposite ear, mimicking the way we hear in a real acoustic environment. This reduces the unnatural sound of hard panning which can occur while listening to some music with headphones.”

And of course it would be the same with hearing aids. It might also be possible for Starkey and other streaming devices to do this with a firmware upgrade if enough people grumbled to them about it.

In reply to @Big_Al

@Big_Al said:

If you plan on doing any wired streaming (like watching TV) a Y cable would be awesome. I think bluetooth would be a good option, but neither of my TV’s are bluetooth.

Well that’s a dead end. Very disappointing. Even with the right wiring (using the USB ID pin) you can’t stream and charge at the same time. When you apply 5v to the power pin, the external (Wired) input is kicked out. I assume a switchover here is done so that the device can be hooked up over USB for firmware updates.

That’s a really stupid an unnecessary move in my opinion. If the ID pin is in one position then the unit should stream audio, in the other enable USB comms. But to have the 5v trigger this makes no sense to me. The ID pin, near as I can tell, just tells the SurfLink it’s OK to put up the Wired button as one of the input options. Maybe they will address this in then next revision of the unit. This kind of thing really bugs me and it might also be possible that they did this in order to sell more SurfLink Media devices. Anyone got a price on those?

NOTE 1: the current firmware is 1.3.0.0. Mine is 1.2.0.0.

NOTE 2: the unit enumerates itself as a composite USB device … one part CDC (vuirtual serial) and the other an RNDIS (newtork) device.

grantb5,

The issue with making a audio/charge cable for the Surflink Mobile is adding a ‘sense’ resistor from the ID pin to ground pin of the micro USB connector. I bought a breakout USB receptacle (female connector) and with a meter discovered that the Surflink audio cable’s USB connector had a 1 megohm resistor from ID to ground. Other devices use this trick too to determine is the cable is for audio, or data.

Without the resistor in the cable/connector, the Surflink cannot recognize it. All of the standard USB cables I sacrificed were only four wire and did not have a wire going to the ID pin. I did; however, find a USB connector at adafruit.com that should allow a resistor to be solder from ID to ground.

I think there’s more to it but I could be wrong. It’s been a while since I looked at it but I seem to recall that there was some internal IC switch that flipped and disconnected the power pins if “wired” was detected and/or selected. However someone made it work so maybe the resistor value is important? I hope we can figure it out.

In reply to @radio_davio

@radio_davio said:

grantb5,

The issue with making a audio/charge cable for the Surflink Mobile is adding a ‘sense’ resistor from the ID pin to ground pin of the micro USB connector. I bought a breakout USB receptacle (female connector) and with a meter discovered that the Surflink audio cable’s USB connector had a 1 megohm resistor from ID to ground. Other devices use this trick too to determine is the cable is for audio, or data.

Without the resistor in the cable/connector, the Surflink cannot recognize it. All of the standard USB cables I sacrificed were only four wire and did not have a wire going to the ID pin. I did; however, find a USB connector at adafruit.com that should allow a resistor to be solder from ID to ground.

I think you got it! Now the question is can you reproduce this at a decent price.

— Updated —

I have a solution on sale through eBay for $40 with free shipping in the USA. It is a simple Y cable with all the right connectors. I have made two so far and have been testing them with my Surflink Mobile. If these two sell, I’ll make more. If they sell well, I can buy items in bulk and lower the price.

Search eBay for “Charge and Stream Cable”

Thanks!

I hope it’s ok to put this here in the discussion about the surflink.
But, I’m selling my SurfLink Mobile (remote). I made a screen protector for it and it’s been on the screen since day one. I’ve had it just over a year and have used it 5 or 6 times. I have other bluetooth devices that caused me to just not really use it.
I’ve have updated it to the newest software and I have all the parts and box that it came with.
If you’re interested or have any questions, let me know and I’ll send some pictures and answer any questions you may have.
Thanks,
Scott

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