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Hacking Your Hearing Aid

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Has anyone heard of people hacking their hearing aids? For example, some hearing aids have a Bluetooth Remote that can allow you to adjust the volume. My phone has Bluetooth… why not create an App that allows me to control it from my phone? The same goes for the clip microphones… my phone has a microphone on it and bluetooth. So, I should be able to write an App for my phone to mimic all of these other accessories.

This is something I am interested in, but prefer not to go at it alone. Any other adventurous software developers out there?

Interesting idea BUT … My Siemens aids are “bluetooth capable”, whatever that means, and yet they need the minitek in order to connect to a bluetooth signal from a bluetooth transmitter.

I have been told that the hearing aids do not have a bluetooth reciever built in cause it would mean bigger , battery hungry aids. Apparently the minitek acts as the reciever and then transmits to the aids. The minitek range is considerably shorter than any bluetooth spec that I’m aware of so I wonder how it transmits to the “bluetooth capable” aids.
I don’t believe that a simple remote is transmitting via bluetooth but by short-range magnetic transmission. I suspect that the tek and minitek translate the bluetooth transmission into a short-range magnetic transmission to the aids.
Your cell phone can’t transmit via short range magnetic transmission.

I’m really out of my league here so take what I’ve said keeping in mind that I don’t know what I’m talking about :slight_smile:

Maybe someone that knows this stuff can enlighten us.

@ChiefGoFor said:

Has anyone heard of people hacking their hearing aids? For example, some hearing aids have a Bluetooth Remote that can allow you to adjust the volume. My phone has Bluetooth… why not create an App that allows me to control it from my phone? The same goes for the clip microphones… my phone has a microphone on it and bluetooth. So, I should be able to write an App for my phone to mimic all of these other accessories.

This is something I am interested in, but prefer not to go at it alone. Any other adventurous software developers out there?

Something like this?

Hearing aid accessories - Micro/Multi Mic & more3

Personalize your hearing aids with accessories and enjoy opportunities to hear more in challenging listening situations.

or this,
http://hearing.siemens.com/Global/en/products/wireless/minitek-app/minitek-app.html45

@Christal said:

One of us has misinterpreted what ChiefGoFor was asking.
I thought he was looking to communicate directly from phone to aids without the inbetween hardware that you have pointed out.

He probably was. I was just pointing out that there are already apps for controlling hearing aids, even if you still have to have another device around.

He did understand what he was asking. I do think he’s right too. I just got a Siemen hearing aids with the Mini-Tek too. I could not understand why it had the Mini-Tek but for the obvious reason. To make more money off of you. If we can connect directly through the phone it’s just a matter of time to see it happen. You can look at “Hack a day” site and see what they have there. But for right now, it’s not going to happen. But in 5 years. Your hearing aid will be your phone and the ear pieces that are your hearing aids now, will just be transmitters/receivers/speakers. It will give you so much room to adjust your hearing aids. It’s going to be interesting future, that’s for sure. Oh yeah, Google glasses just one day might project captions just for people like us. Amazing, huh.

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