Using Bletooth link2cell landline phone

@bzam said:

I just got my new Starkey aids with Surflink and have good results calling and receiving calls from my cellphone. I have been thinking of getting the Panasonic phones for my landline and am a bit hesitant. I also have a Bluetooth adapter on my TV streamed into my aids and have a Tablet connected. I find I spend a lot of time with these Bluetooth connections, not necessarily paring but maintaining connections. My cellphone and hearing aid to a better job of keeping the connection but not the other items.

How does the Panasonic phone do for pairing and maintaining connection?

I have the Resound Phone Clip+ and I end up managing which devices are connected. It can only connect to two at a time and I will be streaming TV from the TV transmitter, which is not bluetooth, and it streams directly to the hearing aids, and either the laptop or the tablet will interrupt the TV signal with the very important information of a beep or key click so I end up turning things off more than anything else.

When I used the Panasonic phone bluetooth function it connected every time I got in range of the Panasonic base. What I didn’t like about it is that bluetooth is built into the base and not the handsets so it only works about 25-30 feet from the base. We have our phone base in the bedroom so it would barely work in the living room and not at all in the kitchen.

I’ve been waiting to get back into this thread till I got some fitting help with the Phone Clip which was screaming loud even with the volume set down as far as it would go. Got that fixed.

Today I made my first landline call to a customer service number using my Panasonic link2cell phone. I made sure the phone clip was on and bluetooth connected to the Panasonic. I lifted the handset, dialed the number and pressed talk. I could just barely make out holding the handset to my hearing aid that it was ringing so I pressed the phone button on the phone clip. After a short delay I heard the connecting melody and another short delay and I could hear the menu offered on the customer service site. I also have a caption phone which complements my poor word discrimination though the captioning isn’t much better than what the automatic Google captions offer. I lifted the handset on the caption phone and set it on my desk. Captioning began. I have in the past used a Panasonic phone with a T-coil neckloop together with the caption phone with no problems. I now have no T-coil setting on my Saxo HAs so I’m trying the bluetooth phone clip method.

The customer service menu asked me to enter selections, like my id number and other choices on the phone number pad. I punched in the numbers on the Panasonic. Nothing happened. The menu choices were repeated. Still could not get any numbers to be recognized. The site allows voice choices. That almost worked. It accepted some of my choices though repeating my date of birth was not recognized. It would have been easy to punch it in on the phone but that again, just didn’t work.

Don, have you or anyone else been able to enter numbers while the phone clip is being used? Is there something I’m missing?

I don’t think I’ve ever tried that. It sounds like the call is going through the Phone Clip+ and the Panasonic handset is not connected to the call at all. When you use the cell phone for that same scenario the cell phone still retains the key ability, so you might have to use the cell phone for those types of calls.

Don, Cellphone probably would work. Unfortunately my caption phone only works with landline. I need the caption phone to supplement what I don’t understand with just a phone. The next time I have to make a phone call that requires number input from the phone I will see if I can input the numbers on the caption phone. It is entirely independent of the Panasonic/Bluetooth/phone clip system.

@wibnrml said:

Hello. I would like to input my experience on connecting Bluetooth to the landline. I’ve recently received Phonak aids with the ComPilot neckloop, which as one of its functions, receives Bluetooth signals. I was reading this thread, I was thinking of purchasing a new cordless land line unit with Bluetooth enabled, but as was mentioned in the discussions, only the base unit has the Bluetooth.
What I was able to figure out that, since I am a Comcast Voice user (landline phone), that there is an app that can be installed on my Smartphone called Xfinity Connect. This app pairs your smartphone to your landline via wifi. When your landline phone rings, your smartphones preset alert goes off along with you hearing chimes, you would then press the button on your streamer, the ComPilot in my case, and that answers the call. When you are done, press the button to end the call. Also when the phone rings, my smartphone screen activates with the callers ID and ’Answer’ or ‘Reject’ buttons. Since my ComPilot is always paired to my smartphone, it’s one less pairing that has to me made and constantly assured with the landline. I find that this is a works very well for me, in that I never could hear well using any type of land line without using headsets with my t ‘coils.
Also, I read on a previous post that a user was using a system for captioning. You can still use it, put you would have t0 lift the handset, and maybe either walk away from the handset or cover the mouthpiece. The captioning doesn’t work well when it hears your voice from two sources.

Very cool! So the landline call would be available to your cell phone app throughout your wifi range?

Don.
I may have miss stated on the wifi part, because I can also receive landline phone calls on my smartphone no matter where I am. My smartphone is also set up to use wifi instead of my carrier (Verizon) when it can, so it always searching for wifi availability.
The app on my smartphone is linked from my carrier to Comcast and my home phone number.
Also, If I am to understand correctly, that you can make long distance calls using your smartphone thru your home phone number, and not get stuck with roaming charges. You can also access you voicemail, Email, Text, among other things. Here’s the link to the Comcast site. Also check out the Frequently Asked Questions link when you get to that page.

For Android Phone and other devices: Discovery Hub - News & Technology2
For IPhone and other devices: Discovery Hub - News & Technology4

(coming up for air)

ANYWAYS… The whole point of this discussion was connecting via Bluetooth to you homes landline. I find that since I usually have my smartphone on my person, that with the connection of my smartphone to the my landline as noted above, there is no point for me, OR even an normal hearing person to lug a home phones handset around with them. And I do all the communication thru my ComPilot via Bluetooth, and I can actually hear conversations better now.
Yes VERY cool.