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iPhone, Bluetooth, and car radio problems

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I recently purchased Kirkland S6 hearing aids and an iphone 6. I also have a Kenwood DDX5902 radio in my car. The iPhone and the hearing aids work well together. The iphone and the Kenwood work well together. my problem comes when I receive a phone call while I am in the car - the call goes to my hearing aids and not to the car radio. If I turn off my hearing aids (open the battery doors) the call will go to the car radio. If I unpair my hearing aids from the iPhone the calls will go to the radio, but I am not going to do that every time I get in the car (a suggestion from Apple by the way). My state only allows hands free devices so I cannot use my hearing aids and the phone microphone to take a call while driving. I can find no way to temporarily turn off the bluetooth to my hearing aids. a visit to the Apple store was no help and a call with Apple tech support was no help. Do other people have this problem and what do you do to get around it? This seems like a serious flaw in the iPhone programming.

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Look at the settings in your phone. You should see that you are paired to the Iphone. When you get into the car if your wanting the call to go thru the car phone system you will need to open to settings on the iphone and select your car. This should then pair your phone to the car system. If you want to go back to you then you will need to go back into settings and select your HA again. I have the same problem and have to select the car in order for bluetooth to work with my phone. Then have to again go to settings and select my link to reconnect the HA to bluetooth. HOpe that helps.

Touches, thanks. The phone is set to the radio, in fact I can be streaming music to the radio and the calls still go to my hearing aids. what is the name of the setting you are referring to?

I have an android phone but under “settings” on mine but you should have something for bluetooth showing what items are paired via bluetooth…this is where I change to my vehicle or back to my surflink for my Starkey …hope that helps clear up.

Edited

Thanks. My android had the same thing but not the iPhone. Hearing aids are treated separately by the iPhone and do not show up under the listed Bluetooth devices. I am beginning to miss my Android phone.

to switch between devices on a iPhone just swipe up from the bottom and there you will see which device is on on Bluetooth. Select the device another screen pops up and Jen just select the device you want. It’s simple and quick.

Edited

Thanks, I use that feature when I stream music to my car. Under state law I cannot touch the phone while I am driving so unless I am parked when a call comes in it will not help.

FWIW - I just spent about 40 minutes with Apple Chat. Here is the outcome:

[LEFT]So just to recap, we discovered that Bluetooth prioritization isn’t built into IOS, an audiologist could recommend a third party app to prioritize those Bluetooth connections so you can be Hands-Free. Also feedback can be submitted to implement this into new IOS software.
[/LEFT]I give them credit for trying but it looks like there is no current work around short of turning off my hearing aids when I drive.

If anyone else has a work around please let me know.

On the one hand I know that this is a First World problem (I grew up in the age of multi-party phone lines before the advent of touch tone phones), but I gave up an Android phone that had these capabilities for an iPhone that is crippled and mostly useless when I try to use it as a phone when I drive. Please note the frustration in this post.

In reply to @jaywbee3

Many brands have a microphone accessory that can give you hands free operation. You have the KS6 and the Phone Clip + has a built in mic. That will attach to your car and allow hands free operation. Look at the PC+ when you next visit Costco.

Assuming the 6S acts like the 6S+ this should not be a problem as long as you can see the screen on your phone when the call is incoming. There is a short window where you are given the option of receiving the audio of the call on the paired device of your choice. If you miss that window you will notice there are 5 or 6 icons on your screen. One of those is labeled audio–the top right icon on my phone. Tap the icon and then select the paired device of your choice. In my case with an Oticon I can pick the Streamer, Sync (Ford’s blue tooth) or the iPhone.

Nada to it.

@Mark_Chambers said:

Assuming the 6S acts like the 6S+ this should not be a problem as long as you can see the screen on your phone when the call is incoming. There is a short window where you are given the option of receiving the audio of the call on the paired device of your choice. If you miss that window you will notice there are 5 or 6 icons on your screen. One of those is labeled audio–the top right icon on my phone. Tap the icon and then select the paired device of your choice. In my case with an Oticon I can pick the Streamer, Sync (Ford’s blue tooth) or the iPhone.
Nada to it.

Mark, thanks for your note. I do not get a choice on my phone when a call come in. It either goes to the car (if my are off) or to my hearing aids. I live in a “hands free” state and cannot touch my phone while I am driving.

It is supposed to work with it. I would verify that with the audiologist.

In reply to @jaywbee3

I had the same issue with the calls coming to my hearing aids and not the car bluetooth which meant I had to pick up the iPhone to answer the call which is not legal.
iPhone6, Ford SYNC radio, ReSound Linx2.
I now have the calls going to my Ford SYNC radio with the following change to my iPhone6:
Settings > General > Accessibility >Hearing Aids > Hearing Aid Play Ringtones set to Off. I believe it is on by default. I no longer hear the phone ring in my hearing aids either in or out of the car which was a nice feature, but I do not have to change anything when I get in the car and the calls go to the Ford SYNC radio.

Before this I tried the following on the iPhone:
Settings > General > Accessibility >Hearing Aids > Audio Routing > Call Audio > Never Hearing Aids.
With this setting the calls always went to my Ford Sync radio but never to my hearing aids as the name of the setting indicates. Each time I got out of the car, I would have to turn it back to “Automatic” when I got in the car to “Never Hearing Aids.” Easy to forget until the call comes to the phone.

With the Hearing Aid Play Ringtones set to off as indicated above I can leave this setting in Automatic.

@jaywbee3 said:

FWIW - I just spent about 40 minutes with Apple Chat. Here is the outcome:

[LEFT]So just to recap, we discovered that Bluetooth prioritization isn’t built into IOS, an audiologist could recommend a third party app to prioritize those Bluetooth connections so you can be Hands-Free. Also feedback can be submitted to implement this into new IOS software.
[/LEFT]
I give them credit for trying but it looks like there is no current work around short of turning off my hearing aids when I drive.

If anyone else has a work around please let me know.

On the one hand I know that this is a First World problem (I grew up in the age of multi-party phone lines before the advent of touch tone phones), but I gave up an Android phone that had these capabilities for an iPhone that is crippled and mostly useless when I try to use it as a phone when I drive. Please note the frustration in this post.

[quote=jcaldwell5;132189] It works! When the best that Apple’s best and brightest could give me was “turn off your hearing aids when you are in the car”, your suggestion worked. Thanks you.

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