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OPN pairing to iPhone and iPad simultaneously workaround

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There is a workaround to using both the iPad and iPhone for streaming without rebooting and/or repairing aids or devices. I figured it out by reading other posts on this forum and confirmed it with Oticon. I’ve been using it for several days now and it works consistently. I decide to post it in its own thread so that people do not need to peruse a long thread to find a solution.

  1. Make sure hearing aids are individually paired with the iPhone and iPad following Oticon directions and that Bluetooth is turned on by both devices.
  2. When you go to use one device for streaming (say the iPad) and the hearing aids connection is being held by another device (say the iPhone) and the device from which you want to stream (say the iPad) cannot take control of them, go to the device that has control (in this case the iPhone) and switch OFF Bluetooth by swiping up on the bottom of your iPhone and selecting the Bluetooth button. This releases the hold on the hearing aids. You can immediately turn Bluetooth back ON on the iPhone so you don’t forget.
  3. Go to the iPad and start streaming. The sound of the iPad should be in your aids. If you find that it doesn’t start streaming to your iPad or the streaming is only in one ear, then turn Bluetooth off and then back on on your iPad. (This also seems to work if you lose streaming later on in one aid but not the other.) If you find that you forgot to do step 2 before trying to stream, you can simply turn Bluetooth OFF (and then ON so you don’t forget) on the device that controls the hearing aid. As soon as you turn OFF Bluetooth the connection is released and the streaming to your aids will start on the device you want.

I share this because I was messing with turning my hearing aids on and off, my iphone/ipad on and off, and repairing my aids. None of that is necessary. Although annoying and one should not have to manually turn off and on Bluetooth, it does work and is easier than the routine I was using before.

My routine now is to always turn Bluetooth OFF and ON on my iPad when I’m done with a video streaming session so that the iPhone can readily pick up. I don’t do that with my iPhone as I stream more on my iPhone than my iPad and usually have my iPhone with me when streaming on my iPad, but rarely have my iPad with me when I’m using my iPhone. Technically this is not necessary as sometimes the device can take control from the other device, but I find this less frustrating and works with how I stream and use the devices.

I called Oticon on this to ask if they had a plan to fix this control issue. They said that an Apple change is needed in order for the device to release the hearing aid Bluetooth connection, that we wouldn’t need an OPN firmware upgrade, and that an Apple release should be all that is necessary.

Hope this helps others.

7 people in this conversation12 min readJump to latest

Thank you for sharing this workaround! Although I don’t have an iPad, it’ll come in handy if I ever own one.

I find the connection to my iPhone alone is very spotty. I’d often lose connection to one of the and sometimes resetting my HA (the one that lost the connection) is not enough. I’d have to forget the device and repair it with the iPhone. Not very impressed, but I don’t know if this is an Apple issue or Oticon OPN issue, so not ready to blame Oticon on this just yet. I already had the firmware update that was available back in December 2016.

By the way, I noticed that you started out with the Resound Cala through Costco when you came back to the scene. It seems like you switched over to the Oticon OPN now?

Yes I did start with the Cala aids. However I was having a great deal of trouble in noisy, harsh sounding environments. I tried the OPNs and they were heads and shoulders above the Cala aids for me. I had health insurance that made the OPN price slightly more for me out of pocket than the Cala aids. So I went with the newer technology, better personal fit, and very knowledgeable audiologist for a few hundred dollars more. And I hope to get some of that back through the $150 rebate.

Please keep us posted if/when you get the $150 rebate back. I also applied for it but my purchase was before the qualifying period so I probably won’t get it. But would be interested to see if others get it, especially keen to know if the $150 apply to each aid or for the pair.

Volusiano - Coincidentally I had one of my hearing aids drop from my iphone earlier today. As a test, I turned off Bluetooth on my iPhone and then back on. Surprisingly the aid that had dropped appeared again and I could stream calls to it. One success does not set a trend, but something to consider trying versus the whole repairing / opening and closing the battery door routine.

Edited

Thanks for mentioning this, gdba. Unfortunately it happened to me just now (one of the got disconnected) and recycling the Bluetooth off then on again didn’t help me in this case. I had to go through the whole Forget This Device and Re-pair routine again.

If you are able to consistently just reconnect via the off/on routine, do let me know, and maybe I have to bring my HAs back in to do something about it. The problem is that the issue is not consistently reproducible, unfortunately. So not sure what they can do.

I also get the recurring “click click click …” noise on one of my (sometimes right side, sometimes left side) when streaming. Very annoying when you’re in the middle of a call and this happens. Only thing you can do is to turn off then turn it back on and hope the new connection is cleaner.

I don’t get the click click click sound while streaming from either my demo units or my new final pair which I received in February. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that you have the first set of units that came out and it is more hardware related vs software related. (Since you said you had the firmware upgrade from Dec.) My box is marked as an OPN1 and there is a 2.0 down at the bottom above the final set of numbers (GTIN (01) nnnnnnnnn…nnn) So maybe there were some subtle hardware changes when they came out when they released the three different levels.

Since you were an early adopter of the technology, maybe Oticon will honor their warranty and swap out a new pair for you. I’d start a log of how often you have Bluetooth connectivity problems and see if your audiologist will negotiate something with them. Because honestly, I’ve not had a lot of Bluetooth connectivity problems outside of the dual device scenario outlined above. (If it matters any, my audiologists supplies my batteries for the first year. They are PowerOne. Some on here talk about batteries impacting hearing aid performance.)

Good suggestion. I’ll have to start keeping a log and if happens too often, I’m going to have to ask my audi to return them for a new pair under warranty.

Just FYI, there’s a forum member here (Abarsanti) who had issues with his OPNs making some kind of noise while streaming from the iPhone. He had to return them to BuyHear.com to get them fixed. I think he got them back and they’re working OK with the iPhone now.

I was an Android phone user before, but after I heard about Tony (Abarsanti) having to return his OPNs for repair due to the noise issue when streaming from his iPhone, I figured if my OPN has any kind of hardware issue with the iPhone, I’d never know unless I have an iPhone to use and try out. I don’t want to be in a position where a couple of years later I switch to an iPhone and findd out that I have issues with streaming from the iPhone and the warranty already expires and I can do nothing about it. So that was part of my decision to switch from my Android phone to an iPhone sooner, to verify that I don’t have any hardware issue on the OPN streaming from the OPN while it’s still under warranty. I’m beginning to think that maybe I made the right decision to try it out with an iPhone right now to flush out all the bugs up front.

Volusiano (and Abarsanti if reading this) - I wonder if the problem with the hearing aid needing to be repaired/open-close battery door, has something to do with the intermediary TV/laptop device that you are using to stream from your tv/laptop. Perhaps it is taking hold of the aid(s) and not relinquishing them like the iPhone / iPad scenario above. Unfortunately, I don’t know how the intermediary device works that you and Abarsanti are using, but something to explore. Is there a way to “disconnect” from the intermediary device when done? You could consider calling Oticon and asking for tech support as I mentioned in a different thread. 1-800-526-3921, tell them you are hearing aid owner, and ask for tech support. They answered my question about iPhone/iPad Bluetooth connectivity. Wait time was a bit long with annoying beeps instead of music, but they did eventually answer.

Thanks for sharing the Oticon tech support phone #, gbdba! I’ll definitely try them next time I have a question.

The TV Adapter 3.0 streamer that I have (I think Tony said he was looking to buy one, too) basically occupies a special program mode on the OPN. If you look at the Hearing Devices setting on your iPhone, you’ll see that there’s a program mode (beside the regular ones that you already have) called “TV Box 1”. Actually since you don’t have it, you probably won’t see this program on your iPhone specifically, but I do. You basically pair your OPN to the TV Adapter 3.0 then after that it remembers the OPN. From then on, whenever you want to use the TV Adapter, you simple switch the OPN to the TV Box 1 mode and you’re connected.

The TV Adaptor 3.0 connection to the OPN has always been rock solid compared to the iPhone connection to the OPN. That’s why I have some reservation that it may be more likely that the iPhone is the culprit for the bad connection issues with the OPN, because if the cause of the connection issues is from the OPN, then why would it work so well with the TV Adapter 3.0? Besides, it does make sense that since Oticon designed the TV Adaptor 3.0 themselves, that they’re in control of whatever the protocol is between it and the OPN, while Oticon is not in control of the iPhone streaming protocol because Apple sets that protocol themselves, and Oticon can only follow it.

As for interference from the TV Adaptor 3.0 causing connection to the iPhone being spotty, I haven’t seen any evidence of that. It seems to be designed to work quite seamlessly, meaning that I can be streaming from the TV Adaptor and if something else comes through from the iPhone like a phone call or alarm, it would interrupt the TV streaming and the iPhone streaming takes priority over it. So it seems like Oticon has designed and enabled parallel operation between the TV Adapter and the iPhone to work together well up front.

I added to Step 3 “If you find that it doesn’t start streaming to your iPad or the streaming is only in one ear, then turn Bluetooth off and then back on on your iPad. (This also seems to work if you lose streaming in one aid but not the other.)”

GDBA, Thank you VERY much for your wonderful explanation and solution to the iPhone/iPad problem. We were going crazy with this issue and none of the ideas or suggestions from Oticon or our audiologist worked. Your procedure worked great! Thank you!!!

Hello guys, do you know if 2 iphones can be paired to my Signia 13 7px?
Currently I have paired only my iphone but I want buy an iphone to my girlfriend to she talking to me via LIVE LISTEN of her new iphone.
Regards

I don’t believe it would work, Pepito. The aids only pair to a single phone/device. It is a limit in . If you did pair it to her phone, she could talk to you but you couldn’t talk to her.

Gdba.

I recently acquired an iPad Pro and I have had an iPhone 8+ for about a year now. I have been streaming successfully to my OPN 1 hearing aids using the iPhone and today decided to try pairing my OPN aids to my iPad. They paired just fine but and will stream to my aids but as you have described the streaming won’t switch back and forth between the iPhone and the iPad automatically.

Whichever device has control of the connection keeps it and the other device can’t take control automatically. Thanks for your solution to this problem - I tried what you suggested and it works just fine. As soon as I switch off Bluetooth on the device that has control the other device immediately takes control. This works even if I just momentarily switch off Bluetooth and then switch it right back on again (just like you said).

I contacted Apple support about this and carefully explained the whole process to them. To me it is clearly an Apple problem and not a problem with the Oticon aids. I asked Apple to pass it on to their developers to see if they can fix the problem. Who knows, maybe by the time IOS 12 comes out this fall it will be fixed.

Thanks again for that solution.

Edited

For this to work, I might add that the Audio Handoff option in the MFI Hearing devices section of the iPhone and iPad will need to be enabled. Maybe it’s enabled by default.

The Control Nearby Devices option may also need to be enabled as well.

Technically if these parameters are enabled, if you stop playing on the controlling device and start playing on the other non controlling device, that device should attempt to take over the connection automatically from the controlling device that’s not playing, and display a message saying so. I’ve seen it happen myself. However this rarely happens automatically, so it’s better to disable the Bluetooth on the controlling device to relinquish the connection.

Yes, that is correct. I have both the audio handoff option and the Control Nearby Devices option enabled on both my iPhone and iPad. As you mention, it should happen automatically but there seems to be a bug in the system and it only happens if you disable Bluetooth.

I did see the message once on my iPad that it was taking control but it never happened again.

Hopefully Apple will see fit to troubleshoot this problem and get it resolved. Hopefully before IOS 12 is released later this year. I think it would help if they heard from more of us on this issue, especially since it is related to an accessibility option. I would encourage anyone who has experienced this to give Apple support a call and tell them about it.

In reply to @GeekMan

I accidentally drown the iPhone that had control of my Costco 8 and it’s dead therefore I can’t do any action to release the pairing and the HA won’t pair with my iPad or I’m afraid the new phone when it arrives. What can I do?

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