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Great Feature (Adapt Sound) on Samsung Phones for Hard of Hearing people

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I thought that this would be useful information for other hard of hearing people out there.

I recently purchased a Samsung S6 phone. One of its features is something called Adapt Sound.
This software runs an in-situ hearing test using a set of headphones. It does this by playing a series of tones into each ear and asking if you can hear them.
As it goes along it builds up a graph of your hearing. This is essentially a simple .

Using this data it then modifies sounds in a similar way to a hearing aid would.
Audio for calls, or through bluetooth streaming or when playing music using either the Samsung Music App or Google Play music are modified by this feature. (I am not sure which other apps it works for.)

In my use it correctly identified my high frequency loss.
(Note that this software will also be compensating for any deficiencies in the headphones as well as any hearing loss of the user.)

In practice this software makes a significant difference.
Music sounds so much better using this. Calls are also easier to hear.

In theory I should get a better listening experience by streaming music from my phone to my sound system using bluetooth than playing the same music directly on the sound system.

I am surprised that such a useful feature for the exists on a phone but nobody seems to be aware of it.
There is very little reference to it on the web and I have never heard of it before.
It will certainly make me stick to Samsung phones in future.

More details with screenshots here:

How to Personalize Sound Quality for Headphones on Your Galaxy S64

Chances are your hearing isn't the same as the person next to you. Personally, I have moderate hearing loss, so I tend to turn the volume nob towards the loud side. For others, it may be that one ear is slightly better or worse than the other, not...

It looks like this feature was intended to compensate for the frequency response of headphones rather than for hearing problems but the results are the same.

5 people in this conversation4 min readJump to latest

Samsung has had this feature for a while. It was on my S3 over 3 years ago.

My current LG G4 has a box you check for hearing aids but I don’t believe it activates a t-coil since my automatic t-coil doesn’t activate with the box checked. That said, I can hear conversations on my mobile phone perfectly.

I just tried to set this up with a ComPilot and my hearing aids. I didn’t hear a thing. I there something I’m missing or it this not compatible with ’s and only headphones?

Edited

This should work on a bluetooth connections in exactly the same way as using wired headphones.
I have tested it with my GN Resound Linx hearing aids and the PhoneClip+ (mobile/cell phone streamer) and it works.
Connect your streamer to your phone and run the Adapt Sound hearing test. You should hear the sounds through your hearing aids.
You can test the difference that it makes using the “Preview” button in Adapt Sound.
(Swipe left/right to switch between the preview sound playing in the left/right/both ears.)

For me Adapt Sound has a positive effect when using the streamer.
I imagine that this may not always be the case with hearing aids. This is because when streaming with the hearing aids you have two separate systems each modifying the sound.
The original sound is modified by Adapt Sound in the phone - according to the Adapt Sound test.
This modified sound is then streamed to the hearing aids via the streamer.
The hearing aids themselves will then modify the sounds again according to your /hearing aid set up.

Remember that the changes to the sound made by Adapt Sound ONLY applies to certain uses apps that have a setting to enable it’s use.
For example, it works when playing music using the Google Play Music app via headphone phones or via bluetooth - but it does not work if I listen to the same music using, say, Spotify.

Gary, what did the the phone came up with look like? One would think there would be little change in a system but an enhanced low tones with .

In reply to @edatlanta

Update - Adapt Sound does NOT apply to Phone Calls
Adapt Sound makes a significant difference when playing music (via the Play Music app or Spotify) and I thought that it helped on one phone call that came in while I was using it.

However, I had another call and it didn’t seem to make any difference at all.
Now having made a few test calls I can confirm that the Adapt Sound setting is not used for phone calls.
Maybe I was suffering from a placebo effect after reading in an on-line S5 manual that Adapt Sound settings were used using certain apps and during phone calls.
I have just contacted Samsung and it turns out that the Adapt Sound feature has been removed from the Samsung Phone app in the S6 software release. :frowning:

In reply to @KenP

@KenP said:

Gary, what did the audiogram the phone came up with look like? One would think there would be little change in a closed dome system but an enhanced low tones with open fit.

I have attached a screen shot of the phone . (The image quality is poor because of the low resolution allowed on this forum.)

It shows a drop off at both high frequencies (I have a high frequency loss) and at low frequencies (due to the headphones?)

In reply to @edatlanta

@edatlanta said:

I just tried to set this up with a ComPilot and my hearing aids. I didn’t hear a thing. I there something I’m missing or it this not compatible with HA’s and only headphones?

I may have misunderstood your question. You may have to turn up the volume on your streamer so that you hear some of the beeps. When I tried it first time I only heard a couple of the loudest beeps at my best frequencies. I then turned the volume up on the streamer a couple of steps and retried and got much better results.

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